Ouch

So, I don't get it. Why is it so hard to find a flipper guy that doesn't have slots cut in it? I don't know about you, but I don't recall the last time I wanted to turn something over but found myself saying, "wow, I wish there was some way for bits of this to fall through while I'm doing this". And the cleaning... partially cooked egg + holes in a plastic flipper <> good combination.

In other news, I discovered yesterday that that stuff that makes chilis hot does not go well with eyes. I had broken up some dried chilly peppers with my dinner last night, and at the end of the meal, forgot that I had done it. I rubbed my eye and realized pretty quick that that stuff sticks around for a while.

Whoops.

The little chick was quite concerned, and asked "are your eyes feeling better now?" more or less every two minutes or so until they were. She's pretty sweet.

I suppose I knew it could be like that, and if I would have had Science Nathan around, he probably would have reminded me. In any case, I've learned my lesson now. Next time, I'm getting someone else to rub my eyes for me.

Rotten Apple

So, the last mp3 player I had was a Creative MuVo Micro, with a whopping 1 GB of memory (a lot for when I got it). I think I had it for about 6 years, and over that time, I had to update the firmware a couple of times (about 2 minutes with a USB cable). No, I couldn't watch movies on it, but it worked, and worked, and worked.

Contrast that with my iPod Classic: I just took it in to the shop today. It crashed and I couldn't do anything on my PC to make it better: couldn't restore it through iTunes, couldn't reformat the disk... nothing. Last time this happened, the guy plugged it in to one of the Macs in the Apple shop and it reformatted okay. This time, no go.

So, I've had it for 8 months, it's gone down twice, and this time it's beyond repair. Back to Apple, and theory is that they will send me a new one. That's okay until we get to January '09, when my warranty runs out.

So, I love the memory. The battery life is quite good. I've enjoyed watching Survivor in the plan on my way to Munich and home again each week. It's cool to be able to have a few of my favorite pictures with me wherever I go, too. And now that I've figured out things like using Apple lossless to encode the music and doing some gain reduction on my mp3's to keep them from distorting when I use the iPod eq to bump the bass up, the sound is pretty good as well.

But if the thing only works for 6 months at a time, it's a pretty high price to pay for what I got. Here's hoping I just got a lemon the first time and the next one is a little better...

And In Lane Six

Can you imagine having worked your whole life to get to the Olympics, and you end up being in the qualification heat against Michael Phelps?

Would that ever suck.

It Was the Best of Times; It Was the Worst of Times

And, as usual, it's all about clothes.

I had been thinking, while I was in the Czech Republic, of my "I Survived Dance Camp" tee shirt. Katie had found a vintage store she was rather fond of, and I mentioned that I usually go to a shop in Calgary that could not really, even very charitably, be described as vintage. Or even "second hand". It's "used", plain and simple.

There is a lot of crap there. If you don't mind (and I don't) going through 300 hangers to find one shirt that you couldn't get anywhere else, it's a great place. And I have some wonderful, wonderful shirts that I've picked up there. While I was reminiscing about some of my favorites, I realized that it had been ages since I wore the simple black tee with white lettering kind of scrolled along it: I Survived Dance Camp. Now, since I've turned into a dance machine, some of the irony has worn off, but it's still a fantastic shirt. I wondered where it had gone.

And there was another one I had been missing, too. It has the brother from Napoleon Dynamite in kind of a crudely-drawn coat of arms, and in a banner scrolling above and below his picture, it says "I'm training to become a cage fighter". I saw the shirt before I had any idea of the movie, and, even so, it was the funniest thing I had ever seen on something I could wear. I lent it to Josh when he used that movie as a theme for one of the YFC service projects that he organized. To be fair, it took him a while to get it back, but I seem to have forgotten when he did, because I asked him about it just a few months ago.

Anyways, I decided to go through my tees today to see if I could find "Dance Camp" and, sure enough, "Cage Fighter" was right there with it. Wonderful, wonderful news. And Josh, if you're reading, I'm sorry for not remembering that you had given it back. I shouldn't have doubted you.

Thus ends the "best of times".

On the other end of the fashion-induced euphoria spectrum, I seem to have lost my favorite boxers. Now this both troubles and puzzles me. Troubles, obviously, because they were my favorites, and I'm sad not to have them in my life any more. Puzzles, because, unlike an umbrella, or a book, or a scarf, it seems like underwear should be a rather difficult thing to misplace. It's not like I'm taking them off indiscriminately, deciding that it's a bit too stuffy, and leaving them on the bus seat next to me.

I'm not sure where they could have gone.

While we're still trying to nail down the finer points of the terminology, the little chick's fascination with panties is such that, if she came across them, she wouldn't have hidden them somewhere. I'm quite sure she would have brought them promptly to my attention.

So, I haven't given up hope, but I'm not sure what else to do. I even checked on the back of the door in the little bathroom.

Nothing.

Rats. I guess I'm going to go train to be a cage fighter.

Running

I went again today. It's been a while, and even though I've lost a lot from last time I went, it felt good. And it gave me time to think:

Things I like about running:

• Feeling good (eventually)
• Looking great (more or less immediately, but some of that may be psychological)
• Being able to do stuff like carry the little chick around without getting tired
• Feeling like my shoes were a fiscally sound investment
• Good excuse to carbo-load - hello, spaghetti carbonara!
  

Things I don't like about running:

• Sweating
• Not being able to sing
• That point where it feels like someone is trying to separate your rib cage from the rest of you with a dull, rusty knife
• Sweating in my clothes
• Being far from a shower while sweating

Yeah, I guess that about sums it up. Down with sweating, but three cheers for fitness!

Sunglasses

I can't find my sunglasses. I had them on Tuesday; now I don't. I never lose stuff like this.

So here's the thing: they aren't expensive ones. I kind of feel like sunglasses are just too easy to sit on, get scratched, have a two year-old wonder what they would look like in the oven or whatever to pay a lot for them. So I buy cheap ones, but these ones were still eally nice. They fit right, they felt good, and they looked good. And now they're gone. Or maybe in the oven - I better check that when I get home.

Anyways, it looks like back to Rome to try and find the street vendor I bought them from to see if he has any more.

Anyone up for a trip?

Ice Cream

I thought I had ice cream in the freezer. I don't.

Crap.

Fire

It's been a heavy week, and most of my energy has been invested in something I never wanted to do. It's going into a burning building to save a child - my own child. No one in their right mind would want to do it: I would have done anything to avoid it.

But once the fire has been lit in a dark corner and fed, once it spreads beyond the curtains to the walls and ceiling, the options are reduced pretty quickly.

So, I go in.

I try to hold on to her, not to lose her in the chaos or be distracted by the crumbling remains of what was our home. I try to make my arms around her, my voice in her ear more real and more lasting, somehow bigger and more present to her, than the flames that threaten to consume her. I try to shield her eyes, to keep her head buried in my shoulder. God, don't let her see the fire.

I hope that we both make it out. I pray that I can find a way to cover her, and that the scars that will be had will be on my body, and not on hers.

I hope that I can find the door.

I hope that, eventually, I can find a place for her to rest that isn't in danger of being burned down again. And I hope that when we get there, the memory of the flames won't keep her from sleeping. I hope that she doesn't grow up to just exist, waiting until the next fire, assuming it's only a matter of time before someone starts another one. I hope she finds safety, and I hope she can recognize it and let herself go in it when she does.

I hope.



I'm off for the weekend, to try and get my bearings, to find some clean air to breath, to create something beautiful and to be with people I love. I'll see you on Monday.

24 Sleeps

Until I get to be with my little chick again. It breaks my heart.

I Forgot

I left home without my mp3 player today.

And I'm gone overnight.

I have certain things that I forget sometimes: what I'm doing on Friday, what the French word for crême fraiche is, when the train for the airport is scheduled to leave.

I have other things that I forget more or less all the time: what I'm doing every day except Friday, the name of the person I met 18 seconds ago, when your birthday is, and how to drive to... well, anywhere.

But there are some things that I never forget. Where my wallet is. If I have my keys. And to bring my music.

So I am looking at two plane rides (to Lugano and home), two days in a noisy office, and a night without music. And, as I think about it, this may be the first time that I can remember that I have been this long without my tunes. Consequently, I have been singing to myself (in my head when I need to; out loud when circumstances permit) even more than usual. I brought my camera, but find myself noticeably less inspired without Steven Tyler encouraging me along. I may well end up seeking out a karaoke bar and singing in Italian before the night is over just to get my fix.

I had some good news/bad news last night. A friend commented that my deer-in-the-headlights look is maybe something I wear a little more often than I had realized. That's the bad news. It comes across as endearing, it seems, which I am taking as an encouragement. In any case, if you run into me this weekend and I look even more lost than usual, it's just the residual effects of an unplanned cold-turkey music withdrawal.

Either that or I really am lost, in which case I would be very grateful if you would point me towards home and give me a little push.

One Of Those Days

I'm having one of those days when my mind (and maybe more) is not working like I want it to... I feel like something inside has shut down, given up, taken the ball and gone home. And the rest of me wouldn't mind following.

I had a lot of years of living that way - living more internally than externally - and it would be easy to slide back into it. It's easy, it's safe, and it's predictable. But it's a funny thing... since getting a good taste of what truth is like, the comfort that can come from living in even a well-meant fantasy has lost its sheen. I remember how good it felt when I was lost in the middle of it, but I can see now that it's like the numbness that sets in on a cold, cold day... it's not a sign that I'm getting warmer and better. It's a sign that I just don't feel the cold anymore, and if I stay there for too long it will kill me.

It's a funny thing about hypothermia - eventually, you just don't care. You let it kill you because you don't have the strength or will left to do otherwise. I've heard stories of people taking off their clothes and walking naked into a blizzard to their death. By the end, the lie has such a hold on them that they don't even know what the truth is.

But I know better, now.

So I'm choosing to face the cold head-on. To feel it and let it buffet me and mark me, to chill me to the bone but not to numb me. The storms that I've lived through have not made me weak or sad or frightened to carry on; they've given me muscle where I had fat, sight where I had nothing but confusion, and faith and hope where I could not see any reason for hope. And this one won't be any different. So bring on the wind, the cold, the pain and the confusion. I'm ready.