The Future

One thing you’re excited for:

For the following year, I’ve decided to reign in a lot of my bad habits and focus more on my good ones. Rather than waiting for the start of 2016, I’m going to start on my birthday, which is in less than a week. Now that I’ve written about it, I’m more likely to not backslide. I think that I’m going to set myself some sort of challenge for December as well, probably a photo challenge of some sort. At the moment, I’m thinking of doing a photo-a-day challenge, with the stipulation that I can’t use my phone.

I’m also looking forward to the holiday season. It has faded with time, but I still retain a bit of that childlike excitement for this time of year. It's more for the cookies and less for the toys these days though. Willow finally gave me a list of things that she wants, and today I'm going to head out and see what I can find. Like always, we had nothing to do with the national travesty called Black Friday. Somebody should digitally match the voice of the radio announcer covering the Hindenburg disaster with a compilation of Black Friday scenes, and it would be comedy gold with a side helping of schadenfreude. For now, click here and here and imagine...

Since she is a party entertainer, Jeanine is already dressing for the holidays. Since he is a cat, Brian is napping:

A Long Time Ago...

The night of your 21st birthday:

I truly don’t remember. I don’t drink, so the often-discussed rite of passage of going to a bar didn’t happen. I’m not much of a partier either. Sometimes I think this writing challenge was geared toward people with an entirely different personality type than mine. Turning 21 wasn’t a big deal for me.

Growing up happens in small increments, not with the sudden flip of a calendar page.

Spoken Word

The word/phrase you use constantly:

This changes with time, but lately I’ve been using the phrase, “very good”, as a default reply to anything that isn’t bad news. I think that any constantly used word or phrase is mindless filler, but despite my awareness of this, I find myself occasionally mindlessly filling. It comes with being old and lazy, I guess. I really should be more rigorous when it comes to mental discipline.

At least I don’t say “like” all of the time. Some people seem to use it as verbal punctuation. Even that isn’t as bad as this one poor guy I once had to listen to though. He was an employee of the Marine Science Institute, and he’d come to my work (which at the time was the Children’s Discovery Museum) with a Leopard shark and perhaps another critter or two. It was fun to pat the shark, which felt like sandpaper, but it was a chore to listen to the presentation because the man used the phrase, “you guys”, as verbal punctuation. It was very distracting, and I’m betting he had no idea what he sounded like to his listeners. The fact that I remember this, more than a decade after the fact, is an indication of how noticeable it was.

It pays to be aware of our speaking habits. I try to be aware of mine.

Clothed

What you wore today:

It’s not even noon yet, so I’m still wearing things.

I’m wearing a whole set of clothes: T-shirt, pants, belt, underwear, socks, and shoes. On top of that I’m wearing a Lava Beds National Monument sweatshirt emblazoned with pictures of stick figures caving. I’m not concerned with things like brand names, so I’d actually have to look at tags to remember what brands my clothes are. I’m not motivated to do that. I just don’t care. There is, no doubt, something on the front of my T-shirt too, but it’s under my sweatshirt, so I’ll have to look. Oh yes, It’s a Solstafir shirt that I got for free when I purchased the CD box set version of their most recent album.

Earlier, I was wearing a jacket too, but I took it off. It was kind of cold this morning. Jeanine and I went to a harvest festival in downtown San Jose. We mostly bought things to eat. I ogled some drone flutes but didn’t buy any because they’re expensive. I did take a business card though, and I’ll probably get one online at some point.

Ex Marks the Spot

Things you'd say to an ex:

This writing prompt seems to have been written under the assumption that “an ex” is one person. I suppose I could choose an ex to focus on here, and the most obvious choice would be Jen, my ex-wife, but there isn’t really anything I feel a pressing need to say to her. Pretty much everything that needed to be said was said, sometimes repeatedly, back in the initial months after our break-up. In the present, I have moved on and so has she, so mostly what we say to each other these days has to do with scheduling, since we share a child. That said, most of our conversations manifest themselves as text messages and e-mails. Ah, the impersonal nature of modern life. Truth be told, in some cases I prefer it that way.

Since it’s Thanksgiving today, I suppose I could say (and mean) something like I’m thankful for the time we had. After all, if we hadn’t met and married, there would be no Willow. I can’t imagine life without Willow. Anything else is just water under the bridge, flowing toward the sea. Besides, if I had anything else of emotional import to say to her, I wouldn’t share it publicly.

Weird Traits

Four weird traits you have:

I can do a couple of weird things with my tongue, which either counts as one or two weird traits, depending on how many others I can think of. I can put my tongue above my soft palate, making it look like I’ve swallowed it. That always grosses out kids. I can also fold it in from the tip, making it look forked (actually, it makes look like there is a miniature person inside my mouth, mooning the world). I haven’t met anybody else who can do this.

I’ve always been good at meeting people on their levels. When I was younger (high school age), I often spent time with friends who enjoyed altering their consciousnesses with illicit substances, and I would sometimes find that I was the only person in the group who wasn’t drunk or high. Despite my sobriety, I would be able to successfully spend time with people who were decidedly not functioning normally. Currently, this skill helps me relate to kids at work. I’m able to put myself into their world in such a way that I can better relate with them. I can be childlike without being childish, and I guess that helps me be better at my profession.

Despite the fact that I enjoy quiet and solitude, I like making noise. Give me an object, and I’ll figure out how to make music with it. If I was more organized, I’m sure I’d have a discography (I do have a page on Discogs.com, but it’s solely based on my contributions to my friend Matt’s work). I have done a few live performances over the years, including one solo performance (opening for my own brother). Once I did a duet with a clarinet player. What was I playing? A plastic drinking straw. Jeanine usually just rolls her eyes at this tendency of mine.

Awkward social situations, job interviews, and even such things as routine appointments fill me with more anxiety (or at the very least, irritation) than wrangling rattlesnakes (of course, wrangling rattlesnakes doesn’t fill me with anxiety at all). I guess I could say that I both love and hate routine. I feel the same way about structure and deadlines. I don’t like them, but I seem to require them, at least to a certain degree.

Missing

Something you miss:

In my day to day life, I don’t miss anything of note. Life is good, my needs are met, and I have spare time and money to pursue the things I love, and more importantly, be with the ones I love.

One thing I miss is traveling. I feel like I missed out on the opportunity to do more of it when I was younger. There are good reasons I didn’t, of course. Young people don’t often have the resources to travel extensively, and I was no exception. Later in life, I find that I’m typical in at least one regard. I have enough responsibilities and obligations to prevent me from dropping everything and hitting the road on a whim. Up until last year, we managed to do an annual family vacation, but Jeanine’s mom needs us nearby these days, so we can no longer leave the area for overnight stays. I don’t resent her for this, but I do miss our vacations.

Fortunately, we live in an area where interesting day trips are possible. Here are some photos taken over the last few days. Saturday, Willow and I went to an upcycling event (basically, arts and crafts made from re-purposed items) in Alameda to do a little holiday shopping, and also to say hi to my friend Colin, who was selling his amazingly packaged CDs there. Among other things, we got a Lithuanian spit cake (as in turned on a spit, not spat upon) to enjoy later in the week. On the way back, we stopped at Coyote Hills to watch the sunset. Along with clouds of insects, we admired the view for awhile before deepening darkness ushered us back down the hill and back into the car. Despite it being the weekend, the freeway was bumper to bumper brake lights. These days, I really don't like getting on the freeway at all. This outing was worth the aggravation though.

Yesterday, I went with Jeanine, Eva, and Eva's friend Montana to San Francisco. We spent some time on Haight St. so the girls could wander and I could get rid of my money at Amoeba Records, and then we headed west to Sutro Baths where the low sun lurked behind clouds and the water glittered with the promise of evening. Eva had her camera with her because for her, the stated reason for our trip was photography. I only had my phone, but in a pinch, it's better than nothing:

On the way back to the car, we passed a bunch of tweens descending the stairs with selfie sticks. All is vanity, and our society seems to encourage this with products aimed at narcissists.

I'm off work this week, and the last couple of work weeks have been relatively easy, with the exception of a crucial water pipe breaking, leaving us without running water for around 24 hours. For one night, we had a row of port-a-potties at the end of one of the buildings. They were pretty high-end though, with lights and sinks.

Finally, my cousin Peter has moved out here with his family. He has been in town for around a week, starting a new job. He came over on Sunday afternoon so we could meet his twin daughters. They were very cute, and spent a lot of time exploring the house. They especially enjoyed a pair of hand-knitted snakes that were a wedding gift from our friends Jack and Jackie. Here's a picture of Willow with one of the twins:

Oh yeah, looking at the picture reminds me - Willow got braces last week.

Family

A family member you dislike:

I’m fortunate enough to not have a good answer to this. That said, I don’t keep in close contact with my extended family. In fact, I’m sure there are many family members I’ve never met. I imagine that if I talked politics with some of my dad’s side of the family, there would be some heated disagreements, but based on the short amount of time I’ve spent with them as an adult, I have to say that they’re all nice people.

During my first marriage, I had a number of in-laws who irritated me (to be fair, there were also some I really liked), so my answer will simply be: several unnamed in-laws from my first marriage.

As for my current in-laws, I’ve only met Jeanine’s kids and her mom, and I like them. She doesn’t keep in close contact with her extended family either. We’re alike in many ways.

Morning Routine

Your morning routine:

At the moment, during the work week I go to bed in the morning, so I’ll just relate what I generally do after getting up, which often actually happens in the middle of the afternoon.

After getting out of bed, I turn on the lights for the lizards (the Bearded Dragons have a timer, but at the moment, the Iguana and the Sandfish do not), turn on my laptop, let out the chickens (if it’s actually morning and Jeanine hasn’t beaten me to it), and check my e-mail on my phone (deleting most of them unread) while fixing something to eat (if I get up in the morning, I make breakfast, but if I get up in the middle of the afternoon, I usually just make coffee and wait for dinner a couple of hours later).

Then, if left to my own devices, I usually settle in with the computer for awhile. The two parts of the routine that never change are drinking coffee and checking e-mail/Facebook. Neither of them are necessary to life or even happiness, but they’ve become deeply ingrained habit.

I’m thinking of making a renewed attempt to break that habit, because I spend too much time on the computer, and caffeine is bad for people with high blood pressure. I've always had trouble doing things I like in moderation, so I guess it's good that I don't have any really bad habits (like smoking or drinking).

I’m working towards going back to being diurnal, which actually means demoting myself in terms of pay, but right now, Jeanine and I often pass like ships in the night due to our opposite schedules.

I’ve never been a morning person, and don’t often accomplish much within a few hours of waking up. I get a burst of energy at nightfall, which has proven invaluable when one considers my current schedule. I still think there are enough positives to justify reversing my schedule though.

Astrolomy and Astronogy

Your zodiac/horoscope and whether you think it fits you:


Sagittarius (11/22 - 12/21)

Living up to other people's expectations is challenging today, especially if you're busy obsessing over your long-term goals. However, you must be discerning about what you say; if anyone realizes that you're not fully present, they may not want to work or play with you. Although it's nerve-wracking to juggle both realities, there is undeniable potential to your dreams and you have a serious chance to make them real. Life is a tricky balancing act between the past, present and future.

These are usually so vaguely written that anybody who believes in this sort of nonsense can find a way to make the horoscope fit. It’s a “one size fits all” sort of thing. I stick to trying to live up to my own expectations and I don’t obsess over my long-term goals.

In other words, this is aimed at the credulous and the gullible.

Also, I’ve always gotten a chuckle out of people who confuse the word “astrology” with the word “astronomy”, or think that the former is as valid as the latter.

Musical Shuffle

Put your music player on shuffle and write the first 3 songs that play and what your initial thought is:

Mark Lyken & Emma Dove Douglas from “Mirror Lands”

This is a beautiful piece of sonic art from Lyken and Dove, recently released on Colin Herrick’s wonderful Time Released Sound label. Herrick spends a lot of time obsessively packaging his releases to make them special, and this one is no exception (check out the link above). Ultimately, it’s about the music though, and fortunately, that’s beautiful too, with haunting strings and nautical-sounding embellishments over a seabed of mournful synths. A subtle, wordless vocal melody drifts in and out. This is part of a soundtrack to a film which I haven’t seen yet (although the package comes with a link to a page where it can be viewed), and incorporates appropriate field recordings into its musical tapestry to the extent that the sounds here straddle the fence between soundtrack and sound design.

Volcano the Bear The Following Him, from “Commencing”

This is from the box set that I mentioned getting in the mail a couple of posts back (many purchases made online come with a free download). Volcano the Bear are sonic adventurers of the purist sort, taking a surrealist, kitchen sink aesthetic and applying it to everything they do. This song is no exception, layering sped-up voices and strange squeaks over a slow, grinding rhythm abetted by a cheesy synth melody. The amount of music on this release is overwhelming. I haven’t had a chance to process it all yet.

Thy Catafalque Oldódó formák a halál titokzatos birodalmában from “Sgurr”

This is a 15-minute, Hungarian folk metal song from an album that came out last month, so Like the other songs here, it is relatively new. There is a narration in the middle that, like the rest of the lyrics here, I can’t understand because I don’t know Hungarian, but I listen to enough music in foreign languages that it doesn’t matter at all. The vocals are just another instrument, and the emotion and intent shines through despite the language barrier (strangely enough, possibly due to the fact that I listen to so many songs in languages I don’t understand, I often find myself not paying attention to lyrics when they’re in English). This is like a sonic travelogue for part of the world that I may never visit. The music evokes vast natural vistas and epic questing.

Fear

Five fears that you have:

I’ve always been acutely aware of the possibilities of miscommunication and misunderstandings, which can lead to becoming embarrassed and/or looking like a fool. This might be at the root of my mild phobia of talking on the phone. I intensely dislike looking like a fool, to such an extent that sometimes I act like a fool on purpose, thus taking charge of my foolishness. Is it a fear? I suppose so. Comedy is my armor.

Terminal disease scares me. The possibility of something lethal quietly growing inside of me is terrifying. I read about people dying of cancer all of the time, most of them my age or younger. It just doesn’t seem fair. Then again, nobody ever said that life is fair.

That’s pretty much it. I could break these two into sub-categories in order to reach the number of fears requested by the prompt, but these are the only two that really ever occupy any space in my head. I suppose I have a fear of bodily injury, bad things happening to my loved ones (parents are always more vulnerable than people without kids), and all of the other usual things, but I would categorize these under “an awareness of possible danger” rather than outright fear. To me, “fear” is a strong word, much like “hate”. People use these words much too freely, hating this and fearing that. Me? I dislike this and am wary of that.

As I was thinking about this, the following picture popped up in an article I was reading:

My fears are in the "daily life" and "personal future" categories. I am aware of the other hazards, especially the "environment" category, since part of my job is teaching kids about environmental stewardship, but I don't consider it a fear. Despite its seriousness, it's more of an abstraction to me. It's also something I'm actively involved in making better. Action often negates fear. Fears are behavioral adaptations (to help keep us safe) and as such, are sometimes beyond our ability to easily control (like phobias involving spiders, heights, etc.).

Colors

Your favorite color and why:

I know it’s not technically a color, but I’ve always really liked black. To me, it represents mystery, a veil across hidden corners. I’ve always liked nighttime and fog for the same reason.

As far as real colors go, I have a fondness for natural colors, especially green. I like the way various shades of green blend together in the forests and fields. Mossy greens, lichen greens, evergreens, and many more. I can feel my blood pressure lowering when I’m surrounded by green.

A Day In the Life...

Bullet your entire day:

I've actually done this a couple of times before, but have been hesitant to repeat the exercise because for some reason, the other two days ended up being kind of crappy. This attempt was yesterday's writing prompt, but I exchanged it for today's because my work "day" straddles dates, meaning I was still bulleting when I would have had to publish it. It turns out that, due to a simple oversight, I didn't manage to get anything published on Monday anyway though.

11:57 AM - I swing my feet out of bed and into my slippers.

Noon - I turn on a couple of lizard lights and my laptop. There is a package on my chair. I open it and discover it's the new Volcano the Bear 5 LP box set, "Commencing". Joy!

12:03 - I check e-mail on my phone while waiting for my laptop to boot up. 35 out of 53 messages are unimportant enough to be deleted unread.

12:09 - I make breakfast and pat Brian the kitten.

12:18 - Breakfast is 2 eggs, 2 strips of veggie bacon, cinnamon toast, and coffee (from yesterday, microwaved). Time to check Facebook.

12:28 - Listen to voicemail from my bank, informing me that there were some fraudulent attempts to use my credit card (I received an e-mail to this effect a couple of days prior). Wonder if the e-mail and voicemail are themselves fraudulent. Jeanine checks the website she uses to reverse-dial numbers. Some people claim the phone number is legitimate, but others seem unsure.

12:39 - I call the number on my bank's website.

12:55 - Call done. It turns out that the messages I received were legitimate. It's a good thing I never keep large amounts of money in that particular account. Old card is now deactivated, and new card is on the way.

12:57 - More coffee, recheck e-mail and Facebook while drinking it.

1:08 - Done with computer for now.

1:09 - Time to listen to a cassette. I finish listening to Circle "Tavastia", a live document from the end of the last century, and a very good one at that.

1:56: Shower time.

2:09 - Out of the shower and getting dressed. Listening to NWOFHM Attack Vol. 1 cassette.

2:15 - Make bed.

2:29 - Done with side A of the cassette. Time to go do something productive.

2:30 - Do dishes.

2:44 - Check e-mail and Facebook again. Delete 6 out of 11 unread messages and skim remaining.

2:56 - Paying bills.

3:00 - Get distracted by a video in which a Jumping spider attacks an Orb Weaver.

3:08 - Bills ready to mail.

3:09 - Tidy up. Delete 2 more unread e-mails.

3:13 - While listening to side 2 of NWOFHM Attack Vol.1, I look through the Volcano the Bear box set. It's beautiful, but causes me to reflect on my out of control music consumption habits.

3:38 - Done with the cassette. Jeanine is back from getting Eva from school. I notice that she is spreading peanut butter on cinnamon graham crackers. I make one for myself, and add some wasabi snapea crisps to the menu. Brian wants some too. Brian always wants whatever he sees going into our mouths. Brian has yet to learn about wasabi.

3:43 - I go out into the yard and pick up several dozen fallen avocados. Most of them have been partially eaten by the neighborhood squirrels. We're past caring, because the tree has produced way too many avocados this year, perhaps in reaction to the drought. Afterward, I lift some bricks for the chickens so they can check for cockroaches. There aren't any roaches, but the chickens find some other bugs worth eating.

3:51 - Done. Jeanine comes out to give the chickens water and snacks. We hang out in the yard for a moment or two.

4:00 - Recheck e-mail and Facebook. Delete, delete, delete. Check Brainwashed and Post Secret sites, which are updated weekly. Chat with Jeanine while aimlessly clicking around online. Write tomorrow's prompt/post (or should I say yesterday's?)

4:33 - Jeanine and Eva leave to go see The Misfits at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz.

4:35 - I leave to go get Willow from her mom's house. Swans "The Gate" is playing while I drive. It's brutally beautiful. The tops of the East Bay hills are bathed in the ruddy light of the setting sun. The bottoms are in shadow.

4:57 - I arrive at Willow's mom's house. I ring bell and can hear Willow rushing around to get ready. Alex comes home while I wait. We briefly chat. His new girlfriend is in the car and late for work, so we don't talk long. Willow comes out. We decide to eat out somewhere. We head for Aqui in downtown Campbell. "The Gate" has ended. I put in Zbigniew Preisner/Lisa Gerrard "Diaries of Hope" as we drive. Willow waxes poetic about the new One Direction album, and explains that she wants four copies of the CD version for Christmas (each cover features a different band member, apparently). She is getting her braces tomorrow too.

5:16 - We arrive in downtown Campbell.

5:23 - Our food is on the table in front of us already. Aqui is fast. I'm having a falafel roll up (instead of my usual goat cheese quesadilla), and Willow, as she always does, is having the kid's chicken bowl. Willow wants me to solve a debate between her and her best friend: Is death metal considered rock? I get all pedantic about it for a moment. She calls me on it.

5:45 - Done with dinner, we head across the intersection to Rocket Fizz. I buy a peanut butter cup for now and a coriander/orange soda for later. Willow wants a cardboard stand-up of some pretty boy actor. I don't buy it. She doesn't want any candy though.

5:57 - We're back in the car.

6:05 - We're back home. It's dark, so I go out and lock up the chicken coop for the night. Brian is in his pen (one of Jeanine's balloon bins turned on its side), so I get him out. I cuddle with him while checking e-mail and Facebook (damn, I really do spend too much time on the computer).

6:23 - I make coffee, and while it's percolating, wheel the garbage and recycling bins out to the street.

6:26 - Oops. I'm on Facebook again.

6:32 - I hang out with Willow while drinking coffee. She is watching Full House on TV, although she's more focused on scrolling around on her iPod. Kids these days... She shows me several pictures of a happy looking elderly gentleman holding an enormous onion. From his expression, one would think the onion contains the secrets of the universe.

7:18 - I pack lunch (leftover manicotti) and shut down my laptop, then play with Brian and talk to Willow.

7:36 - We head back to Willow's mom's house so I can drop Willow off.

7:46 - We arrive and I say goodbye to Willow. Now, it's time to go to work.

8:06 - I arrive at work.

8:08 - I check in with Otter, who is the hub host this week. There are only 93 kids at camp, which is well below the average number. He tells me that they're good kids. We discuss other random things while I wait for the cabin leaders to arrive from the hillside amphitheater. One of my duties as night host is to have a quick meeting with the cabin leaders on Monday night. The cabin leaders arrive, and I introduce myself. There are only seven cabins with kids in them this week, rather than the usual eleven. The meeting goes quickly because nobody has any issues or detailed questions. One of the leaders mentions that the Raccoons cabin is cold, so I grab the key to the heater room and go turn on the heat.

8:28 - I walk over to the hillside amphitheater and catch the end of a skit, then join Tiger Lily and Squirrel in singing "On the Loose", which is a quiet song to help mellow the kids out. Then, Tiger Lily calls out the names of some kids who need to take medicine before bed. They head for the hub while I introduce myself (every Monday is like the first day of school) and give the night talk, during which I describe my role, our behavior expectations, and the night time routine. The kids seem like a respectful group. After I dismiss the kids by cabin (with a quiet challenge), I grab the nearby hose and put out the campfire, soaking it thoroughly. I turn off the big light above the amphitheater as I had back to the hub. The hub is full of kids, some there for medicine, some there to borrow books (I mentioned this during the talk because with the end of daylight savings time, it gets light before the official wake-up time in the morning, which means kids sometimes wake up before they can get up, so books give them something quiet to do), and some there because they're missing home. I help out as needed, finding time to go outside and play my drone flute. I make periodic announcements about how much time the kids have left before I ring the warning bell, and meet a boy who I might have to wake up in the middle of the night so he can use the bathroom. He decides that he doesn't need to be awakened, but I note where he is sleeping in case he changes his mind later in the week. A girl comes up and tells me that she heard a cabin leader swearing. I ask her who, but she doesn't know his name. She describes him as a blonde male, and I tell her I'll figure out who it was. I find out that there are no cabin leaders answering to that description. I find the boy with the lightest brown hair and ask him about it. He says it wasn't him (either truthfully or because he doesn't want to get in trouble, but he looks genuinely surprised to me, so I think he's telling the truth), but I give him the talk anyway.

9:25 - I ring the warning bell.

9:30 - I ring the final bell. The teachers start night patrol (checking to make sure that lights are out and kids are silent).

9:32 - I watch a cute puppy video with Tiger Lily, followed by the video currently making the rounds about how cats get freaked out by furtively placed cucumbers. I realize that it would make an interesting introduction to an adaptation lesson.

9:35 - We're interrupted by a homesick kid named Night Owl. He says he picked the name because his anxiety often keeps him up at night. He says his stomach really hurts. His teacher and I walk him to the bathroom, and he goes inside and pukes. We look at the stars while we wait. He comes back out and we return to the hub. I get him a hot water bottle to help soothe his stomach, and then we all talk some more. We finally convince him to return to his cabin and try to sleep.

10:15 - The hub is empty of kids, so I return to chatting with Tiger Lily. We watch YouTube videos of arachnids while we talk.

10:30 - Another homesick kid shows up, this time a girl named Hurricane. She is with her partner (we have a buddy system at night, so no kids are allowed to leave their cabins alone). I help her feel better, and the girls return to their cabin. Tiger Lily and I watch more YouTube videos.

11:00 - Our security guard, Apple Juice, arrives.

11:15 - Tiger Lily leaves for the night. I go check the lodge and turn off lights. Then, I check my e-mail and Facebook.

11:30 - I resume reading the novel I'm working on, "Fever Dream" by Preston & Child.

11:45 - Night Owl is back in the hub with his partner, wanting me to put more hot water in his hot water bottle. I do this, and he goes back to bed.

12:15 AM - It's lunch time. I go microwave my manicotti, then continue reading while I eat. I drink my coriander/orange soda too. It's good. Not too sweet - almost more like flavored mineral water.

1:22 - Check e-mail, Facebook, and Discogs.

1:31 - Start my walk around camp (I walk circles at night, ostensibly to patrol, but really just so I can get a little exercise and be outside). I put on my scarf (it's quite cold) and my headphones. I'm listening to "Gore Motel" by Bohren & der Club of Gore. 74 minutes of music that would provide the perfect soundtrack to a spaghetti western in slow motion. The music is appropriate and the stars are beautiful.

2:43 - On one of my circuits of camp, I notice a girl and her cabin leader heading for the hub. The girl is named Waterfall, and she misses her mom. I give her a pep talk which seems to work. They return to their cabin. I finish my walk.

2:48 - I'm done with my walk. I walked 4.16 miles. That's 32 loops around camp. I do some more internetting.

3:00 - Back to "Fever Dream".

3:55 - Done with "Fever Dream". It's a page turner. I finished it in two days.

4:00 - I hang up the little wooden plaques with cabin names on them for the breakfast and lunch hoppers (meal servers) for Tuesday. Hawks are handling breakfast, and Raccoons lunch. I bring my used mug (oh yeah, I had mint tea earlier) and fork to the dining hall. Then, I realize that I never posted my Monday writing challenge prompt. It's Tuesday already. I rectify my oversight.

4:13 - I'm leaning back in my chair and closing my eyes. It's quiet and chilly.

4:20 - Oops. I notice an Indiegogo campaign to raise money for the new Alejandro Jodorowsky film, "Endless Poetry". I donate $15.00. That's the problem with sitting there in front of a laptop all night. Problem for me, not for Jodorowsky, who is now $15.00 closer to meeting his goal (although it looks like the initial goal has already been surpassed).

4:24 - Leaning back in my chair again...

5:55 - Night Owl is back for more hot water. He seems to be doing better though.

6:03 - I turn on the cabin heaters (which I had turned off around midnight). More internetting ensues.

6:35 - Six boys from the Newts cabin get sent to the hub for talking. I lecture them and show them where to put their names on the discipline clipboard. I then take six points off of their night patrol score. Their perfect 10 becomes a less-than-acceptable 4.

6:45 - I wake up the Hawks and tell them they're hoppers. Then, using an old trombone, I play loud music to wake up the other cabins. One day I'll learn to play the trombone correctly, but for now, it's a useful tool for ending sleep. Our health aide, Moonlight, arrives. We briefly talk about how the night went. Her husband,Scooby, who tells stories in the morning, is sick, so I'll be taking over the storytelling part of the routine this week.

7:10 - I ring the bell that calls the kids to the amphitheater. Once everybody is gathered (the Newts are lagging this morning), I dismiss the cabin leaders to go meet with Moonlight (she is taking over that duty for me so I can take over for Scooby), and then arrange the kids around the Scooby Tree (yes, he has a tree named after him) and tell them a story (it's a creation story about how the stars and the moon came to be, and also answers the question about why moths are attracted to lights) that I used to tell during our astronomy program years ago. The kids laugh and clap in all of the right places. About five minutes into the story, and hawk calls from the top of a Douglas Fir tree on the east side of camp. I pause so the kids can all get a good look at it. It's really big, and kissed by the morning sun. It's either a Red-tailed Hawk or a Red-shouldered hawk, but it's far enough away that I can't tell. I'm leaning toward Red-tailed though. Then, I finish the story and introduced the kids to Eagle, our custodian. He does his usual schtick about helping keep the bathrooms clean, and the kids laugh in all of the right places. Kids make such good audiences. Then, I turn the kids over to Spider, who is one of the early shift field instructors this week. He'll be leading the pledge, telling the kids their night patrol scores, and dismissing them into breakfast.

7:57 - I depart. Blyth Power's "Ten Years Inside the Horse" accompanies me on the drive home.

8:22 - I arrive home. I chat with Jeanine and play with Brian for a few minutes.

8:49 - I get into bed. Good day.

Quote

A quote you try to live by:

I try to live by the so-called Golden Rule, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. It’s a good, solid rule, whether one looks at it from a religious or evolutionary standpoint (after all, it’s a good behavioral adaptation). Technically, it’s a paraphrased version of a quote from the Bible, but that doesn’t change my answer.

I simpler version of this is simply, "be nice". I'm not nice 100% of the time, but I try.

I should have posted this before midnight, but I was busy working on my next post (which involves keeping track of every damn thing I do until I next go to bed) and I lost track of the time. The days get away from me sometimes.

Pet Peeves

Three pet peeves:

I spend a lot of time and money buying music, and often treat the internet as a kind of 24-hours-a-day record shop. Over time, I’ve noticed that there are a lot of people who treat it as a 24-hours-a-day cash cow, buying low and selling high. These people are called record flippers. A lot of the music I buy comes from niche markets, which means that physical releases are often very limited. People who buy them up just to make a profit take them out of the hands of people who buy them for listening pleasure. A $20.00 record becomes a $100.00 record in no time. People who actually buy these releases at the inflated prices are only adding to the problem by encouraging this kind of behavior. I’m aware that this nasty capitalist phenomenon occurs in other markets as well (such as homes – one of the reasons we got our current home for the asking price, with a free new roof thrown in, was because we weren’t flippers – the woman who owned the house told us that she was happy that we were planning to move in with our family rather than fixing it up and reselling it).

I’m usually pretty quick on the draw, but occasionally something I want sells out and gets flipped. Get a real job, assholes.

Another thing that really pisses me off is willful ignorance. These days, there is more information at our fingertips than ever before, yet some people seem to know nothing about anything. I sometimes joke that we’ve forgotten to ask the correct questions, but in many cases, people seem to just not care. I’ve definitely met some horrifyingly uninformed individuals over the years, and some of them even seem proud of their lack of knowledge. Unfortunately, a lot of these people are currently vying for the republican presidential nomination. Just what the world needs.

And then there are people who act like they’re entitled to more than the rest of us. We’ve all seen them, stepping to the fronts of lines, imperiously grabbing things from under our noses, stomping their little feet like enraged toddlers when they’re thwarted. That’s ugly.

I have more pet peeves, maybe even enough for them to qualify as a menagerie, but these are the first three that popped into my head.

The Future

Your life in 7 years:

One of my faults is that I often passively wait for things to happen, rather than going out and making them become reality. Luckily for me, this strategy has worked out pretty well. Then again, I’m pretty good at accepting my present conditions, whatever those conditions happen to be at the time. This kind of acceptance is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because I’m almost always content, and a curse because I might not know what I’m missing by not taking initiative. I guess I could say that I’m not overly ambitious.

This prompt also makes me think about what my life was like seven years ago. Seven years ago… 2008. In 2008 I was going through a divorce. I had just moved into a small studio apartment, and I still had both of my parents. Willow was 5 years old. Currently, I’m married again and living in a house we own, and both of my parents are dead. Willow is almost a teenager. A lot has happened in the last seven years, and I guess that the marriage and home ownership part are events that I helped make happen (these are things that don’t just happen on their own, after all). The latter was helped by getting an inheritance though.

In seven years, I’ll be about to turn 55. Willow will be 19. I have no major plans that are likely to come to fruition in the next seven years. Maybe I’ll clean the garage or something… More seriously, I’d like to make music. I feel that my creativity needs a jump start. I was talking with a friend on Facebook recently, and she mentioned wanting to collaborate on a creative project. Will it happen? Only if I step up and make it happen.

The short answer to this question is that, barring the influence of outside forces, I don’t see any major changes happening between now and then. Life is good. Sure, it could be great, but I am content.

Commute

Your commute to and from work/school/etc.:

At the moment, I have a reverse commute which has the benefit of not involving any freeways. The only bottleneck happens when I hit the morning “dropping kids off at school” traffic.

It takes me around 20 minutes to get to work. I start at home in the suburbs and end in the hills. The elevation change is just enough so that it can be overcast at home and sunny at work. Very occasionally, a storm will bring down a substantial tree near work, and on a couple of occasions, I’ve had to be creative to get in or out (parking and shuttling or borrowing a co-worker’s vehicle, like I did one morning when Jeanine and I had just started dating – I refused to miss our date).

The round trip gives me about 45 minutes of music listening time each work day, which always puts me in a good mood.

I realize how fortunate I am, living in the Bay Area and not having an interminable commute. The freeways keep getting worse and worse, with miles of stationary vehicles clogging the arteries each day. Morning rush hour has blended with the afternoon commute, so I try to avoid freeways completely during the week.

Words

Two words/phrases that make you laugh:

Poor word usage or atrocious spelling sometimes makes me laugh, but in a derisive way. Same goes for unintentional oxymorons.

The thing about words and phrases is that it is often the unexpected that makes me laugh. If I hear something often enough to remember it well, it loses its comedy power.

As authors go, I often find myself literally laughing out loud while reading the words of Joe R. Lansdale. He can turn a phrase with the best of them, often with darkly hilarious results.

Ferocious Fruit

A fruit you dislike and why:

I’m not a fan of grapefruit, finding it too tart. I’m not a fan of this question either. It doesn’t really lead anywhere interesting. If I disliked a fruit because it insulted me in some way, we'd have a story, but in this reality we share, the average fruit tends to be well-behaved, barring those incidents when rotten individuals are propelled toward the deserving, in which case human help is had.

Inspired by the insipidity of this question, I'm going to come up with an alternate 30 day writing challenge.