A place called B.L.O.G.

What is louder: The sound of thousands of raindrops hitting your windshield — all those tiny individual pit-pats adding up to a fluctuating but constant racket — or the sudden silence when you drive under a bridge and they all stop at the same time, as if the sound were neatly chopped off with one stroke of a knife?

Also, what is the sound of one hand clapping? And what is the sound of one foot walking? And what is the sound of one arm hugging? And what is the sound of one ass-cheek sitting? I meditate on these kinds of questions all the time, and I know that we will never truly have answers.

But as for that rain one, that’s easy. The sound of the silence is louder.

P.S. If you don’t water flowers, they will die. Meditate on that for a while and get back to me with your thoughts. (You can take it literally or use it as a metaphor. It’s a good metaphor.)

Jimmy quote of the day: (While doing a puzzle together) "You know what I like about you, dad? You’re proud of me even when I get just one puzzle piece to fit."

Lost Skeleton quote of the day: "That’s crazy! Skeletons can’t mentally hold anyone!"

Song of the day: "Sixteen, Maybe Less" by Calexico/Iron and Wine

Great gift for Dylan of the day: The new Fiery Furnaces CD, "Bitter Tea."

1. Bike seats are hard. Oh, my aching rump.

2. I got wet.

3. Helmet head. Helmet head!

4. I think I got up to, like, 30 mph at one point.

5. Please don’t steal my bike.

(Editor’s note: I wrote this for McSweeney’s, but I haven’t heard back from them, so I guess that means they’re not going to use it. I really thought they’d like this one. Anyway, what this means to you is that you’re going to get it instead. You’re welcome.

Editor’s note II: Don’t know why it’s all in bold. Can’t fix it. Friendster sucks.)

THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT

Tour Guide: The monument, designed by Robert Mills, is a four-sided obelisk, based on Egyptian architecture. Its shaft …

Teen-Ager: Hee-hee-hee.

TG: Um … it’s shaft reaches 555 feet into the air. Now, the monument was erected …

TA: Hee-hee-hee.

TG: Are you all right, sir?

TA: Hee-hee-hee. Yeah.

TG: Well, like I was saying, construction began in 1848 and proceeded in two phases until the monument was finally completed in 1888. It is made of marble, granite and sandstone …

TA: (raises hand)

TG: Yes? You have a question?

TA: Yeah. Um, why did they make it look like that? Was George Washington gay or something?

TG: Sir, that’s not an appropriate question.

TA: No, seriously, why did they build this thing for him? I really need to know. It’s for, um, a school project. Hee-hee-hee.

TG: As I already said, George Washington was immensely popular, he helped define the presidency, and he was a brilliant general. The people of the early United States wanted to memorialize him in an impressive way …

TA: So, he was a good general?

TG: Yes.

TA: So would you say he, um, deployed a lot of troops?

TG: Yes.

TA: Hee-hee-hee.

TG: Are you finished?

TA: Did he command the Navy, too?

TG: Well, the Continental Army didn’t have much of a Navy to speak of …

TA: So, he didn’t have any seamen?

TG: No.

TA: Hee-hee-hee.

THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA

Tour Guide: The tower was originally built to serve as a bell tower, but it did not go as planned. It began to lean soon after construction began in 1173.

Teen-Ager (raising hand): So, they had trouble getting it up?

TG: I guess you could say so.

TA: Hee-hee-hee.

TG: Yes, well, construction of the tower took nearly 200 years. It began to lean after the third floor was built in 1178. This was because it was built on a weak foundation in unstable soil.

TA: Do you think it will ever be erect again? Hee-hee-hee.

TG: Probably not. It took 10 years of reconstruction efforts in the 1990s just to keep it up at all.

TA: Hee-hee-hee.

TG: What’s so funny?

TA: Have they tried Viagra?

TG: What?

TA: Hee-hee-hee.

PETRIFIED FOREST, CALIFORNIA

Tour Guide: This one is known as the Queen Tree. It’s 12 feet in diameter and it stretches 80 feet long.

Teen-Ager: And it’s petrified?

TG: Yes. This is the Petrified Forest, after all.

TA: So, would you say it’s really hard?

TG: Well, yes, of course.

TA: Hee-hee-hee.

TG: Anyway …

TA: How hard is it?

TG: Why don’t you come up and touch it and see for yourself?

TA: You want me to touch your hard log?

TG: Yes.

TA: Hee-hee-hee.

THE EIFFEL TOWER

Tour Guide (in heavy French accent): At the time of its construction in 1889, the Eiffel Tower was the tallest structure in the world.

Teen-Ager: So, it’s a really big one.

TG: Yes. But that was a long time ago. Today, it is only the second-highest structure in France.

TA: (raises hand)

TG: Yes?

TA: Wouldn’t you say it looks like a big dick?

TG: (Long pause.) No.

TA: Well, kind of, though, right?

TG: Not really.

TA: Well, it’s tall and erect … hee-hee-hee … and everything.

TG: Why don’t you leave. Leave now.

TA: Aw, come on … it’s for, um, a school project.

TG: I am going to have you escorted away now.

TA: Come on, you French fuck!

TG: Oh, this is how it is? I am so sick of you cocky Americans …

TA: Hee-hee-hee.

TG: (Long pause.) That is funny to you, eh?

TA: You’re sick of what kind of Americans?

TG: (Pause.) I said cocky.

TA: Hee-hee-hee.

<end>

Today’s Jimmy quote: (Asked whether he can see better now that he has his new glasses) "Yeah. Everything doesn’t look like cartoons or holograms anymore."

Today’s random Lost Skeleton quote: "We take our horrible mutilations seriously in these parts."

Mediterranean dip of the day: Hummus

Office supply of the day: Scissors

Did you ever see a show when you were a child — let’s say it’s a Garfield Halloween special — where there was an annoying song, and you didn’t even like it at the time, and it made you wish you’d never seen the show at all, but the song never left you, and now when you’re 29 years old, you still have that song playing in your mind every once in a while?

Well, I have a problem. Something similar has happened to me (in fact, very similar), and now, whenever I find myself thinking about a particular thing, I get an association with that song, and it gets stuck in my head, and I want to shove a letter opener in my ear to make it stop.

This whole story is a way of introducing the topic of this post. The topic that I’ve been thinking about that calls to mind this evil, evil song is the direction of my professional life. You see, I have long known that I would not spend my entire working life in newspaper journalism. It’s just not something I see myself doing in 10 years. Or maybe even 5. (Or maybe even 3-1/2.) So, what will I do instead? That, my friend, is the question, isn’t it?

Right now there seem to be three candidates. There’s being able to make a living with some other kind of writing. I’ve been exploring that a bit. Then there’s science. I have been thinking about science. I sort of want to be a scientist. I think scientists are very important and that we can never have too many of them. Thirdly, I have been thinking about teaching. I like working with elementary-age kids. I am the kind of sick person who would actually enjoy grading papers. And I’ve learned that nothing satisfies me quite as much as inventing crazy games and such. I think that would be welcomed by young kids.

There are problems with all of these. For writing, the problems are that most people not named Grisham, King or Rowling can’t really quit their day jobs when they write, and that the jury is still out on whether I have what it takes. The problem with science is that I’ve never been very good at it. The problem with teaching is that sometimes I feel stressed out with just one child to worry about, and I might actually turn into a pile of goop if I have to deal with 25 of them for seven hours a day. And, of course, the last two choices will require further schooling. I welcome the idea of going back to school, but it costs money and time.

If you are still reading "A Place Called B.L.O.G." in 5 years, chances are you will be reading about my adventures in one of those three fields. But between now and then, there’s some work to do. I guess I can take comfort in the statistic that most Americans change careers something like seven or eight dozen times, so I’m not alone in trying to figure this out.

<end>

Today’s funny Jimmy quote: "One time I thought I invented the word ‘curriculum,’ but it turned out that it’s a very common word."

Today’s random Lost Skeleton quote: "In many ways it’s hard to be a scientist’s wife, the wife of a scientist. But in other ways, it’s good. Really good."

Today’s environmentally conscious lifestyle change: Using cloth rags instead of paper towels to clean up after the damned cat.

Today’s dictionary word: pluperfect (p. 1040)

Today I was thinking about what it means to know somebody. There are different kinds of knowing somebody. You know people who are just around, like the co-workers or neighbors you don’t really consider to be friends. You know people who are members of your family, and you’ve known them as long as you (or they) have been alive, and they are just a fact of life. Or you know people who you choose to be around. Friends of varying degrees. Some of whom you see once a month, some of whom you talk to almost every day. 

For the most part, our interactions with these people, even those closest, are pretty superficial. How was your day, how was your weekend, how is your so-and-so. Of course the answers you get and the subsequent conversations you get into will vary in depth depending on how close these people are to you. Some people are held at arm’s length with answers like "my weekend was fine." Others get invited in for more information, more interaction. More intimacy, I guess you could say. But even for people who consider themselves close — even (or even especially) among many married couples — it doesn’t often get too deep.

Then there are times when the humanity you share with other people transcends any of this. The regular rules stop applying and your idea of your relationship with another person is transformed.

It has happened to me recently. I have been meeting with a writer’s group for several months now. It’s very friendly. We all get along with one another, share stories about what’s going on with us, that kind of thing. But it’s also the kind of thing where you leave after the meeting and then don’t really think much about the others, apart from a passing thought, until the next week’s meeting.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, one of the members of the group e-mailed to say that she would not be at the meetings for a while because her daughter died. She was 18 years old. I knew from our conversations that her daughter was troubled, but nobody expected something like this. Suddenly, this person who I saw for an hour a week and had little more than a casual relationship with became something more. I felt strange for a day or so after I found out. I was unsettled. I wondered about how she was doing. We sent some flowers to her daughter’s service and over the weekend I left her a phone message. I felt like I should try to support her in some way. I can’t even say I know her that well, but it felt like I had a connection with her. Even though she probably saw me as somebody on the fringe of her life, I felt like I should do whatever I could to be supportive.

I couldn’t really put my finger on how I felt about the situation until today when I got an e-mail from another member of the writer’s group. She said something to the effect of, "we think we’re just in this nice writer’s group, but then we are reminded about how fragile our lives are and how meaningful it is to know somebody else." This finally summed up how I feel about it.

She’s right. It’s been said a million times, but it’s the hard times that bring out the connections between people more than anything else. In a way, it’s comforting to know that part of being human is having a community of people around you who will be there when you really need them.

At the same time, it makes me feel like there is so much unfulfilled potential, because if we have the ability to share such a meaningful relationship with others, why are we wasting it 99 percent of the time? Why can’t people strip away the superficial stuff and be more "real" with each other more often? It’s kind of sad that it takes a crisis to bring people together when we could come together all the time.

So, anyway, that’s what I’ve been thinking. I guess you can live among them for your whole life, but it takes that long (and then some) to really understand people and how they relate to one another. And how you fit into it.

Yesterday I heard a radio commercial for a car dealership. They said if you buy a brand-new Passat, you’d get free tickets to the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre.

I just have to say that if you’d make a $25,000 purchase so you could get $100 worth of free dinner theater tickets, you deserve a Passat.

I heard another radio commercial that was trying to get people to go to Iceland. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’d love to go to Iceland. But the odd thing was, the main selling point, according to this commercial, is that they speak English there. Huh? Just for a moment, let’s set aside the fact that many people speak at least passable English in almost all of Europe and in many other places around the world. I just have to say that if you choose your travel destinations based on whether they will keep you from feeling bad about the fact that you are an American whose society places zero value on learning a second language, you are lame. This rant is coming from a man who had one semester of French in college and has never been anywhere more culturally threatening than Quebec, but hey, that doesn’t mean I feel good about it.

Have you noticed that about 85 percent of my blog entries revolve around advertising in some way? Don’t I have anything else to blog about? Maybe it’s because advertising is everywhere, because, you know, buying crap is what life is all about.

Does anybody have any other ideas for me for other blogging topics? I promise that if you submit an idea, I will blog about it to the best of my ability. I would welcome the challenge of being assigned a topic and then having to come up with something about it.

Today I had to pee. Not just a little. A lot. "Like a racehorse," as they say.

"Like a racehorse." What does that mean, exactly? Are racehorses known for their propensity to pee a lot? Do they pee more than other kinds of horses? Like draft horses? Or show horses? Or those ponies who are strapped into that contraption that makes them walk around in a circle so kids can ride on them at county fairs? Boy, I feel sorry for those ponies.

Anyway, my point is, why racehorses? Surely lots of other animals pee. Like polar bears. Those things are huge. I bet they pee a lot. But have you ever heard anybody say they have to pee like a polar bear? Surely not.

As often happens, this line of thought carried me off in a mildly amusing direction. I got to wondering about what other bodily functions deserve their own expressions, perhaps involving animals, but not necessarily. Here’s what I came up with:

"I have to cough like a Dachshund."

"My nose is running like a gazelle."

"I am going to sneeze with the explosiveness of a boxing kangaroo."

"I have to shit like a bear, presumably in the woods."

"Ah! I cut my hand! I’m bleeding like the heart of an East-coast liberal!"

"I’m drooling like a gorilla who’s had a stroke."

"I’m weeping like an open sore."

"I’m sweating like an ice cold bottle of delicious, refreshing Coca-Cola Blak on a hot day."

"I have to fart like my dad."

You’ll be pleased to know that I saw the turkey this morning. It was right by the road, pecking at something. A passing motorist coming the opposite direction had even pulled over to gawk at the turkey. It was causing quite a scene.

Watch this blog for further turkey updates.

Hmmm … I’ve been wondering why my blog is not yet universally recognized as the best on the Internet, but it now occurs to me that the sentence I just typed might provide a hint.

I saw a headline today that said "Researcher says tectonic plates moving slowly."

You don’t say? I thought they sped around the planet like big, fat, quadrillion-ton sports cars. Hmmm. You learn something new every day.

Do you ever have a day when you don’t have a lot to blog about, but you really want to write something? Hmmm? What’s that you say? You don’t have a blog? Fine. Who asked you, anyway?

I miss my wild turkey. Yes, you read that right. No, I’m not talking about Kentucky bourbon. I mean a real live turkey. A few days in a row, as I was driving on Energy Park Drive near Hwy. 280, I saw this big wild turkey lurking near the road. It was beautiful. I love wild turkeys. Then I started looking for it whenever I drove there. But, alas, no turkey. He/she is gone. I hope a horrible fate has not befallen the turkey. I want that turkey to live a long and full life, doing whatever it is that constitutes a full life for a turkey. It probably involves eating bugs or something. Not something I’d choose to do, but if the turkey likes it, I hope the turkey gets it.

I bought a bike. Did I tell you that? I told some of you that. It is cool. I have been bicycling around on it. I have enjoyed that. The bike is blue. It is a used bike. It has those curly handlebars like the old 10-speeds did. Because it is an old 10-speed. I like the bike. I bought a lock for the bike. The bike is now secured outside on a bike rack, which is conveniently located near the building.

We have a fake severed hand here. I bought it for April Fool’s Day. It did not fool Jimmy for even a second. It is not a very convincing fake hand. But we have fun with it. I’ll say to Jimmy, "do you want a hand with that?" and he’ll say "sure" and I’ll give him the fake hand. Yuk-yuk. And then he’ll take the fake hand and then when I’m not looking he’ll put it in the refrigerator and then when I go in there I’ll see it, and, of course, not be scared at all, because it’s this obviously fake hand and I’m totally expecting it by now, but it’s cute. Then today I stuck it in between the freezer and refrigerator doors and left it hanging out as if there was somebody in the freezer and just the person’s hand was sticking out. Should it be this much fun to have a fake hand around? Probably not. I don’t care. We also have a fake bug. I put it in Jimmy’s bowl of pretzels today. Didn’t get him. He’s unscare-able.

I am going to go eat Chinese Chili now. I’m honing my recipe for the chili cook-off at Jimmy’s school. I need to win that cook-off. I am perhaps placing way too much importance on an elementary school chili cook-off, but, dammit, I am going to wipe the floor with those other parents and their sorry little pots of chili.

Good night. 

I’ve been having some strange dreams lately. I mean, strange.

I think it gets a bit tiresome to hear long stories about other people’s dreams, so I’ll just give you a quick rundown: This dream, at different times, involved Fonzie from “Happy Days,” the guy at Psycho Suzi’s who looks like Billy Idol circa 1986, Twins pitcher Carlos Silva, and my former boss at the Star Tribune (who, in the dream, showed up to work drunk).

There was one murder, one attempted motorcycle jump, and a portion where instead of actually participating in dialogue, I was reading a transcript of the conversation I was purported to be having.

And I woke up with what seems to be a pulled groin muscle.

True story.