Wednesday May 26th
(jump earlier)
Day 2702
Daylight fell upon me with the weight of missed opportunities experienced by Cleveland sports fans.
But I persevered.
I relied on coffee rather than over-hyped "franchise" players.
Orlando should check out the coffee solution soon.
Go Celtics! |
posted Wednesday May 26th, @03:39AM
Friday May 14th
(jump earlier later)
Day 2690
New Mexico!
Land of Enchantment!
And coffee!!
Beverage of Enchantment!!
Pass the sugar, please.
And the sports section...I need to see the Celtics boxscore (so sorry LeBron).
In wonderful Albuquerque, NM to see the offspring graduate. My lovely daughter never ceases to amaze me. I am so happy/proud/hopeful/(fill in with suitable adjective). She is doing the departmental graduation ceremony here at the University of New Mexico; cum laude in Psychology.
Albuquerque is a totally alien landscape to me. In Houston the freeway overpasses are the only break in coastal plains topography. Here I wake up to mountains, table-lands (chair-lands?), arroyos and high desert. Well...after waking up to coffee, of course.
Going hiking now...and before noon even... |
posted Friday May 14th, @10:46AM
Friday April 16th
(jump earlier later)
Day 2660
Morning
And the promise of caffeine wafts thru the air.
Promises are for keeps.
And large mugs.
Afternoon
friends of mine
scrawled on this wall...
autumn dusk
~ Kobayashi Issa
And scrawl they do...
But its amazing that someone could find/create a music playlist out of my lurid ramblings.
That tickled me enough to come out of my self-imposed exile.
Well that and the coffee....
I'm sure the Demon Dog is somewhere laughing.
Evening
And Absinthe still makes the heart grow fonder. |
posted Friday April 16th, @12:57AM
Thursday November 27th
(jump earlier later)
Day 2156
Actually I think day 508 of a different (though somewhat more personal) calendar is a bit more important. But enough about me...
...or not.
So I'm hanging out with my folks this afternoon, doing the "what needs to be done?" gig. They are in their mid 70's (I'm in perpetual adolescence) and its part of our routine when I visit. They had a longer list this time. Nothing major, mind you, but rather a reminder that they are slowing down a little these days. Well, maybe more than a little.
But at least its not a complete stop.
Mom wants a hand cleaning the top of her kitchen cabinets.
This is actually a secret family code. Mom is about five feet tall (that's including the step stool), so "top of the cabinets" means anything higher than the first shelf. Growing up, my brothers and I came to believe that mom only tolerated our presence in Her Kitchen just in case a longer arm was needed to find some serving heirloom from "up there somewhere." The cleaning was more a re-bonding exercise though. Mom and I both shared family news during, and a sense of accomplishment after, our endeavor.
Dad, not to be outdone, was stirred from his recliner.
He has decided to relocate and setup an electric treadmill. Said exercise machine is an object of humor between my brothers and I. We can't recall a time its actually been used, but we have all at some point been recruited for the task of moving it somewhere "more convenient." Relocating it was fairly painless, but dad was intent on tweaking its settings.
What followed was part low comedy and, very briefly, part nightmare.
My father could not get the safety key, reset switch, and power switch pushed in the right order...or at least with no discernible result. In the midst of his tribulations (and grumblings) he steps on to the treadmill.
And, of course, it starts turning.
At the highest speed setting.
And I can't move quick enough to catch him.
My dad's legs go out from under him and he takes a very nasty fall. Its pretty close quarters, lots of furniture and corners to hit. I kill the machine and get to my dad....he is in severe pain. I could see his awkward landing and am very afraid its going to be a severe injury. I tell mom to call 911, and then begin to assess the extent of what may have occurred (I have some training here, but the most important thing I learned is to call the pros first).
He's conscious; has movement; no irregular breathing; pulse is high but steady.
Ambulance is on the way.
And then he offers a couple of wisecracks.
Now I feel my own breathing return to normal.
Perhaps its the Irish in us, but a bit of Black Humor counts as proof of life.
So Hospital says he dislocated his shoulder. They pop it in place, sling his arm and we're on the way home. My youngest brother (who has joined us at hospital) and I now take turns with our dark humor. Dad, of course is our target. Its not cruel...its family ritual, and we have our parts to play here too.
And isn't ritual what holidays are about?
Happy Thanksgiving. |
posted Thursday November 27th, @01:03AM
Thursday July 17th
(jump earlier later)
Day 2025
Hi, my name is Sean O. and I...I...um...I read William Kristol's column.
I'm not sure when I first found out that reading his column was a problem for me.
Oh sure, his views always made me foam at the mouth and pull out what remains of my hair.
(I can imagine Sisyphus happy only if you are in front of his rock, Bill.)
But I thought this was normal behavior.
Surely everyone does this.
I can stop anytime I want.
But I couldn't.
I tried to quit by canceling my subscription to the New York Times.
Two days later I found myself digging through the dumpster behind a Starbucks trying to find his column amongst the coffee stained refuse.
My compulsion knew no bounds.
My obsessive need to rebuke his every word began to interfere with daily life.
Finally, not too long ago, while ranting about his Iraqi war predictions to a host of my daughter's friends I had to face reality.
"Stop daddy! He's only Rush Limbaugh with an Ivy League veneer!"
From the mouths of babes...
Sanity.
Bill Kristol.
The man they called Dan Quayle's Brain...a Bush II speech consultant...John McCain's foreign policy adviser...
What was I thinking?
Today I don't have to live like that anymore.
Thanks to my higher power, and people like you, I've learned to accept Bill Kristol as a high-end right-wing song-and-dance-man with very poor footwork; I've learned coffee doesn't have to be accompanied by his zany predictions on Iraq; I've learned to prevent further insult to my bald spot.
Thank you...and keep coming back!
|
posted Thursday July 17th, @03:51PM
Thursday July 10th
(jump earlier later)
Day 2018
FOOL, n.
A person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity. He is omnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscience, omnipotent. He it was who invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the telegraph, the platitude and the circle of the sciences. He created patriotism and taught the nations war -- founded theology, philosophy, law, medicine and Chicago. He established monarchical and republican government. He is from everlasting to everlasting -- such as creation's dawn beheld he fooleth now. In the morning of time he sang upon primitive hills, and in the noonday of existence headed the procession of being. His grandmotherly hand was warmly tucked-in the set sun of civilization, and in the twilight he prepares Man's evening meal of milk-and-morality and turns down the covers of the universal grave. And after the rest of us shall have retired for the night of eternal oblivion he will sit up to write a history of human civilization. *
Ever feel like a fool?
Ever truly know you acted like one?
Do election year antics make you believe that someone considers you a bigger fool than you really are?
~sigh~
Like the knights of Monty Python and the Holy Grail I learned long ago that Camelot is only a model. Its only the ones that inhale the airplane glue too long that start to believe in the model's viability. But somehow I believe that even they too walk away from their polling places feeling a little bit like a sucker.
Probably one with cat hair stuck to it.
I just can't seem to feel the excitement surrounding this year's presidential race. Man or Woman; Black or White; Marsupial or Reptile; in the end its just another crew of professional pols and a string of broken promises. Think about it...politics are so morally bankrupt that even a former Attorney General can't get a job after leaving office.
Even absinthe won't make my heart grow fonder.
*courtesy of Ambrose Bierce in The Devil's Dictionary |
posted Thursday July 10th, @06:06PM
Wednesday July 9th
(jump earlier later)
Day 2017
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming "Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?"
I was in Junior High when I first came across those words. My reading career up until that time had been rather tame. The previous summer I had picked up Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions and Heller's Catch-22 and rediscovered amazement at the written word. But Hunter S. Thompson was something altogther different.
It wasn't just his prose, it was his immersion into the process that enthralled me.
Whether it was riding with Sonny Barger or the depravity of an ether binge, he spoke to my soul.
Bad Craziness, indeed.
At first I simply embraced the superficial trappings of idol worship (or should it read idle worship?): the exaggerated mannerisms, the slightly paranoid worldliness, the massive pharmacological expenditures. These are not worn well on the adolescent. They are, in fact, not worn well on most adults (a point that I still have to remind myself of on a daily basis.)
Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. "What the hell are you yelling about?" he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. "Never mind," I said. "It's your turn to drive." I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.
Some people get to see the elephant.
I got to see the bats.
After viewing Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson I tried to revisit that early teenage infatuation...but met with only partial success. Time and tide has washed away the sense of awe, at least in terms of his lifestyle. I am still amazed at the written record he left behind.
And a part of me will always want to drive the Great Red Shark.
Pass the crushed glass in aspic.
Please. |
posted Wednesday July 9th, @11:53AM
Monday July 7th
(jump earlier later)
Day 2015
And speaking of absence...
Though I loathe to do so (if only because it comes with a distinct twinge of pain) I must note a conspicuous absence in my life. The Demon Dog From Hell left this mortal coil on April 1, 2007.
I miss him still.
He allowed those us of us who cared for him to address him as Bailey Bear Jackson O'Hare. I preferred to call him Bud-bud. This too he allowed. He was a short, lumpy, yellow Labrador who knew how to change a light bulb and whose favorite snack was a pair of expensive Italian pumps. His eyes had once been described as soulful by an artistic type, but he knew a mark when he saw one. He was in it for the Long Grift.
I was Bailey's third human companion and perhaps because of this he came with pre-packaged abandonment issues. Arriving home was always an adventure. Bailey took time during the day to rearrange the closets, laundry and sometimes even the drapes. As he grew older he did not entirely lose this part-time vocation, but he did begin to develop a profound sense of Feng shui.
Being a modified dog, he had no offspring of his own. But he left behind a fair sized cadre of good friends that quite literally span the globe. Many still habitually check the closets each morning and count their shoes.
Though the date of his demise shows his marked sense of humor he also had a taste for melodrama. That could be why he chose to die in my arms. I'm not sure either one of us would have had it any other way. |
posted Monday July 7th, @07:18PM
Monday June 30th
(jump earlier later)
Day 2008
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder", or so They say.
But isn't that just a small piece of a much larger truth? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that we just think more fondly of the absentee? Can't some of this quasi-romantic drivel be laid at the feet of selective perception? Maybe even a closed-head injury?
Lets use some of my shortcomings as an example. Perhaps my much-better-half misses the way I laugh; does she also miss the Richter Scale snoring during my allergy attacks? If the lack of my Twinkling Irish Baby Blues cause yearnings does the absence of my constant whining about prescription lenses evoke the same response. (We will ignore, at least for now, my eccentricities when confronted by caffeine deficiencies. The rise and fall of entire societies, let alone an interpersonal relationship, has rested upon more civilized behavior.) Does she remember, in fondness, when promising to cook her breakfast, that I need a recipe to make ice? Will her achey-breaky heart overcome the smell of cheap menthol cigarettes? Does my geographical distance make her remember that after I eat onions the gastrointestinal distress has been linked to several mysterious pet deaths?
Probably not.
But she may love me in spite of those flaws.
On bad mental health days she may even find those characteristics strangely endearing (though not necessarily fondly). Fondness is not just a byproduct of physical distance, it is a symptom of emotional distance.
Love, on the other hand, will embrace it all.
Pack lightly,
and carry a big stick. |
posted Monday June 30th, @04:49PM
Wednesday June 25th
(jump earlier later)
Day 2003
How I Spent My Summer Vacation
Or The Flat Earth Theory in Euclidean Geometry
I'm not sure "vacation" is the right word. Some might call it a respite. Others might call it a reprieve. River Phoenix might call it his own private Idaho...but he's not talking much these days. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times and admission was charged either way. It was a period marked not so much by my absence as by my lack of presence.
Coffee, however, is always present.
As are the Bats.
Brendan Behan once noted that "Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis.” This could explain why I get along so well with my therapist...despite the threats of electro-shock therapy. A little common ground goes a long way into establishing a doctor/patient gestalt, and my ground is very common, thank you. It is a little unnerving, at times, to realize that my favorite daughter (in fact my only child) will turn 21 in August; that I, inshallah, will reach the ripe old age of 49; and that I, come October, will still have to fight the impulse to soap windows and TP trees on All Hallow's Eve.
But, to paraphrase Bill Gates:
Its not a character defect, its a feature!
~sigh~
Its five o'clock somewhere.
Pass the absinthe. |
posted Wednesday June 25th, @11:45AM
Wednesday June 4th
(jump earlier later)
Day 1983
Due to the lack of caffeine and the inability to locate the "Enter" key this journal has been on hiatus.
Corrections have been made and those responsible have been sacked.
Bats, however, have Union Cards... |
posted Wednesday June 4th, @02:59PM
Sunday October 8th
(jump earlier later)
Day 1478
Morning
And suddenly it hit me...
No stitches were needed.
But coffee required a straw.
And lots of sugar.
Afternoon
Spent normal napping hours honoring some guy named Frank.
Something to do with animals and blessings...
Where the hell is Assisi anyway?
I wonder if the bats are invited?
Evening
And my thoughts are already drifting 1202 miles
(1935 km) at a heading of 36.8 degrees Northeast.
Ironically, Las Vegas is even further away.
Just barely at 1232 miles (1982 km).
Vote Kinky and Vote Often! |
posted Sunday October 8th, @12:23PM
Saturday October 7th
(jump earlier later)
Day 1478
and a different view
Morning
Despite a change of address,
the coffee tastes remarkably the same.
Perhaps using the same old gym sock as a filter
has something to do with it.
Pass the sugar...please?
Afternoon
Moving is done.
Now I just have to decide
whether I want the Scandinavian Cardboard
or the Art Deco Cardboard look.
Hell...I might throw caution to the wind
and simply unpack.
That would be the Radical Chic look.
I never have this problem when I visit
the bunker out on the Peyote Ranch.
Of course if the smoothie machine is
working, I wouldn't notice even if I did.
Evening
Practicing the Slacker mindset.
Vote Kinky and Vote Often! |
posted Saturday October 7th, @09:53AM
Monday September 25th
(jump earlier later)
Day 1466
day 1465 n'existe pas
Morning
Hit me like an express train going South at 45 miles an hour from Toledo,
While I was going North to Altoona at 37 miles an hour.
Which train got to the coffee pot first?
And..uh...more sugar please?
Afternoon
Update: Moving still sucks.
And not nicely.
Evening
(beta version...lotsa bugs)
Vote Kinky and Vote Often! |
posted Monday September 25th, @09:02AM
Saturday September 23rd
(jump earlier later)
Day 1464
my wake up service
is found wanting
Morning
Confronted by sun and packing tape,
I take the sensible approach.
Coffee.
Sugar.
And seconds.
Afternoon
After shower
After shave
After anything
Evening
Ack...Soft machine crash!
Vote Kinky and Vote Often! |
posted Saturday September 23rd, @11:56AM
Friday September 22nd
(jump earlier later)
Day 1463
walking on air
doesn't always involve nike
Morning
Sunshine hit me,
as I lay on the pillow.
Lawsuit to follow.
After coffee,
of course.
More sugar...please.
Afternoon
It is Friday....isn't it?
Evening
More and more
All that is behind me
Is what I long for;
How I envy
The returning waves.
Unless of course I can get these boxes behind me.
Vote Kinky and Vote Often! |
posted Friday September 22nd, @09:01AM
Thursday September 21st
(jump earlier later)
Day 1462
desk chairs are good.
very good.
Morning
Given a choice between heliocentric,
and simply eccentric, I'll keep it simple.
Coffee comes with both.
As does sugar.
Can I see the Sports section...?
Afternoon
Work, work, work.
Evening
Behold the power of the Pyramid.
Able to overcome vast distances,
cultural differences,
and even language barriers, eh?
I'm laying 10-1 odds I'll be
a basket case by Groundhog Day.
But I hope the basket will still fit two.
Vote Kinky and Vote Often! |
posted Thursday September 21st, @08:30AM
Wednesday September 20th
(jump earlier later)
Day 1461
i like my choice for potluck
Morning
Dawn crept through the blinds,
then grabbed the stereo and DVD player.
I just poured the coffee.
Dawn still has to get past the Demon Dog
on the way back out.
Pass the sugar.
Please.
Afternoon
I'd like to go on record as stating that moving sucks. The entire process of relocation is one from which I derive little pleasure...even in the best of circumstances. The current situation, not being remotely close to "best of", is a frustrating process. The fact that's its compounded by obnoxious realtors, a nervous landlady, and a constantly shifting timetable has me raiding the Absinthe stash for both solace and fortitude. The Demon Dog and I will accomplish the task with stoic resolve, regardless of the obstacles. But we sincerely hope our sanity will not be misplaced in the process.
Evening
Ahhh...when the day is done.
Vote Kinky and Vote Often! |
posted Wednesday September 20th, @08:57AM
Tuesday September 19th
(jump earlier later)
Day 1460
technology really can suck
Morning
Did you ever see that Gallagher routine?
The one with the watermelon and the sledgehammer?
Consider morning the hammer;
And my psyche the watermelon.
And coffee is the plastic wrap over the audience.
It makes clean-up easier.
Pass the sugar...please.
Afternoon
That darn Thief was back
Evening
Goosebumps
Vote Kinky and Vote Often! |
posted Tuesday September 19th, @07:50PM
Monday September 18th
(jump earlier later)
Day 1459
is it morning yet?
Morning
The dull ache in my side
reminded me I had fallen
asleep on the TV remote again.
The sharp throb behind my eyes
let me know what I would face
as my eyelids opened.
But coffee is waiting...somewhere.
Afternoon
That Thief of Time and his pal Morpheus
are becoming real regular visitors.
But a little time off allows for that...doesn't it?
Evening
Well, that a was view from a different balcony.
I might be squandering my time condo shopping,
but at least I'm not wasting the realtor's.
Besides, doing it online alleviates that noisy
banter most realtors still seem to insist upon.
That move won't happen this year.
Barring windfalls.
I wonder if the bats would like the 19th floor?
Vote Kinky and Vote Often! |
posted Monday September 18th, @10:10AM
|
mr sean