Category: heartstrings

Love, lust, and relationships.

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hot is your excuse for everything


Tuesday’s gone (with the wind). Had my two-week Lasik appointment today: my vision is still 20/15 and my eyes are supposedly “healing nicely.” They feel a lot better, with some occasional dryness and irritation – but I’ve still got minimal problems at night with halos and glare (although it’s already markedly better than it was last week). My new eyes are great, and I love them.

The other day we got one of those “put your old clothes in a bag on the curb for charity” fliers stuffed in our doorjamb. When those fliers come, Sharaun always decides to “go through” my closet and give away my clothes. I don’t know why God chose to give women this instinct, this notion that they have an idea what clothes men should and shouldn’t keep. What worse is, they always seem to target the items I love dearly. Shirts she deems “dingy” and “old-man looking” are the shirts that fit me best, don’t bind on the shoulders, have plenty of “skirt” to make for strong tucking, and have no pokies or scratchies to speak of. So here we are, me sitting on the couch in the living room while she brings out handfuls of clothes-laden hangers to parade by me, not really asking as much as telling me what I do and don’t wear.

“You never wear this one,” she says, hoisting a blue t-shirt into the air for my inspection. “I wear that all the time,” I say, “Just look at the paint stains on the front, that’s a good painting shirt.”

“You got this in college!,” she proclaims, as if clothes bought in college are things of evil. “So what,” I say, “It’s still a good shirt, fits me fine, and I like it.”

“Why are those jeans in the donate pile?,” I demand, “Those are the only jeans that truly fit me well all over.” “They’re so old, you have all these other jeans that look so much better.” “But I hate those other jeans,” I protest, “The legs are all fat and bell-bottomy… I hate that.” She rebuts, “It’s not called ‘bell-bottom,’ it’s called ‘flared leg’ and it’s the only kind of jeans that are stylish.” “Well I don’t want to be stylish then,” I say, “I like the legs of my jeans to fit around my ankles, not swing back and forth as I walk.” She fires back, “You know you’re talking about ‘tapered leg,’ right? No one wears tapered leg jeans anymore, not even cowboys.” “So what,” I say, “I want to wear them. I’ll single-handedly bring them back into style.” At this point she’s getting angry.

“Here are a pair of jeans with the tags still on them, you probably never even tried them on,” she begins, turning a brand new pair of denim over for inspection. “I did try them on,” I challenge, “Remember, at Christmas? They were all twisty in the hips, I asked you to return them.” “No, you’re thinking of another pair – you never even touched these,” she maintains. Apparently, I am not capable of being able to recognize my own clothes, as all my assertions about certain items are challenged on the basis that I’m “thinking of a different one” or am just plain wrong. Now my answers are beginning to reflect my frustration.

“What about these,” she asks as she puts yet another pair of jeans forward. “Those are too big,” I reply curtly. “What do you mean by ‘too big?,'” she asks. “What do I mean by… well… the size of my lower body is proportionally smaller than the amount of fabric that Levis decided to use when manufacturing those particular pants. Therefore, there is more actual jean than there is me.” She stops me before I can go into a brief discourse on relative volumes and capacities, holding her hand in the air as a silent “stop,” signalling that my humorous approach has come across as intended and she understands.

Eventually, because I am so incapable of recognizing and identifying which of my own clothes fit and which don’t, the whole exercise turns into a 11pm “try this on so I can see” marathon. I hate trying things on, loathe it – and she knows this. I don’t want to try things on right now, I’m hot, and I don’t want to robe and disrobe over and over to prove to you what I know is true. It’s true, you know, I’m a naturally hot human being – maintaining a core temperature that I’m convinced is several degrees higher than most everyone else. This rationale, however, is not flying.

“Hot is your excuse for everything,” she says. “You’re too hot to try on clothes; too hot to hold the baby; too hot for everything.” While this is true, I am often “too hot” to do things comfortably, in the middle of this moment of shared frustration hearing her say it comes off as the funniest thing to me. “Hot is your excuse for everything” sounds freaking hilarious to me, and start cracking up. “Hot is my excuse for everything,” I chuckle.

Luckily, the whole thing degenerated into sweet, sweet lovin’ on a pile of soon-to-be-donated clothing items (sorry beggars, but hey, can you really afford to be choosers?). Nah… I made the sex part up; but we did end on a happy note and a respectable three bags of clothes for the less-fortunate.

Goodnight.

PS – I added some friends’ pictures to the gallery for this weekend’s camping trip, check ’em out at the beginning of the original set, or get them sorted by date via this link.

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gummy smiles

I think I've used this before.
Been finding it hard to write this week, hence the picture cop-out yesterday. And, while on the subject, in regards to yesterday’s entry – I was reminded by my friend Bob that I should’ve postcripted the “Florida is busted and full of tumbleweeds” story with a note about how they’ve also recently suffered through four, count ’em, four, hurricanes. And yeah, he’s right – four hurricanes in one season is bound to leave some broken marquees and un-done repairs. So, while you can’t really blame the retail exodus on hurricanes, I am willing to allow that maybe the state of brokedowness may be somewhat skewed by it. Lets move on.

Upgraded to WordPress 2.0 Monday night and it went off without a hitch. I love the new backend, things are simpler and I don’t have to switch around so much between different backend tabs to get a post up. Things seem a bit faster too, front and back, and all my plugins seem to be working post-upgrade as well. Plus, they’ve integrated the database-backup plugin I loved and some hard-core spam blocking technology – two big pluses. And, maybe the best new feature, the post preview is now an embedded frame of your actual blog, using your stylesheets and layout, so you can see what the thing will actually look like once it’s up. If you’re a blogger, or you’ve been thinking about starting a blog, perhaps keeping a list of ideas around for the eventuality, you gotta get the WordPress.

Last night I left Sharaun in bed as I headed to the bathroom to brush my teeth. After brushing, I decided to clean up my beard-line (my skin gets mad irritated when I shave, so I like to give it an overnighter to shape up), so the teeth-brushing turned out longer than I intended. When I finally got back to the room, I saw Sharaun lying on her side in bed, sobbing. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “I dunno… nothing…” came the teary reply. I climbed into bed and put my arms around her and asked again, “What’s wrong?” “I don’t know… I’m just afraid I’m not going to be a good mom, there’s so much I don’t know.” I chuckled. After some consoling and empathizing, things were fine again. I think spending so much time around our new-parent friends, watching them take care of their kids and all that’s involved, got her a little anxious. Truth be told, there is a lot involved in the whole deal. But, I think, for me at least, seeing all our peers managing happy young’ns was actually good for my confidence – us kids can do it, are capable. Maybe I’m naive, but I’m not too nervous – far more impatient and ready to dive in than anything. Stress is one thing, and I know she’s feeling a good bit of it late, but confidence is another – and I think we’ve both got plenty of that. I expect we’ll each have a freak out or two in the next coming months, par for the course.

One more thing before I kick rocks. I have no idea what prompted the comment assault on my old entry where I reconciled myself to my new allergy, but I did find it pretty amusing. It makes me smile to think someone (yeah, they were all from the same person) took the time to write that much, for whatever reason. Thanks.

Goodnight.

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there’s a doctor i know can cure the boy

I'll wait for you.
Daylight savings time doesn’t do much for me, aside from making me feel depressed walking out of work under cover of dark. Leaving work in the dark sucks, it truly does.

Halloween was typical in our new neighborhood, slim on trick-or-treaters but what we had seemed appreciative of the effort. New neighborhoods just don’t have the same things that established ones do: throngs of all-aged kids, trees, you know. It’s OK, the compliments we do get make it worth it to me… heck, I’d do it for one kid because I don’t even care. I cued up the music, flicked on the strobe light, and fired up the fog machines – all for about twenty kids. Don’t matter though folks, I still love this holiday; can’t wait to experience it through the eyes of my daughter, either.

If you noticed from yesterday’s Halloween images, I abandoned my Gallery 2 install in favor of Coppermine, another open-source image gallery app. I liked Gallery, but I always did think it was a tad too option-heavy. I tend to like a lot of functionality that’s presented as if it were being used by dummies. Coppermine’s install took all of 1min and it just worked. Not only that, but the bulk-upload feature works like a charm, and the editing/commenting/rating features are great. The interface is simple, speedy, and skinnable. Anyway, I think I’ll move to this long-term as opposed to Gallery, especially since G2 “lost” the ability to let users vote/rank files.

I think you know you ended up with the right person in life when your deepest-rooted escapist fantasies still include them. If I could have my way, and get away from everything for a while to be surrounded only by things which bring me joy – Sharaun’d be there. OK so yeah, maybe it’s sappy, but I’m for really. I’d need some music, comfortable clothes and maybe a few books, and my wife; that’s all really. I could ask for good weather and tasty food and a host of other amenities I suppose, but that’s more of a utopian fantasy than the escapist one I’m writing about (shit, I’m off track again aren’t I?). In reality even my die-hard “get away” scenarios (the ones that aren’t Thoreau-esque fantasies of extreme solitude, which aren’t long-term anyway) see her with me. To me, that’s a good thing.

Nightnight.

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there is not nobody out there can play like metallica

No reason, liked the image.
This weekend I was walking along the coast, looking for driftwood that was dry enough and not-chemically-treated enough to burn for a fire later that night. The weather was the typical bay area coastal gloom – moderate temperatures with the sun hidden behind a gray blanket above, and a fine mist drifting on the air all around. But it wasn’t gloomy at all, I rather enjoyed it. Sharaun and I walked hand-in-hand for a bit, away from the group, and it was almost like we were alone. There was no one else on the entire beach, not a soul. At one point, the place went silent between two waves, just for a second, but it was a remarkable absence of sound. Usually it’s the constant crashing of waves, must’ve been some odd off-timing to create the gap – but it was the most memorable sound of the walk. All sorts of things flash through my mind, I play out scenarios where we’re trapped wherever we are… and being trapped on that beach at that time seemed pretty OK to me.

The men’s restroom at work has polished tile walls. Wait… wait, just stick with me here, I swear I’m going somewhere. Anyway, it’s got these bone-colored polished tiles, so polished that you can see your reflection in them when you step up to a urinal. The way the place is laid out, there are three urinals and three stalls. The rightmost stall wall is directly adjacent to the leftmost urinal. Now, if you were designing a bathroom, you would probably step back and look over your drawings and say “It is good.” However, you would be wrong – and I’ll tell you why. The stall partitions do no go all the way to the wall. There is probably a good inch, maybe more, of space between the wall of the stall and the actual smooth, polished, mirror-like wall. You see where I’m going? No? Lemme ‘splain.

I walk up to the urinal to turn back the Starbucks I rented earlier in the morning. Let’s say I choose the leftmost urinal, for argument sake. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, someone has entered the restroom earlier and chosen the rightmost stall in which to pinch their loaf. So I walk up and prepare for the pee, all the while keeping my eyes honorably focused in front of me. In front of me. Where the damn polished tile is playing a scene reflected right from the stall next to me, the horrid vision escaping through that gap between the wall and barrier that should separate our two private acts. I try to take my eyes away, but where to look? I can look down, but it’s still in my periphery. Any movement draws my eyes to the scene, unbidden by my brain. This is not some watery, frosted-glass-looking reflection that is thankfully obscured; this is a live HDTV feed of the business end of what’s going on in that toilet. I mean we’re talking I-can-read-the-tattoos-on-your-ass DVD picture crispness folks. It’s bad news, it’s bad planning, it’s just plain old bad. This is why I stay away from the 3rd urinal. Well, that and the fact that it’s mounted a good 3″ lower on the wall than the “normal people” urinals. Midget-compliant, or something. The horror.

We have nothing on our walls. Not pictures, not paintings, not even a different color than the original white that came with the virgin house. Over the course of the three years we’ve been here, we’ve spent countless dollars which could’ve instead went to put things on the walls, to make the place feel more lived in. We have no furniture in the front room. Hell, we still call it the “front room” because we don’t do anything in or with it. It has no function. The biggest open space in our entire house is nothing more than a wide, wide hallway between the front door and kitchen. I don’t know what to chalk this up to, but I have some suspects. First, laziness. We are just lazy. Second, Sharaun’s unreasonably high standards for anything which will be displayed on our walls. Honestly, I think finding one or two items every three years may be the pace at which we have to move based on her insane requirements. Third, the notion that money will be better spend elsewhere. As time passes though, I’m beginning to wish we’d spent more time “homey-ing” up the house. Sometimes it feels empty, like we’re always poised to pack up the lot of it and hit the road. I want more things on the wall, more places to sit, more color. Oh, and I want less rampant mess… but that’s a function of my marriage and completely inescapable.

You guys may or may not know that I “run” several different websites. I put the word run in quotes because I honestly do little to “run” them at all. I wrote them at some point in my life, and for the most part they are now on autopilot… their tired and trite layouts and designs in a state of atrophy, embarrassing to look at. There are sites all over this domain, those linked from the root and those not. Those that are “done” and are never touched, and those that are in a constant state of “working on it.” Anyway, the page I’m most ashamed of is my Question Mark & the Mysterians page. The thing is appalling. I think I did the layout in high school, no kidding (however, I may be wrong as the oldest copy I can find on the Wayback is from 1998 and says “since 1997” on it). I changed the layout early along in college, converting the thing to some form of CSS style management. The site is really disgusting to me, but I’m not willing to go and give it a remake. Thing is, it’s consistently one of my biggest visitor-getters, and it also generates a large amount of e-mail. And that’s what I want to talk about, the e-mail.

People are retarded. No, I’m serious. People are straight-up retarded. Sure, the site is hideous – but there is still plenty of good information to be found there, and it’s relatively easy to navigate despite it’s abominably ugly shell. Despite this, the retarded masses insist on mailing me with any question they can think of – regardless of whether or not it’s answered on the pages. I’ve long stopped responding to any mail generated by the site, but you’ve got to check out some of these gems… they consistently crack me up.

Subject: who are they?
the mysterions

Subject: Bass player
What were the names of the musicians that help record “96” tears..

Subject: hey
hey question mark and the mysterians you are a good group you play good music where do you all go when you all on the road do you all go to buger king do you all go to wendys do you all go to pizza hut do you all like buger king do you all like wendys do you all like pizza hut i do i like buger king i like wendys i like pizza hut at buger king i like those whoppers do you all like whoppers thats what i get when i go to buger king is those whoppers there is nothing like a whopper boy they are good

Subject: 96 tears
dude you must have gotten your hands on that song by now, if not i can give an mp3.

Subject: 96 TEARS 45
DEAR WEB MASTER , I HAVE A 45 BY ? AND THE MYSTERIANS. SIDE 1 IS 96 TEARS,BLUE “ABKCO” LABEL, MANUFACTURED BY ABKCO RECORDS INC. ,MONO , # 4020 , (XRQ-75039) , ABKCO MUSIC INC./MYSTERIAN MUSIC / ED ARGUILLO BMI , TIME 2:57. SIDE 2 IS “I CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF YOU , BABY”, BLUE “ABKCO” LABEL , (LINZER/RANDEL) , MANUFACTURED BY ABKCO RECORDS,INC. , MONO , # 4020 , (XQR-75040) , SATURDAY MUSIC , TIME 2:00 .

Subject: hey (same sender as above)
hey question mark and the mysterians what you all have been doing for me i have been playing with my playstation playing with my radio playing on my computer playing with my bose watching dvds on my tvo and watching tv on my tvo i am sorry i have not send you guys any emails thats because i got other rock and roll stars to send emails what bands do you all like do you all like white snake judas priest acdc van halen motley crue scorpons night ranger billy squier billy idol tom petty and the heartbreakers the cars duran duarnboston the police phil cooins bad company queen aerosmith pink floyd led zeppelin kansas foreigner black sabbath blue oyster cult bon jovi def leopard fog hat sammy hagar iron maiden kiss mega deth men at work metallica ozzy osbourne styx twisted sister stevie ray vaughan skid row def leppard quiet riot ratt poison winger guns n roses lover boy lynyrd skynyrd queen asia genesis meat loaf molly hatchet so tell me all of these rock and roll bands which one do you like and which one you dont like do you like all of them or you dont like all of them i like metallica there is not nobody out there can play like metallica because they are to good they play alot of good songs they are just to good

Subject: Your music
Please have a look at the attached file.
—————-
Viruses found in the attached files.
The file mp3music.pif: Virus identified I-Worm/Netsky.J. The attachment was moved to the virus vault.

Maybe the loud colors and disjointed layout just attract the stupidheads. Who knows.

Goodnight.

Posted on

three our fathers

I call shenanigans.
I don’t know how I didn’t manage to post on Wednesday, I’ve been writing more than enough for a post-a-day – I’m just royally confused by the timezone thing and set Thursday’s entry up to post that day instead of Wednesday. Whatever.

This morning I woke up feeling incrementally crappier than the past couple post-cigarette-binge days (for a weakling like me, five smokes constitutes a “binge”). My throat was sore and I had so much crap in my head and chest. So, before I hopped a cab into work I stopped in the 7-11 to look for some cold medicine. I was hoping for some Theraflu or Cold-Eze – but it seems they don’t really sell medicines in the convenience stores here. I didn’t even see Tylenol or Rolaids or anything with active ingredients. I did, however, see this:

Smoke all you want, you can just bean-jelly yourself back to health.

It may be hard to see in that small picture, but it’s a yellow box with a lot of Chinese writing. What caught my eye, however, were the little pictures in the bottom-right. The first one shows a man who has his hands up to his face, like he’s tired or maybe even holding his sore throat. The second one actually shows a cigarette. Now, to me, this looked like a Chinese miracle cure for cigarette-sickness. On the bottom of the box they show two little pill capsules containing what looks like a brown powder. The price, 75NT, and the thought of being able to write about the stuff, made me buy it. So, when I got to work, I asked my Mandarin-speaking buddies what I had just bought. They said, “If you are working all day and tired, or weak from smoking, you take this for health.” Bingo! It really is the Chinese miracle cure for cigarettes! I asked if they could tell exactly what the stuff in the pills was, to which they replied, “bean jelly.” Great. The miracle cure for cigarettes is bean jelly. The Taiwanese people love them some beans. So, I think I wasted 75NT on some powdered bean junk that won’t make me feel a lick better. I popped one anyway though, y’know, just in case.

I am unbearably tired, to the point of having a little dull ache somewhere behind my eyes – my mind’s way of telling me to get some rest I guess. I don’t know about other guys, but for some reason when I’m in one of these hopelessly sleepy states, where my eyes are heavy and I’m barely able to focus, I tend to get an erection. Yeah, you heard me – I get my plump on when I’m nodding off. This is particularly unfortunate if I happen to be having a hard time staying awake during a customer meeting – and it’s doubly bad if I’m dozing in the time before I have to get up and speak. It’s like a flashback to the middle-school days of uninvited boners during class and being asked to come do something on the chalkboard (I never actually experienced that, but if TV sitcoms are accurate depictions of pubescent teenage life I’m probably the only one). Once again, though, the internet has come to my rescue by making me feel less a freak than I initially thought. Doing some research, I found this: “A man’s penis becomes erect (“hard”) in response to… deep relaxation….” Well I’ll be damned, I’m normal

I often experience changing emotions when traveling, especially when I’m away from Sharaun for extended periods of time. There’s always that initial excitement from traveling and being somewhere different, with different things to do and see. And while I’ve always got a general “awareness” that I’m away from my wife, I sometimes feel it more acutely at random times while away. Like today, riding in a warm van to one of the customer visits, I just started feeling guilty for being away. Guilty for going out and doing things without her, and guilty for going out and doing those things with girls that aren’t her. That’s the crux of it really… spending time with the girls that I’ve befriended over here. If I do a little role reversal, and imagine her away on business in some foreign country and going out with some guyfriend I’d never met, I think it would indeed get under my skin. Not that there’s a lack of trust, and not that there’s a reason for there to be one, but love and jealousy are funny things. I don’t know quite where I’m going with this. I think I maybe just wanted to put down in writing my realization that one’s consideration for one’s significant other’s feelings should increase proportionally to one’s removal from that significant other’s presence. If you’re far away and free to do what you will, imagination is all that’s left for the one you left behind…

Wow. I did a really poor job trying to say what I was trying to say. But that’s OK, because I’m done with confessional and feel no better for it; I’ll just be glad when my wife gets here.

I’m telling you right now, you will hate this new album that I love. You really will. Oh man, I can just imagine everyone who hears this going, “Dude, what the hell is this?” But I gotta tell you, I really like it. I’ve enjoyed A Silver Mt. Zion’s records before… they put a unique twist on the standard style of music I for some reason call “post apocalyptic.” I really, really, don’t know where that term came from – maybe Ben, maybe Pitchfork, but it fits well for the kind of music. Anyway, this is discord and minimalism at it’s greatest, simply wonderful. Evil sounding at times, and just creepy at others… but also with a softer side. The songs are all just a bit uncomfortably too long, but in a good way. I can’t explain it, but it’s got a grating quality that makes it fun to listen to. Shut up. I know what I’m talking about. Shut up.

Off to enjoy my 1st weekend in Taiwan. Because I’m a day ahead of you. Jealous?

Posted on

catharsis

And now, the undercard you've all been waiting for.
Up late on Thursday night slash Friday morning. Working on getting acclimated for Taiweezy. By the time you read this, I should be airborne and hopefully asleep (or at least engrossed in a sweet game of Zelda64 on my laptop). If the urge hits you, you can track my progress across the peaceful sea. And I’m off traveling again, St. Christopher be with me. And now it gets personal.

Let me tell you something. As a man, I unequivocally believe that women sometimes desire to argue. I don’t know if this is a subconscious desire, or something that is premeditated, but I am 100% convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that women will on occasion not rest until they’ve engaged in an argument. Common indicators that one of these destined-arguments is about to take place include irrational criticism, blatant button-pushing, and the raising of recurring-theme fight topics. Recurring-theme fight topics are flashpoints, words or ideas that have been so well previously established as argument fodder that the mere mention of them can ratchet an argument up a full two notches. I have also found that there is little in the way of escape when a fight is a woman’s goal. Short of up and leaving the general area, you better be ready to argue. Oh, you can try to ignore it – but you will be sucked in. Before you know it, you’ll be arguing.

If you can’t tell, Sharaun and I had a fight tonight. No, we didn’t come to blows, I’m just using the word “fight” to denote something bigger than your garden-variety disagreement. Let me expand on that a bit. I’ve been married for almost five years now, and over that time I’ve been through a lot of spats, disagreements, and tiffs. Fights though, those are rarer. I think all couples will at some time bicker and argue, but true fighting is different. Arguments and disagreements can be settled, can be “won.” No one wins a fight, a fight sucks for both people; trying to “win” a fight is futile. I don’t know how it is with other couples, but for Sharaun and I, if you break it down, we really only have a limited amount of things we actually “fight” over. For instance, Sharaun’s short-list of things that she uses against me in fights goes something like this:

1. You don’t pay me enough attention.
2. You don’t do anything you don’t want to do.

Likewise, mine for her would go something like this:

1. You don’t contribute enough domestically.
2. You talk down to me.

Oh sure, they rarely take on the boiled-down form I’ve presented them in here – but if you strip away the situational stuff those are at the heart nearly every time. I could go into paragraph after paragraph on the various incarnations the above short lists can take… things like, “You spend too much time on the computer,” or, “Why are your underwear in the middle of the living room?” And, I’ve come to realize that these are sure-fire fight-starters for one reason: they are truths. The reason that they are the cornerstones to all our arguments is because they are inescapable aspects of our personalties. More than just a difference of opinion, they are the 180 degree out-of-phase destructive waves created when two unique individuals operate together as one couple. If a fight is desired, they will always be there to incite one.

And that’s what it’s all about folks, making it work. Sure there will be arguments, disagreements, even fights – but they damn well better be insignificant when compared to the otherwise bonding elements of a relationship. Relationships work when each person can: work to minimize the aspects of their personality that are their mate’s short-list, as well as work to be less bothered by the things on the short list they’ve created for their mate. Or, in layman’s terms: Work harder on your faults and be more accepting of your mate’s.

Fights suck, but they end.

My mom wrote me Wednesday to say that she liked my blog that day, and that it was sad. Yeah, I liked it too… and it was sad.

Goodnight.

Posted on

dinner with the family

Outbound once again.
So… the night before last was pretty awesome. I got a call from Sharaun on the way home from work, and in pretty short order we both agreed that we didn’t feel like doing dinner at home. We ended up having an awesome dinner for two at a local Indian joint. Sometimes, even though we’re together most every night – we don’t seem to get enough time to talk about random things. And that one-on-one dinner really hit the spot. We talked about work, about not-work, about summer plans, about all sorts of stuff. Then we made a joint trip to Wal Mart so I could pick up some socks. Afterward, I helped teach her the basics of non-linear equations so she can tutor a former student of hers. Man, I really enjoy algebra. Especially explaining it to other people. I think I could easily be a math teacher, really. I was talking slope-intercept form like it was taught to me yesterday. Anyway, it was a really enjoyable evening with my wife… we need to do that more often.

I mentioned that new Radiohead track yesterday. Hearing it just got me all Radiohead’d up… and I started listening to Kid A tonight. Man, that album is so outstanding. I can remember getting it like it was yesterday, in fact – I think I even wrote about it way back then. August 28th, 2000: The real new album I am waiting for is Kid A, Radiohead’s 4th – coming in early October. I know it’s going to be awesome. I am hoping to download [it] before it’s released – the promos should start showing up on Napster soon hopefully. September 11th, 2000: Listening to Radiohead’s new one, Kid A. It’s not out for a month yet – Napster. Awww yeah… that album made a huge impression on me. I can remember being the new kid on the block at work. I sat two floors up from the team they put me on. No one even knew I existed. I got no e-mails, no calls, no nothing. For the 1st six months I’d come in at nine and go home at three. I can remember feeling guilty for taking a paycheck for sitting around, listening to music, reading webpages, and writing. Kid A just worked so well with that lonely, out-of-my-element thing that was the first few months of my employment.

Made reservations for my happening-way-too-soon trip to Taiwan tonight. I actually realized that I’m departing US soil in a mere week’s time, and had yet to book flights and hotel. Not wanting to pay the dreaded less than one week booking premium, Wayne and I called the “emergency” travel number late last night and booked our trips. Two weeks people. The notion is seriously dreadful to me right now, leaving a week from today to go to Taiwan again. If it was only a week trip, I think I’d be fine… but two whole weeks. The only other time I was there for two weeks, I started getting seriously antsy for home near the end. And I know I’ve said it a million times, but I always get like this right before I go. Once I’m there, I’m usually OK. I just wish there was some way Sharaun could join me, I think she’d get a big kick out of Taiwan. Ahh… Taiwan… I come to your island shores once more.

And now it’s 11:30pm on Thursday. The trash is at the curb, the dishes are done, and the countertop is clean. And that, my friends, means it’s time to hit the sack. Goodnight.