"I got the jet packed strapped to my back....

...and I am waiting for you to come around..."

The fix is in, cats and kittens. Today is monday and tomorrow is May. Jesse Williams will have a year on me for a few months, and he can celebrate with Guy Maddin and a shindig I wish I could be around for.

Further down the line the Jenga tower is sturdier than this stack of blocks in front of me ought to suggest. I'm feeling very metaphorical this evening.

First, the past:

Last monday I was given a new assignment at work, and this made me feel like I ought to tell the powers in the office about my plans to flee. There was a late meeting going on, so I sent an e-mail to ask for a sit-down the next day. I came back to work in the morning with an e-mail telling me that the sit-down would have to wait because the person I was to sit down with was currently in California.

More or less immediately thereafter I succumbed to some kind of nightmare plague. I went to bed early on Tuesday and really didn't get up until Saturday afternoon. There were long, long periods of sleep and dream jumbled with reading The Blind Assassin again and watching Arrested Development and the first season of The X-Files. At some point I went into work for a half day. It was like mono except I ate a lot. The impressions left in my mind are surreal.

I made myself stay out of bed and awake on saturday whether I liked it or not. I did not.

It worked, though, and sunday was mostly normal.

The illness makes you stupid (keys left in lock overnight, thinking I called in on Friday when this was in fact a dream, for example). I had taken some work home and left it beside my keys so I would not forget it. I forgot it. I left work after ten minutes to drive back home (with the waning rush) and get it.

Then the long delayed meeting:

• I am moving to Baltimore after my contract ends on May 13
• May 13 is a Sunday, so I am buggering off after the 11th
• Would I be interested in continuing my current project as a freelance?
• This would mean I get paid the same hourly wage and do the same work, submitting my finished product through e-mail.
• I would lose my benefits, though
• And I could probably count on doing this through August with no change in my income.
• And I could do it from home IN BALTIMORE....
• WHILE LOOKING FOR A JOB!
• would I still be interested?

The Present:

You've got to be fucking kidding me. Work from home on my own schedule by the Chesapeake all summer? Be able to go work for a week in Asheville if I so choose? Have a steady income and time to find a really good position? Would I be interested? I would.

The Future:

I am going to Baltimore on the 13. I will go from there to Asheville. In Asheville I will shanghai a car and some pairs of hands, and we will trek up to Cincinnati. We will load a truck with my possessions, give my abode a quick scrubbing and caravan back to Baltimore to get me moved in and situated. Then it's back to asheville to drink more whiskey than Brendan Behan and get my car back (events to be separated by at least one night's sleep).

I will work with my feet propped up, windows open, music loud. I will drink watered-down orange juice and wear pajamas and do 40 hours a week through June. I will get dressed up after my workday and learn my new town. I will not frequent Ray Lewis's barbecue place except as a joke.

At the end of June I will return to the Paris of the South (which is Asheville no matter what anyone says) and take a day or two to relax (because I'll need it) before the whole clan saddles up to head to Ft. Lauderdale to catch our cruise ship. Some Key and Cozumel and Belize will happen, and then I'll take another day or two before returning to my backbreaking labor in Baltimore.

I will, at this point, have about a month more to find work and will, hopefully, begin interviewing and actively seeking a permanent position. With eight months of experience in educational publishing and some glowing references, I should do okay.

"This is an adventure."

MUSIC: antony and the johnsons: free at last

I was going to post a picture...

4-24-2007-13
Originally uploaded by Vocal Shrapnel.

...from my weekend excursion to downtown Cincinnati, but then I figured "hey, if a zombie smoking a cigar won't get you to check out my pictures, nothing will."

Needless to say, I also developed my pictures from the Asheville zombie walk way back in october.

also I bought some cough drops.

MUSIC: belle and sebastian: another sunny day

My car,

Gunmetal Margot, had a lot of problems. One of them was very long-standing. So far as I know, she had an absurd electrical wiring issue that involved one plastic fuse as part of the power flow to her headlights, interior lights, cd player, and brake lights since before I got her. This was stupid. She managed to do all right with it until a short appeared in February.

I replaced the fuse at least once a day until finally Margot rebelled and killed the fuse I put in. She melted it so that no other fuse could be inserted. If you tried, you could hold it while Margot quickly and sparkily melted it into a hot metal nub hugging the transparent green plastic. Needless to say, this display did not make the headlights work.

Gunmetal Margot and I went to see the car-electrical-problems doctor (I'd say it was the car equivalent of a neurologist) and got her brains rewired. Everything works so well that I actually bothered to set the clock on the CD player. I don't have to worry that it's a waste of time, because I KNOW that when I drive over railroad tracks it won't short out and go dead.

Alas, my life is apparently incomplete without electrical problems. I woke up yesterday morning to watch Matt Lauer squint at people in Blacksburg on the Today show before work, and lo, the television did not work. A cursory investigation led me to discover that the sockets in the wall in my living room had become ornamental.

I reset the breakers. All of them. Twice. Nothing.

I called my landlord and she suggested I get an extension cord if I wanted to watch TV. She'd get someone to check it out ASAP, but that usually means, in her experience, a week.

As if that didn't suck enough, there's this happening. It opens in June, so I probably won't be living in the area any more. Is it better that I won't be around to go? Something tells me that they wouldn't take too kindly to my uncontrollable laughter.

Unfortunately, this is not really a joke.

MUSIC: rilo kiley: three hopeful thoughts

Is it the increasing smallness of the world that makes us notice,

or is the world really that much more fucked up?


MUSIC: eels: things the grandchildren should know

bullets (in no particular order)

• I have no story to surround this with, but late at night this week I woke up and briefly outlined a scene wherein a character gets fired from an acting job after repeatedly saying "Macbeth" in the presence of Al Pacino. Example: "I've even done some Shakespeare before. I played the same role as Mel Gibson... um..." Pacino looks dumbfounded. "Macbeth, right?" Then it cuts to him sitting on some steps with a friend. "I didn't get the part... I think I cursed Pacino." "I wouldn't think he'd have a problem with that. Have you seen scarface?" "Not cursed at."
  
• It is snowing in cincinnati today. It has recently been warm enough for this sort of thing to have happened. This is a good time to remind everyone that I'm still looking for work and a town to move to. Between the weather and the firemen, I think it best that I go.
• I caved in and got an ipod when my cd player snuffed it. I get it, it's awesome.
• Zodiac was awesome. I read a review after I saw it that compared it to spending two and a half hours in a filing cabinet. If you can understand how this is actually a great thing, check it (if it's even still in theaters).
• Romany Malco and I first met when he played MC Hammer in "Too Legit: the MC Hammer Story." After that, I never forgot the name, and when I saw it in the opening credits of "The 40 Year Old Virgin" I was concerned. Lucky for both Mr. Malco and me, he was awesome. Now I've seen him in Weeds, and I think I might need to buy him a drink for ever having doubted him. (In my defense: MC Hammer.)
• Alia Shawkat is turning 18 this month. Is noting that any worse than what George Michael was on about all three seasons? Just in case I would also like to wish a happy 43rd to David Cross in April as well.
• Modest Mouse wants to have a dance party with Dashboard off the new album.
  
• Does anyone else feel like that throw-away episode of Lost with the Brazilian guy and his Billy Dee Williams-hanging-out-with ho was a retread of some really obvious twilight zone or outer limits episode? Replace Sawyer with Rod Serling at the end with the shovel and give him some, "Paolo and Nikki thought they were only trapped on a deserted island, but through their twisted web of lies and betrayal, they found themselves somewhere far darker. They found themselves in... the twilight zone" line to go out on and tell me it doesn't reek of the dimension between the pit of men's fear and the sum of his knowledge.
• Those ads back in the day about how great that apple-mango detergent smells are dead on.
• I have given up eating animals with four legs as a way to avoid eating the chili. Does that look good to you?
• I am arranging the table of contents. This is as much fun as it sounds.
  

MUSIC: rock plaza central: anthem for the already defeated

Spring, like a kitten with attention deficit disorder,

has sprung and then gotten distracted by something that flicked around more and run off. The Ohio River Valley has invested in a sizable piece of string and thinks that spring will be lured back again later this week.

Striking a careful balance between usefulness and enjoyment, I have been running about the area exploring. Though not without it's pleasure (who'd have guessed mexican food in muncie would be a pleasure?), the motivation here is to milk the region so that the likelihood of feeling the least bit guilty for running away in a few months will be decreased.

Speaking of fleeing, some of the attempted usefulness lately has been an effort to find work. The criteria are as follows: work that pays all right that I'm qualified for and that is close to some people I dig. The search has been largely confined to DC, Atlanta, and Asheville. The search has so far been fruitless. Anyone who spots something locally that fits the 'qualified and pays all right' criteria should let me know. The odds of it meeting the other criterion are pretty well assured since, if you're reading this, the position will probably be close to you.

See how that works?

North of Cincinnati, about halfway between here and Dayton, is this thing.



Known locally as "touchdown jesus," this is probably the best whatever it is ever. I think that, by having arms, it cannot be called a 'bust,' technically. I will call it the most stunning example of 1/3-body statuary of the messiah to be found, at the very least, in the greater cincinnati area.

More to the north is Dayton. It's one of those places that we've all heard of but none of us really knows why. Well, having been through town, I can't tell you why. There is a small and pretentious region called "Oregon" that boasts artsy shops and record stores to draw in college kids and tourists yet inexplicably contains some kind of adult shop (videos, novelties, risque garments) on each and every block. Outside oregon, Dayton seems to be pretty well an industrial and suburban wasteland. Also, the Dayton Newspaper's offices are located approximately 21 miles south of town.



This was also in Dayton. Your guess is as good as mine.

MUSIC: joanna newsom: the book of right-on

"Oscar-winning screenwriter Ben Affleck."

.
.
okay... I think I'm good.
.
.
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
.
sorry.

I'm okay now.

Seriously, though. Next year I hope they tack on "and star of Daredevil,"

Having watched the man win an oscar, I still find myself with an unexplainable distaste for Forest Whitaker. Certainly this has a lot to do with having seen Phenomenon, Battlefield Earth, and Phone Booth, but even in the good movies I've seen him in, I still never got hip to the man. Interviews and acceptance speeches and anything else I've seen public speaking-wise hasn't swayed me, either.

I'm not saying he's not a good actor, but I am saying that so far, from what I've seen (and I admit to not having seen Ghost Dog or The Last King of Scotland), he hasn't managed to show me anything that overcomes my inexplicable distaste for Mr. Whitaker.

I also have a lot of dislike for Bill Condon, but this is, I think, entirely splicable. Gods and Monsters was cool and all... but between Chicago and Dream Girls all your street cred is long spent.

Also I would like to point out that Al Gore could win a Nobel Prize in addition to his Oscar. Anyone see that coming back when he was guest spotting on Futurama offering a bag of moon sapphires?

Other related commentary includes radically disapproving of the reduction in pomp. Certainly it would be great if they kept things low key and unfunny (Ellen!) and managed to bring the thing to an end in two hours, but if it's going to be a four hour fiasco anyway, let's have some goddamn fireworks. Also, maybe next year you save the Will Ferrell/Jack Black/John C. Reilly number for another hour or two... you tipped your hand, tiresome awards show. And one final note: flesh tone dresses? seriously?

Next year's best actor category is already developing. I predict a three way split between Daniel Day-Lewis in "There Will be Blood," and Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman for "The Bucket List," which will clear the way for Nicholas Cage to get #2 for "Ghost Rider."

There will be a time when "Oscar winning actor Nicholas Cage" will sound as stupid as the Ben Affleck bit. I thought we got past this with the Vampire's Kiss.

MUSIC: clap your hands say yeah!: in this home on ice

P.S. I really didn't think we'd gotten past this, Nick... I just wanted to bring up the vampire's kiss, you scenery chewing woman punching bear, you.

Quick! Guess whose car doesn't have heat or defrost capabilities

MUSIC: pixies: dig for fire

monday?

check.

There's some killer ohio ice storm coming (by the way, ohio... if you're still trying to win my heart, ice storms are the wrong sort of winter weather with which to do it), so that may have been it for work at the office for the next day or two.

That may also be it for electricity for the next day or two, so I have tried to get my idiotic website reading intake up this evening. As a result, I managed to stumble across the something awful notes on "trapped in the closet" only a little too late. The glossary notes under chapter three made me grin like an idiot and made all the secretaries give me weird looks and probably assume I was deranged or in love.

More 'a' than 'b.'

But if you don't chuckle at the definition of "Y'all ass is crazy" then I'm afraid that we can never hang out again. ever.

also, go watch this and tell me that you're not a little upset that you didn't go see it in the theater. I know I am.

Bring on the snow but keep the ice.

MUSIC: madvillain: rhinestone cowboy

Nice try, Ohio

And who could resist going to take pictures of a waterslide covered in snow leading into a pool that is, in fact, a giant sheet of variously-thick ice.

MUSIC: tom mcrae: ghost of a shark

I'm worried about what happens at the Oscars.

Dear Politicians,

Thanks for the civility, but don't forget that we're still on a swiftboat to clusterfuckville.

Sincerely,

Jef

MUSIC: guided by voices: the official ironmen rally song

Finally

In a birthday reversal, it appears that Holly has delivered the snow that mistakenly got sent to LA my way.

Thanks.

Also, happy Birthday.



MUSIC: cat power: the moon

Did I miss a meeting?

I thought it snowed here. I just saw the news. Footage of snow in LA... in Texas?

Over the last week, there has been an ice storm that swept the entire country, coast to coast. It ravaged the north east, dipped down toward Louisiana, meandered up the Mississippi, terrorized Missouri, and attacked New England with a vengeance. It is simply not possible that this storm missed the Ohio River Valley.

But it did.

what?

There has been enough snow, so far this season in Ohio, that, if you kicked around a little, you might be able to hide a dvd case under it.

this is totally unacceptable.

If it doesn't snow within two weeks, I am going to have to... continue to be powerless and unhappy with the weather.

MUSIC: joanna newsom: cosmia

It's a secret...

and I'll tell you.

MUSIC: rogue wave: eyes

One down,

a bunch to go.

The year in review:

Culture and I haven't been getting along all that well this year, so despite my fondness for lists, we won't be doing top anythings this year.

I will say that I was pleased with The Illusionist and The Departed and distressed and dissatisfied with Pirates of the Carribean 2 and Happy Feet. I did not see a lot else in the theaters. The music that made my day this year was Maritime and Maps and Atlases and Regina Spektor (again). I read Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Bee Season and And you Shall Know Our Velocity. For those seeking recommendations, those are in reverse order of quality.

It was a bad year for snow and a good year for rain.

It was an excellent year for the midwest and for midwestern girls and for getting out of college.

It is impossible to judge if it was a good year for summer school or not. I imagine it never is.

The year will end with Champagne.

The new year will start with sleeping late.

Who could ask for anything more?

MUSIC: ben lee: begin

The highway is calling, and I'm a pushover.

Tomorrow, santa-like, I will climb into my sleigh and set out across the globe to deliver modest good cheer and not even once think about going down a chimney.

Early rise and in to work. christmas party, drive west, stop for a while, drive east, stop for a while, drive east, stop for a while, drive west, stop for longer than twelve hours (which will be great).

I keep listening to two songs: Scrooge from Muppet Christmas Carol ('don't ask him for a favor 'cause his nastiness increases' etc...) and, oddly enough, if I had a boat by Lyle Lovett. Just take a look at those lyrics and tell me it isn't amazing.

I quote: "If I had a boat, I'd go out on the ocean; and if I had a pony, I'd ride him on my boat."

I finally know what Julia Roberts saw in him.

...

...

Also, Holly... I've a favor. Can you see if you can't talk to people out there and get them to stop saying "Winner of (insert number) Golden Globe nominations" in advertisements. My ability to make analogies has abandoned me, but you know what's wrong with this.

If I had more energy I might do something clever here like throw together some kind of matching game where you try and figure out what insane book I bought goes to which brother... but I am conserving my energy for a day of rainslicked driving and possible caffeine highs and lows like nobody's business.

"Me up on my pony on my boat."

Merry christmas.

MUSIC: muppets: it feels like christmas

merry christmas everyone

except my lasagna

"and god bless us, everyone."

Christmas is on the way, and Hanukkah is upon us. I feel now is the best time to encourage the whole world to:

A: consider giving someone the Frank Capra box set. If they don't like it, they don't know what they're talking about.

B: watch santa claus is coming to town and learn all the words to "first toymaker to the king."

C: Wash the rankin bass taste out of your mouth with the version of A Christmas Carol starting George C. Scott. (Or better yet, read it.)

D: Watch santa claus conquers the martians, but only if it's the mst3k version. Learn all the words to 'hooray for santa claus' (which is easy because they put the words on the screen over the odd series of colors and squiggles).

E: wash the terrible flavor of boppo's comic timing out of your mouth by caroling with 'a patrick swayze christmas' and 'father christmas' and 'marley and marley' and any of the sufjan stevens original christmas songs.

F: read this. it's festive in that it makes you smile. or laugh out loud at work and get odd looks from the secretaries.

G: watch at least one special christmas episode of futurama.

H: hear 'christmastime' by the smashing pumpkins and try not to shudder or blush. also, try not to let anyone see you smile.

MUSIC: smashing pumpkins: christmastime

I tried to take a picture of the skyline...

...but I completely botched that on account of driving while trying to take the picture. Plus my camera is pretty much crap. So if you want to see the Cincinnati Skyline, you'll have to come and visit (or take nine seconds out of your life to find a picture somewhere else... or... you know... look at the logo for skyline chili... whatever)

In lieu of that picture, which I attempted on a beautiful sunday afternoon after meeting Louisville, I have supplied a less sunny image.





Flurries in Cincinnati? Hot damn, we'd better drive slower than reason.

Also, it has been brought to my attention that at some point in the tenacious D picture, Jack Black prays to Ronnie James Dio. You may not be sold, but I am.

MUSIC: run dmc: christmas in hollis