nerdmeyr & K

1. K kissing me
2. As the sun comes up, it brightens the tent walls and enjoins the birds, who are all around, to start singing good morning
3. As the sun comes up, it sends beams through the blinds and the dust motes dance
4. Turtle the dog jingle jangles through the cracked bedroom door, waggling his tail and snuffling the new morning
5. Tea, earl grey
6. Coffee, half-caff
7. Ice cream, any
8. 11 jumping jacks
9. Creeping realization that the covers have been kicked off and feet are cold
10. Outside garbage truck noise
11. Tortured evaluation of whether to go pee now or later
12. Really cold bathroom tiles
13. Alarm, someone else’s in the house
14. Alarm, soft fake nature sounds
15. Intense leg cramps
16. Alarm, beeping
17. Falling out of bed after having weird lucid dream involving ostrich feathers and sticky shoes
18. Bucket of gatorade poured over bed
19. “OMG, I totally forgot to _________”
20. Unexpected phone call in wee hours

Some people dislike certain words, such as moist, yogurt, or panties, and do not want ever to hear or say those words under any condition. I don’t have any such hated words. But, I do dislike encountering a phrase in a book or article that when read too quickly sounds like something gross that makes me gag. An example would be bloody issue, as in “I’m tired of hearing about the whole bloody issue.” Or, loose tools, as in “we could hardly hear over the rattling of loose tools in the back of the truck.”

So, that’s a little something about me shared in the spirit of more openness; the eau de public (that’s public air for non gag-sensitive readers).

Another disclosure is that due to either survival mechanisms beyond my control or else heartlessness also beyond my control, I have no desire to make a list of places/things/people I will miss when I move and I am a list-prone person. Back before I ever moved across the country, I had temporary dislike for people who moved away because I took it as a personal judgment. I fear others have the same tendency, which makes me also avoid talking about where I’m going.

No nostalgia for the here, no projecting about the there leaves me with….administration. Ah, my comfort zone. Many mistake it for shyness, but it’s more like I wish to avoid any emotional messiness, yours or mine, and minimize the chances for (caution faint readers) beastly infection. Emotional outpourings lead to aphorisms, of which I’m not a huge fan. If anything, I prefer a proverb so long as it doesn’t rhyme too much (will I have any secrets left by the end of this post?).

What’s the difference between an aphorism and a proverb? Say you’re saying goodbye to a friend before they move:

“I can’t believe this is really goodbye.”

“We just have to promise not to lose touch.”

And then there’s a pause into which one or the other could drop either an aphorism or proverb.

Apropos aphorism: I’m never more than a phone call away.

Possible proverb:  Two tears in a bucket; motherfuck it.

The administrative approach, in contrast, dials “C” for charm, although I recommend this only for those who, like myself, live a charmed life.

Let’s revisit our sad goodbye only this time add an administrative twist:

“It’s been a little piece of heaven.”

“The pleasure has been all mine.”

(wink)

(blush)

“Go on. Get out of here.”

Cue Bullion “God Only Knows”

As the next example illustrates, this approach transfers seamlessly to introductions in the new place:

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. What’s the local woodland animal scene like?”

Administration of the ebbs and flows of life help to keep the gross things out of sight. To those who claim we should embrace the gross things and talk about them openly, Helene Cixous has this to say to you: “If the truth about loving and hateful choices were revealed it would break open the earth’s crust. Which is why we live in legalized and general delusion.”

• Mariani brand prunes taste like Red Man chewing tobacco. If you’ve chewed tobacco, you will have a hard time feeling confident about swallowing the prunes.
• Judith Rich Harris says, “Parents have no lasting influence on their children’s personalities or on the way they behave outside the home.”
• If you talk all the time about a wide range of things, even correctly, knowledgeably, and in great depth, and you never preface your talking with something like, “I may be wrong, but…” I will begin to hate you and think that you have no credibility.
• Out of 8 staff members in this morning’s staff meeting, 3 had never heard of Ikea.
• Van Gogh did not slice off his ear man-crazy style. Gauguin, a friend, accidentally cut it off with a sword.
• Did you know the woman in the Starbucks logo is Queen Esther of the Jews?
• Did you know that the dude on Sam Adams beer is not Sam Adams, a man purportedly so ugly he made babies cry?
• Thomas Jefferson was 33 and red-headed when he wrote the Declaration of Independence.
• Does anyone else think that Mannfred Mann is talking about something else in Blinded By The Light when he sings, “Cut loose like a [[deuce]] /another runner in the night”
• “Righteous” means “righteous”, but “dope” means “smart”.
• The further in time I go, the less likely it is that I will listen to voice mail the entire way through.
• What the hell got in the laundry that left ink-like spots all over my clothes?

So much to catalog; so little time. The following are birds I’ve seen in my adventures in Indiana.

Birds of medium size that are common:

Gray Catbird – Common around town

Eastern Kingbird – Nymes and I first saw one while on a rowing expedition in Yellowwood State Park.

Northern Mockingbird – Common on the Clear Creek Trail

Eastern Bluebird – Saw these scruffy birds on occasion out the windows of the apt.

Red-winged Blackbird – Abundant on the Clear Creek Trail

Eastern Towhee – I’m not positive about this sighting, but I’m pretty sure that the bird was not a Robin

Small birds that are common, but less common than a House Sparrow:

White-breasted Nuthatch – Common at the feeder

Tufted Titmouse – Also common at the feeder

American Goldfinch – Common on the Clear Creek Trail

Small birds that I’ve seen only once or else very seldom:

Carolina Wren – Seen from the apt. windows; I’m very fond of this bird

Ruby Throated Hummingbird – I credit this bird for my interest in bird-watching. It paused every morning on the power line that ran outside our bedroom window at the apt.

Indigo Bunting – I’ve seen this bird twice on the Clear Creek Trail; bright iridescent blue all over

Woodpeckers:

Pileated Woodpecker – Common at Turkey Run State Park; huge prehistoric-looking birds

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker – On the Clear Creek Trail

Red-headed Woodpecker – I can’t recall where I saw it; it’s possible I’m making this up

Downy or Hairy Woodpeckers – I can never be sure which I’m seeing; common around town and on all the trails we’ve hiked

Amazing medium and large-size  birds that I’ve seen only once (with the exception of the Heron):

Wild Turkey – Saw a flock of them at J.D.’s farm

Barred Owl – Not 100% positive on this identification because it was a baby owl; saw it mid-day in an alley way near the apt. and the Barred Owl does hunt during the day; only three owls are common to Indiana and the other two (Eastern Screech Owl and Great Horned) seemed unlikely

Bald Eagle - While at Yellowwood on a different rowing expedition, we saw it catch a fish and land in a tree

Blue Heron – These are actually quite common and I’ve seen them a number of places including this weekend flying overhead

Birds I’ve seen for the first time only in the last few weeks:

Tree Swallow – A number of these are nesting at the bird houses along the Clear Creek Trail

Barn Swallow – Spotted one last time I was on the CC Trail

Baltimore Oriole – Another exciting spotting at the CC Trail

Brown Headed Cowbird - While camping this weekend in Morgan Monroe State Park

Scarlet Tanager – As you can see, it’s been an exciting few weeks for bird watching, but the Tanager takes the cake; while pausing for a snack on our camping trip this weekend, we spotted this remarkable bird

Cedar Waxwing – At Lake Griffy. I’ve very much wanted to see a Waxwing and it was as exciting as I’d imagined it would be.

Going from right to left, on the first shelf in the multimedia cabinet.  It doesn’t get more pedantic or list-y than this:

• Sun Ra’s Space is the Place
• The documentary Scratch
• The Dark Knight
• The Harder They Come, The Harder They Fall, starring Jimmy Cliff
• Starship Troopers
• Rushmore
• The Life Aquatic
• Owner/Operator, an experimental animated film by a friend of a friend
• Tipping the Velvet
• Happy Tree Friends
• Ernest Hemingway’s The Killers
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Volumes 1 and 2
• Call of Duty: The Big Red One (no, not porn.  XBox.)
• Burnout 3: Takedown
• Tony Hawk’s Underground
• Marc Ecko’s Getting Up
• Pariah
• Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell
• Scrapland
• Halo 2
  

Quincy Jones is petitioning President Obama to appoint a Secretary of the Arts. Many other countries, including South Africa, Canada, Australia, Cambodia, and Ireland, have a Minister of Arts and Culture or some such appointment.

A petition is floating about to show support for the idea.

And here are several nominee ideas from the cultural studies nerds that haunt a listserve I receive.

1) Laurie Anderson and/or Lou Reed

2) Queen Latifah

3) John Waters

Already you can see how difficult this decision will be. Should Siegfried & Roy earn the nomination (David Copperfield automatically being disqualified due to his trouble with filing taxes and also because, let’s be real), the congressional fight could be unprecedented.

Such is the distinction someone gave 1995 on a flyer that hangs in the kitchen of Griffinshire, the Griffin family farmhouse. The flyer also suggests to ring it in dirty. The two phrases came to mind while I was trying to predict the character of 2009. In case you’re interested, I do not think this next year will burn brightly. Listless and balmy, perhaps. Clean and dry, maybe. Here are my own personal goals for the new year, in no particular order:

1) learn to count

2) do the laundry

3) shepherd feelings of alignment with the universe

4) keep tabs on neighbors of global village

5) water the plants

I can’t recall having ever looked forward to the Oscars as much as I am now. So, there’s that. And I just bought some new shoes. Year of the Tan Forearm meets Year of the Chalkboard. Ring it in dusty.

1. a football, signed by the machine that made it “Brett Favre #4″
2. 1 pair, brown Nine West dress shoes
3. vanilla extract
4. plain black t-shirt
5. CD walkman
6. Tape walkman
7. K’s hiking boots (since found)
8. Bicycle tire patch kit
9. Swiss Army pocket knife
10. Rolling pin

1. Since the size of the plate determines how much you eat, pass by the small snack plates arrayed at the front of the buffet and find a serving dish
2. Your stomach is like a moribund civil servant the Friday before Labor Day weekend – feed it slowly and steadily and it might sigh a bit, but it will start processing the items in the In Box
3. Since the size of the serving spoon determines how much you take, bring your own soup ladle
4. Go for the high-value, low-stomach-volume  items, like sushi and shrimp
5. White rice, noodles and bread are a waste of stomach space
6. Have a humiliating day, wage slave
7. For the love of god, man, don’t drink beer or sake – just sip some water!
8. Eat with someone you don’t know well and don’t find attractive
9. Sit near the buffet so you can survey the arrival of new food and swoop down to capture the crab rangoon still hot from the fryer
10. Take at least a spoonful of everything, so your plate is full of different colors and textures

1) Table Talking – a popular mid-nineteenth century entertainment in which participants rested their fingers lightly on the edge of a table and otherworldly spirits moved it in response to questions from the living.
2) A Tablespoon – a unit of measurement equal to three teaspoons or fifteen grams (U.S. standards). All such non-metric standards of measurement were first codified by the Magna Carta of 1215 and gradually revised.
3) Farm to Table Movement – a collaborative effort between chefs, farmer’s markets, and consumers to eat food grown only within a thirty mile radius.
4) Paid Under the Table – the case for approximately 40% of all undocumented workers in the U.S. (according to someone else’s blog).
5) The Periodic Table – an ordering of the chemical elements demonstrating the periodicity of chemical and physical properties. The first periodic tables were published in the 1860s. In 2003, L. Bruce Railsback, a geologist, re-organized the Periodic Table to better accommodate the work of earth scientists. In Railsback’s table, some elements are shown multiple times.
6) Blackjack Table – a regulation size Blackjack table is six feet long, three feet wide, and thirty six inches high.
7) The Official Table of Drops – a reference guide for hangmen that calculates the necessary length of rope per height/weight ratio. Published by the British Home Office in 1913 and still used in Singapore for state executions.
#8 The Kid’s Table – a table set apart from the main table and often of a smaller size where the children of the family eat Thanksgiving dinner.
9) Died on the Table – when a patient dies mid-surgery, as in “James Brown’s wife died on the table while undergoing cosmetic surgery.”
10) Table Tennis – a wildly popular and maddening game that involves a six inch-high net atop a table, two paddles, and a small plastic ball. Record number of times the ball has been hit back and forth in under a minute is 173. According to the USATT rules, the color of a player’s shirt must be notably different than that of the ball in use. Also known as Ping Pong.
11) Water Table – the top of the area below ground that is saturated with water.
12) Table Manners – etiquette observed while at the table. An absolutely key rule of the table, and one frequently violated by thoughtless guests, is that the salt and pepper shakers must remain together. In the event that someone should ask for the salt, one should always pass both the salt and pepper.
13) Knights of the Round Table – see chivalry; see also ferocious rabbits.
14) Table of Contents – a section found in the front of a book that details the book’s contents. The table of contents for Kenneth Burke’s books are unusual in that they direct readers to key sections within each chapter wherever Burke introduces a new term. Such guides are essential for navigating Burke’s meandering prose.
15) Table till Spring – the decision of many a chilled committee that has reached an impasse.
16) Flat as a Table – observation offered by those with an interest in girls’ curves (c/o Nerdmeyr).