it comes and goes

now appearing here.

hold on tight.

conversation

-why did you do that?

-because i wanted to remember.

-remember what?

-what's the most important thing to you?

-well...my mom and dad.
and soccer.

-would you ever want to forget about mom and dad and soccer?

-no.

-okay, well this is my way of not forgetting about what's most important to me.

-oh...
what's that?

-we only get one shot at this.

-at what?

-at life.

[crying.]

tightrope

wednesday is the only weeknight when something isn't going on after work, so it's come to feel much like a sunday. in celebration of going straight home, i left work, cracked a beer, cooked myself dinner, and sat down to watch a movie: man on wire.

i was expecting only a documentary about a frenchman who walked a tightrope rigged between the world trade center towers in 1974. instead i was sucked into the story of phillippe petit's unrivaled passion and obsession with the seemingly impossible. not only was the story well told by those who lived it, but it was visually translated with some stunning black and white scenes, old photos, and playful quirks. the music was also great, making the mission's risk and its resulting tension tangible.

the story took an abrupt turn in the last, maybe, 10 minutes when the petit of the story--this creative, vibrant, incorrigible youth--crashes into the petit of present--this arrogant, self-centered, pompous man. after accomplishing a feat like that one has to change--there's no choice. and while the movie doesn't expressly mention it, it shows his once-best friend alluding to the fact that relationships were broken as a result of the feat. with a little smirk, he said it "didn't matter because, well, because we succeeded, and..." and then a few minutes of silence and he comes to absolute tears.

the story's tone so quickly turned from this amazement and euphoria to this heartbreaking nostalgia that bordered on regret. that said, the fact the film showed this downturn and ended there made it so much more complex and real.

when watching i wondered what petit felt when he learned that the two buildings, these two buildings that he thought were built for him and his tightrope, were destroyed. the answer didn't fit into the movie but it did make me wonder about the connections he have to non-living things and the "lives" that those things "live".

* * *

today i came home and after going through the mail picked up this book i'd bought at target earlier in the week. i knew it was about some event happening in new york in the 70s but not more than that, and i only bought it because it won the national book award and was on sale. from the book's jacket, "In the dawning light of a late-summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. In the streets below, a slew of ordinary lives become extraordinary in bestselling novelist Colum McCann’s stunningly intricate portrait of a city and its people."

can i get a definition, please?

i think my understanding of the word 'meme' is going to be a lot like that of 'status quo'. while it may take months for me to accurately grasp it's meaning, it's real importance has already become clear: 99% of the people who use it in daily conversation are not as cool as they think they are.

running around the graveyard

fall, leaves. rip down
your wrinkled remains. the sun's high
in the autumn sky, but everyone's
on to winter.

listen--city buses, church pews
barber chairs--the incessant chatter
of the unrelenting chill.
this isn't small talk.

no one consults the calendar,
the thermometer--the vital signs
of your future that reason weeks
more orange & yellow.

people hear your crunch as they walk
like a death rattle. an echo
of their fear, of the looming
dark days and icy streets.

they know better

but willingly excuse themselves
with complaints that "it just goes so fast."

fall, leaves. stop clinging
to temperate times. cut loose
your full veins, cover these cracked stones
like a life less decoration.

it's the same circle every year.

universe, you've done it again.

in my unexpected day off, i was going through some things and found this. i'm not sure what the source is, but it obviously it spoke to me at the time and certainly does today.

"a knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. in this sense, and only this sense, i am a deeply religious man... i am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the reason that manifests itself in nature."

plucked feathers

a man stands in his store front--stares
thru a window separating him
from the world.   wears an apron
separating him from a mess.

the sign frames
this glass-box scene.   claims
"pollos vivos" which means
"live chickens" which, of course, really means
dead chickens.   the way hello
can really mean
good bye.

waking up

early morning
in the alley. tentative sparrows
bounce towards the expanding water pool--a mushroom cloud
of skunked beer, spit, and piss.

so much beauty in dirt.

all i want for christmas:
Pictorial Webster's: Inspiration to Completion from John Carrera on Vimeo.

but i will ask for this version.

on my way home from work i make up stories about people.

the man, who believed himself to have the gift of x-ray hearing, sat on his front stoop and twiddled his arthritic knuckles, irritated with the disbelievers. a girl walked by. he closed his eyes to appreciate the swish swish plink of her full bladder. at the intersection she pulled a metal bottle from her bag and downed the last gulps of water.

working from home--kind of like a richard scarry book

the cats are at the kitchen table. i work at the computer and they watch out the window, keeping tabs on the kids come and go to school; the pigeons sweeping the streets for city crumbs; the cars compete with the bikes; the leaves resting--happy to not be terrorized by wind and rain for a time.

without moving, things are changing

tonight i found that the markers of my childhood had run dry.

dirty projection

"two people looking at each other, each thinking that they are perceiving one another, but really perceiving themselves projected onto the other."

i got star struck

last night i had the great thrill of going to the where the wild things are pre-screening, thanks to an invite from a very boring store. with the anticipation of other things going on this week, i hadn't given the screening much thought. when i got there just after 5:30 the line-up at the door was huge, so clearly it was on the minds of many other chicagoans.

the night included a few nice surprises: max* records was there and did a Q&A, led by dave eggers, before the screening. he talked about the eccentric audition spike jonze put him through and what it was like to be on the set in australia. my favorite part was when someone said something like so you're pretty young but do you see yourself doing more things like this in the future? max replied with a pause and an ummm and finally well, i guess it depends on the project. and then followed up with another huge cliché like, we'll just see what comes my way. the audience erupted, and i don't think max had a clue why. it was touching to see a 9-year-old that was so mature and yet so innocent.
[*in line for the bathroom after the movie, a little girl asked her mom, do you think they only interviewed boys named max for the movie?? yes little girl. yes they did. welcome to the wild world of discrimination.]

the showing of the movie was interesting because the screen was much smaller than a "normal" size screen. giving up the screen size in favor of the music box's atmosphere was alright by me, though. as for the movie itself, i thought it was great. i was most impressed by how dave eggers and spike jonze took this short, illustration-heavy book and turned it into a full-length film with developed characters. in reading the book i always took the land of the wild things as pure escapism on max's part-- a secret place where he could flee to, be reckless and untamed, and be the "ruler." the movie, however, revealed the wild things as an extension of max. carol, THE wild thing, is dealing with the same issues in his world as max is at home. not to mention, all the other wild things (the bull is still my favorite) have their own personalities and problems.

i also loved how the movie treated the mother-son relationship. in the q&a spike jonze mentioned how disliked the book was by certain groups when it was published because of it's unconventional portryal of parenting. like the book, the movie shows an undeniable love between mother and son, and yet there are complications and problems. at times, the roles almost reverse and catherine keener becomes more child-like as she asks max to tell her a story or falls asleep while he's eating at the kitchen table. i think that's why i loved the movie so much: while it reminds us what it is to be a child--all the strife, all the joy, all the adventures--it suggests that it shouldn't stop after adolescence. oh, and everything else about the movie was awesome too. karen o. can officially do no wrong by me! the way the score was so seamlessly integrated into the movie so that you didn't know whether it was her or the wild things bansh-y-ing was perfect.

after the movie spike jonze and catherine keener (another surprise!) did a Q&A. sj seemed incredibly nervous, which i found both surprising and endearing. ck was quiet and a little loopy, but it was a nice mix of the two. they made mention of a few interesting things like how sj shot dave eggers with a BB gun on set and that ck has never seen being john malkovich even though she was nominated for best supporting actress. to end the night, sj opened up his itunes to show a film that he and ck had made for maurice sendak's 82 birthday. he had a whole list of items in the "movie" section (umm, duh.), one of which i spied titled as "adidas hello tomorrow". oh yah, just in case you forgot you were in the same room as a REALLY awesome and famous person!!!!

then i rode home in the cold rain with my paper crown on my handle bars. i jumped in the hot shower and then put on my pj's, and as i towled my hair dry i howled a little wild things howl.

the determination of 100 arctic tern

the arctic tern is a seabird famous for its migration pattern. each year it flies from the arctic to antarctica, which is the farthest any animal is known to travel habitually.

as i sit here writing this, it is difficult to type because i'm shaking. why am i shaking you might ask? it is not because i'm cold. it is not because i drank too much last night. it is not because i'm in a vibrating chair. it is because i'm stupid. and also suffering from severe muscle fatigue.

a co-worker was having a moving sale today, which coincided with my plans to go to ikea. as i drove to her place this morning i had the pleasure of listening to sound opinions and was then greeted by some cool finds: two colorful schlitz trays, a framed cityscape drawing, a coffee grinder, and t.s. eliot's old possum's book of practical cats, which my mom used to read to me when i was little. pretty good haul. on my way to ikea i listed to this american life and fairly easily navigated the insanity that is a saturday spent at the swedish home furnishing store. my single lady self and prius conquered the few smaller items i got at ikea as well as the billy bookcase.

the drive home was easy, and i was marveling at all i had accomplished in just 3 hours. when i arrived at home there was even a parking spot! i unloaded everything but the bookcase, figuring i could call a favor on someone in the building to help me out. i knocked on a few doors, but no one answered. despite the fact that a friend had said she'd lend her helping hand the next day, i really didn't want to wait.

if you clicked on the link above you were taken to the ikea product page for the bookcase in question. you may have noticed the specs on said bookshelf: 79.5" tall and 11" deep, which is essentially the size of the box in which it's packaged. i should also note, that on the product's shelf in ikea there was a little yellow sign with red lettering that warned: attention! this item is more than 50 pounds and may require assistance. yes, well, we'll see about that.

somewhere, somehow there must be some semblance of drunken frat boy mentality in me because i quickly examined this situation and decided that i had enough brute strength to compensate for all the caution i had just thrown to the wind. i hauled the 6.5' box out of the car and was able to stretch my measly wingspan far enough to get myself in the middle and balance the several feet of box protruding beyond me and walk it to the front steps. after a brief break i even managed to get the box up to the front door and inside. at the foot of the flight of stairs, i rested for a few moments before grabbing the box again, assuming i could just walk it up. wrong. i made it 3 steps before my legs were shaking so badly i had to slide/drop it back down the stairs. at this point, most people would have stood the box upright in the corner and said, fine. i tried. i'll wait til tomorrow. not me. that's when the idiot in me decided, oh look how far i've come. there has to be another way to do this!

and indeed there was. i laid the box on its side and slid it up the stairs stopping at the stairs' curve to rest (really not much of a rest when you're holding a 50 pound box against your thigh). the sweat was starting to drip in my eyes, and i realized this was the half-way point on the monkey bars. as much as i wanted to turn back, doing so required as much effort as going forward. the difference here, however, was that the way forward was harder because i had jammed the box into the corner, not compensating for the curve. i also realized at this point how easily the leverage on this box could turn against me, pushing me down a full flight of stairs with 50 pounds of bookcase plus momentum following, squashing me like a gnat/fruit fly on a kitchen counter. but alas, i gathered every last drop of adrenaline i had positioned myself with about 3 feet of box in front of me and 3.5 feet behind, and wrangled it up the last few steps. by the time i pushed the box in my door, i felt like i had earned a spot on both this list and this list.

thus the reason i possess the determination of 100 arctic tern. or the stupidity of 100 lemmings.

to group or not to group

i have a window in my office. my desk is right in front of said window, and my computer is on said desk. if you've been following along this means that anything that happens within the frame of my window i can see by shifting my gaze a millimeter from the computer screen to the window.

this is both a blessing and a curse.

i was a good kid growing up. yes, i was talkative and got in some trouble for that, but i never got called to the principal's office or severely disciplined other than a few errant detentions. in first grade, however, mrs. greenlee did call my mother and set up a parent-teacher-student (parent = my mom; teacher = mrs. greenlee; student = me) meeting after school one day. at this meeting mrs. greenlee explained that while i was a very bright student i seemed to have some "focus" issues. she said that i had trouble following directions not because i couldn't understand them but because i would always get distracted as they were said. she did comend me, however, on always knowing whose pencil it was that was rolling across the floor and who was walking down the hall. it was determined, as a result of this conference, that i would devote more energy to focusing on instructions and "important" matters. my desk was also moved from the prime real estate by the interior window to the front row of the classroom.

now, after decades of "focus" and determination i have regained my rightful seat in front of a window. but goddamn, if i don't look up from an email every time a pigeon flies by! the worst/best part is that thanks to our office building being in a "U" shape, i can co-workers busy at work in their offices across the way.

as i was eating lunch today i saw a group of four ladies from work walking across the loading dock/lot. i assumed they were going to lunch, but they were really dressed down. one woman even looked like she was wearing pajama pants. about 45 minutes later i see the foursome walking back and they're all guzzling water, which made me realize they had probably all gone to the gym. mystery solved.

instead of closing tupperware and gmail and getting back to work, i instead opened this blog and starting thinking: what if we were more like pack animals? what if we did everything together. at first it seemed kind of nice. i mean the two cats living in my house certainly seem to enjoy the campionship. plus, it's fun to cook dinner with someone or talk while folding laundry. but animals seem to share everything. birds bathe together, for instance. bathing with someone else can be awesome but that's under some pretty specific circumstances. imagine having to share the shower with a sibling or a roommate at 6:30am while half-awake and potential late. awful. or eating. birds fucking chew up their food and spit it into each others mouths! awful!! or walking in a line. ducks, quail, all those foul waddle along in a line. one line leader that's not paying attention or drunk steps out into traffic during a No Walk sign and the whole lot gets run over. AWFUL!

group activities may seem fun, but after further reflection i'm a little wary. maybe that's why i was always keeping such close tabs on my classmates back in first grade.

and also why i'm always watching when those pigeons come and go out my window now.
not really to be trusted, are they?

email updates

i love when our IT department sends out emails regarding the functionality of our website. it makes me feel like i work a very high-profile, very top-secret, very dangerous job:


Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 12:40 PM
To: ala-allstaff
Subject: ALA Web Site

This morning our web site came under attack again, causing the site to be slow to the point of non-responsive.  I should say that it came under heavier attack than usual, since we're always under attack.  The extremely short version is that we were the target of a denial of service attack, that is, a huge number of requests were sent to the web site, from a rotating series of sources, making it impossible for the servers to keep up with the requests.  Since the source of the requests isn't fixed, blocking those requests is more difficult.

We're currently stable, and are watching closely.

good city morning

this morning was like any other morning; in other words, unremarkable. yet it was a perfect morning. the bus window in the back where i was sitting was open, and rather than gust of air, it was a refreshing breeze. every encounter favored the positive aspect this morning. people smiled and said good morning, the bus came right away, and all the walks sign hit in my favor. if it could have smelled delicious or noxious it was the former. the bakery on chicago was going full force and filled the bus with sweet carb-y goodness and the shopping cart man collecting bits of other people's trash smelled neutral, which compared to his potential, is fantastic. that was what made this ordinary morning extraordinary, though. the homeless man was still there, we had to wait longer than usual at the milwaukee/chicago intersection, i got off a stop early...but, for whatever reason, every banal encounter was surrounded with some sort of beauty or optimism, and before i kill that with some sarcastic comment about how sentimental and fuzzy it all is, i'll just stop writing.

sometimes i sit on the bus and think. other days i read. today i did both.

by 8:15 this morning, i'd already had several striking realizations: (this, in itself, was a striking realization seeing as how i usually don't have any realizations at all during the day.)

-at age 24, i've finally hit my stride with reading

-oprah taping on michigan ave is like a real-life version of rex manning day and probably attended by the same women

-98% of the time it's really good that cats don't have opposable thumbs. the other 2% of the time, however...