"Is this some kind of joke?"

For anybody who regularly follows my writings and blogs, this apology is for you. You know that I haven't been posting lately. I've been a little consumed with this past week's nearly sixty hours of getting about in the last four days. It's all part of this program I'm involved with, and while it's useful, it certainly wears on the person not yet willing to submit to automobile culture.

I leave our place in Long Beach before seven am, ride my bicycle to the train (the LA Metro, a train line I still habitually and unconsciously call the "subway" when I talk to folks) and cruise to Huntington Park, in former South-Central LA. From there I bike to my first destination. Later, I bike back to the subway, cruise down a few stops, exit the train, and bike it over to my second destination. Then, much later in the day, I bike it to a third subway stop and train it home, with an arrival time often closer to ten pm than maybe desirable.

It makes for an active and sweaty day, for sure. I'm sporting quite a bitchin' tan, but if this pattern of sun exposure would continue for too much longer, I'm sure I'll end up with that gross orangey-old-man-elephant skin that longtime shirtless male residents sport with alarming regularity around the Southland.

Monday and Tuesday this week were exceedingly hot and surprisingly muggy, and made me feel like a grimy mess. I mean, of course I bring a change of clothes, but by break time at six or six-thirty, I'm as gritty and greasy as a Panamanian commando. Wednesday, though, as I carried my leaden bike downstairs and outside I noticed the telltale dots of sprinkles on the sidewalk: it was beginning to sprinkle. Out loud that morning to no one in particular I said, "Is this some kind of joke?"

I may have omitted a word when transcribing it here, but you get the idea.

Then yesterday, Thursday, of course it was fully raining. And nearly 75 degrees. Which meant I was both rained on and sweaty.

Sometimes I need to vent. I try and be one of the regular beacons among my cohort for positivity, so I try my best to limit by complaining, but at one point I got almost completely fed up with the constant slick and grimy feel I can't ever seem to remove from my hands. Someone, trying to soothe me as I usually do for them, suggested a spot I could leave my bike (their in-laws) and ride with her for large portions of the ATMs (Advanced Traffic Maneuvers).

That suggestion did the trick, but not in the sense that I took her up on the offer. Everybody is so interested in helping me and supporting me and wanting to give me rides and worrying about my welfare that my only response is to be even stronger, and to double-down on the biking and the being annoyingly positive. I guess I'm just trying to model proper mature self-reliance.

Or a stubborn, independent, and recklessly dangerous streak I posses. To paraphrase Stubblefied from Villa Incognito, You're only truly living when things are at stake.

Upcoming things: I'm going to do a rundown of posts I want to put up here in the next, eh, month maybe, seeing as how that's how it may turn out.

Corrie and I went to SLO last weekend to take pictures in our wedding gear at Montana de Oro. So we have some good pictures from that and I had something to say about visiting a small town area when coming from the Big City (I'm sure it won't be original, so I may skip that part...).

I have a post about sap, the circulatory essence of plants that I've been hatching since last December, which is silly to not have written it yet.

I have two entertainment posts I wanted to put up, one about the animated television show Bob's Burgers, and one about the Disney animated feature The Fox and the Hound.

I also had a comparison of two novels that illustrate certain feelings I have about writing fiction that might be interesting.

Then there's some weird stuff I don't necessarily know where to use, like Little Albert, and the shooting that almost happened on the subway yesterday that I got to watch.

So, those are the posts I've been thinking about on the back burner since, I dunno, a while. My weeks will continue to be full for another two, and the three days of which I'm not in indisposed are full of other stuff  to do (since I don't come home during the day). Take this weekend, for example. I have five domestic activities to do (laundry (my nice stuff), Tux's food, stuff like that) and twenty-one other assignments or activities that need to be accomplished by Sunday night at ten pm.

And then we leave for New York two weeks from today.

So posting could be light. But I'm always thinking about my Caliboy Network...

Domesticated or Civilized? Also: A Sighting

Today marks the blow 'em up holiday. I joke, but not really. We're rushing to get things done around the house in order to get out of town for the nice four-day weekend. I've finished my homework and the dishes, and Corrie went off to do the laundry. I've been doing the laundry since my leg recovered enough for me to carry it down to the laundromat, and something happened yesterday that made me reflect.

Yesterday I called over to the laundromat we use to ask if they'd be open today. They affirmed that they would be open, and that they'd be offering free drying all day. Free drying excited me more than it probably should have, and I started to reflect on how that had been the first time I'd ever really felt I got any benefit from national holidays since leaving school.

Since I worked so many years in the restaurant industry, days like the 4th of July were always days I worked, even though it was usually slow as hell. Last year I was off, but I was relegated to the couch nursing my busted femur. Other years I might be off for the 4th, just not the 2nd or 3rd or 5th or 6th, so, go figure on that.

So seeing the reward of free drying got me excited, then it got me laughing at myself, and I realized that either I got to a specific level of domestication or being otherwise civilized beyond where I used to be. I still wear tattered clothes for the most part, and my hygiene is, eh, sporadic and colorful at best, but that'll be changing soon enough. But I should learn to temper my excitement at

ALSO

.I still read the comics in our local Long Beach newspaper, and one of my favorites is Tony Carillo's "F-Minus". Each strip is unrelated to its predecessor, and they take the form of thinky one-liners or non-sequitors.

The other day I saw something in "F-Minus" that grabbed my attention. The joke is funny enough, but it was the city skyline in the background that got me:

I'm not sure how easy it'll be to see here, but that skyline is unmistakably Long Beach. I could point out specific buildings, and maybe later I will, but I thought it was pretty remarkable. How does Tony Carillo connect to Long Beach? I don't think he lives in the area...maybe he does, or maybe he got a hold of a picture...

...Or maybe "unmistakable" is too strong a term.

In any case, Be Safe this weekend! 

Borrowed From Brother

When I first saw the Pixar classic Ratatouille in theaters in 2007, I remember thinking that I knew the voice of the main character, the rat Remy, but I just couldn't place it. It turns out that I didn't really know it. But, that is when I started to familiarize myself with the comedy stylings of Patton Oswalt.

I'd watch clips on Youtube and laugh. My brother had one of his comedy albums on disc, and we listened to that, and pretty soon I found anything Oswalt was associated with on streaming Netflix and instant queued them all.

There was one of those part documentary/part concert videos called, I think, "The Comedians of Comedy  Tour". That one showed what Patton's status was among his contemporary comedians, or at least the ones associated with their traveling road show (he's the ringleader). He was great is Young Adult, and I haven't yet seen Big Fan, but I'd like to.

So, when visiting my brother's house near the end of May I saw this book:

I started reading it in the morning hours when I was the only person awake and powered through nearly half of it. Dan said he had too many books in his own queue and said I could borrow it if I wanted. (I've since finished and returned it.)

There are three pieces in it that I wanted to talk about here. The first is the eponymous "Zombie Spaceship Wasteland". In this piece Patton discusses his theory about the three types of artistic type folks who, when young, are the nerdy and awkward outcasts who, when adults, enter lives of creative expression of one form or another. It has a tone and meandering, self reflective quality of one of my blog posts. Zombies want to destroy; spaceships leave; and wastelands are nostalgic for a false reality. If you consider yourself an artistic person and felt awkward or nerdy as a young person, then you'll be able to get a sense of Patton's motivations if you don't immediately agree with him. Both Corrie and I are spaceships. We've been known to leave.

My favorite piece was the first non-introduction one, about Patton's time before leaving Virginia after high school working in a suburban movie house. He does well capturing that combo of moment-enjoyment and driving-force that fuels the misery keeping you around. Having felt that before, it was easy for me to identify.

The third thing I wanted to mention was an observation Oswalt makes about Los Angeles. Now living in Burbank, he says that LA is like five of the best cities in America--and three or four of the worst.

If you haven't heard, here are some funny Oswalt tracks from his albums or Youtube clips: (These are the names I gave them, which could prove difficult later.)

1. The Angry Magician
2. The Rat Sighting
3. Dealing with a Heckler