Restraint on the 27.

pierpont0806.jpg
This will self-publish at 10:00 a.m. today when I officially turn 27. Yes, I am anal enough that I really totally actually was born at exactly 10:00. Swear. Several weeks early and with several injuries, including being blue and having a gash on my head and cheek. One of which is a prevalent (ues, I meant that word) dent at my hairline. Several others are embarrassing. But you don’t get to know about them.

This is to prevent me from over-indulging and waxing — melancholically — on the subject of getting older Wednesday. No blogging that day. No.

To make you happy, though, here is a gnome photo. It is a little guy named Pierpont that I bought for my mother because I am a sissy. At least I was manly enough to varnish it. If you are a fan of “Gilmore Girls” like the Mrs. is, you will get the name. But my official position is that I hate that show and never watch it, despite every season of it on DVD being in our little apartment. Really, I’m too awesome to watch that show like every night before bedtime. I think.

Awesomeness.

So, my awesomeness. I’ve never thought of myself as a handy guy.  I suppose I have bought into the whole brainy/practical dichotomy that seems assumed to a lot of people.  And I’ve been called “college boy” too many times by the military-type guys I know to really believe I can do things like lay concrete and do simple wiring or digging a large hole.

I have buried two dogs by hand, but that was when I was a teenager and in better shape from living on junk food, coffee and smokes.  Better shape.  Thinner, I mean.

Then in June, I dug a larger pond with my two brothers at my parents’ house for my mother, since her water turtle got so big.  What surprised me more than our ability to work together was that I can actually dig.  Both of my brothers are more capable than I am.  One is much stronger, and the other actually smacked my ass the other morning, when he went jogging up in my neighborhood.
Anyway, my parents drove out to Illinois to help us move, and they are generally the most generous two people you’re likely to meet.  There is no telling this without constant revision from the constant giving.  So when my mother mentioned wanting new lines on which to hang wet clothes, I was happy to jump on it.  I woke up early on a Saturday and got to work.

I re-wired an antique lamp.  I dug two modest holes in the ground by myself.  Then I poured 250 pounds (I shit you not) of concrete myself and set the poles, etc.  Everyone seemed very…shocked that some barefoot hippy could show up with coffee and accomplish this before lunch.  But the most surprised was and is me.  Turns out that I’m pretty handy, and books are not the thing I am best at.  No matter how many times I get made fun of for not having “experience” since I’ve spent my whole life in school, I think I can actually do things.

A week of putting together furniture and improvising when Ikea makes a small drilling/cutting error and the pleasure I took in digging and cementing have me seriously wondering if I am too late to go into something like carpentry.  I have two good friends who work in that area, but they each have years of experience.

Maybe I can learn to work with wood and be some kind of eco-carpenter on the side.

Me no respite bloggy bloggy doo doo.

Many of my favorite bloggers are travelling, moving or otherwise taking much-needed breaks, and I find myself busier these days, with moving in and setting up and etc.  But when I, for one, get some time to play on the computer, I’m sad that there are not very many bloggers writing these weeks.  But, more to appreciate this fall, I’m sure.  With enough rocking-ness to go around and then some.

I am off to Washington, DC tomorrow for some exploring and Smithsonian-ing.  Every time I’m in Washington, I’m between trains from Carbondale-Chicago and Chicago-Washington and Washington-Baltimore, so I have not gotten a chance to visit the Cap in a long time, not since 1998, just before the Mrs. left for the Crimson Stain and I started my second year at the Gouch.  And I have not been in Baltimore for my birthday since I turned 21 in 2000, so in place of a birthday dinner, I have requested a group outing to said destination.  Very.  Early.  And I’m sure it will exhibit all the traits of awesomeness.  And when the big V bestows the ole DSL on us later this week, there will be photos.

Hopefully not photos of me being thrown into a swimming pool (once already this year) or doing bad things under the influence of anything from the Hon or Mr. Adams.  However, Mr. Adams does owe me a bit of fun after my gift to my brother for his birthday last week of a painting of Mr. Adams I found at an antique store and some nice Oktoberfest Lager.  I feel like they should pay me for that, one way or another.

Until DSL, only stories of awesomeness, with which you must use your imagination.  If anyone is reading, during the universal blogging respite.

Dialing up.

Coming to you via dial-up. I used to have this, even when I first started blogging. Hell, until Verizon DSL hit the Dale. Now it seems that the great big V is taking forever to set up our DSL, so they have hooked us up with free dial-up. Wow, talk about not being to go back! No online Call of Duty, either, unless we “try” the wireless in the building for a week for free until they get the DSL ready the day after my birthday next week.

I am very sore from standing barefoot on wooden floors and putting together so much Ikea stuff, but the new apartment is shaping up nicely. Plenty of wood and muted colors. Very…Zen feeling in here now.

Got me a slit finger tip. One of my knuckles is missing most of its skin, too. I will refrain from posting photos, though, like I did last summer with my missing toenail.

Tonight is my brother’s birthday. It’s nice to be back in town and to be able to celebrate with him. To complete my bitching, I’m feeling sick today. However, a little gnome climbed out of a box today to inform me that beers at the Hon Bar will make it better. So if you are in Baltimore at the Hon Bar tonight and see a bearded dude who looks like he feels better, come say “hello.”

Almost moved in.

I love Ikea, but man, we have so many pieces of gear to put together that we gave up.  We got all of our stuff into our new apartment Saturday, but we had to buy AC units and fans because Baltimore is hot, too — more so at night than the Dale.  So Sunday meant shopping.  Also for a new toilet seat.  Yeah.  But Monday means sanding and putting together the bed (!!) and starting to live where we live.  In our new little home.  It also means that there is no DSL until Tuesday, maybe Monday.  Me no online go crazy wazy something something.

Accumulating again.

tompho0806.JPG
No, that’s not my phone. I could use a new one, though not a fancy one like that.

All day Monday at Ikea and then Tuesday night have combined to replace too much of my stuff and to smack my bank account around like Ikea loves the idea of me as a broke student. On the bright side, we did replace what we cast off with simpler and more economically sensible versions.

We did not get more “funky” stuff, though. We had an off-white couch and earthy-toned stuff for five years, and we thought we’d get something funkier this time around. Green couch, red couch, blue couch, black couch. We bought the “natural” colored one. Off-white cotton. I am afraid I am growing up a little:)

When we first moved to Carbondale, we had a really nice bathroom set-up, with lots of burgundy and green and a leaf-print shower curtain. Candles and homemade soap and natural toothpaste. I mean, it all came from Target and was not expensive, but a friend of the Mrs. said that she cried once when she thought of our bathroom, that it represented our peaceful life together. Then we traded it for a funkier orange and red set-up, and I never liked it. We went the earthy-tone route again for the potty this time, too. Even scored a leaf-print shower curtain. I should take photos when we get moved in this weekend and next week of the subtle colors. I like them a lot.

I think my rejection of Buddhism and the search for the peaceful life in late 2003 has been bad for me and has worked out as well as our funky bathroom with animal drawings on the shower curtain did. We bought a wooden soap dish this time. Wooden. That’s mad peace-inducing.

And I decided when we were casting off gear before leaving the Dale to keep my meditation cushions. I think I might need them.

Monday Ikea time.

I have not been to Ikea since early June 2005.  Did not get to Baltimore last summer in August because I had to kick the prelims’ ass a little bit, and we went car-free by the next time I was in town.  Did not make sense to get stuff just to have to move it back to Baltimore.  The last time I was there, it had not dawned on me to go car-free or to move to Baltimore or to change career paths if I was unhappy with the way my life was going.  I figured that if we just filled up our apartment and made it less white and square, everything would be Okay — like the dude in Fight Club, but with way less money.

We are going tomorrow and will spend a lot of money we’ve been saving because we have no furniture, save three tables that I do not think we have room for.  No bed, no bookshelves, no sofa, no chairs, etc.  Pulling a trailer and not renting a big truck and needing to gas up two vehicles to drag the nice family members who helped us move and all of our gear is how we have the dough to really go nuts there tomorrow.  We are going to spend 4-5 hours at the store and cafe’, which is nice, because I like their food (Minestrone = to die for).

It is also a good chance to start over, sans a lot of crap.  Hopefully, we will be smarter about the drama we bring home and the money we leave at Ikea — i.e., not too much furniture or too expensive, better use of space and money, enough bookshelves, etc.

I like fresh starts, and this move seems like one in so many ways that what my hairy butt sits on to read ought to be a little fresh, too.

Mt. Sterling, KY.

inn0806.JPG
I know I have been…critical of where I just moved from, but I don’t think it would be fair to say that I am a stuck-up city boy — not that said name-calling has been perpetrated. Yet. Not that I’m admitting to being overly-critical about it.

Anyway, I have always had good experiences in Kentucky. The landscape is stunning, and the people are always friendly, polite, helpful, all the qualities that are nice to have in locals when you are visiting a place. To boot, at least in my experience, drivers in Kentucky are very proficient and considerate — a big plus since so much of my time in Kentucky has involved driving through it. It usually feels to me like the Old South you see in movies, where people are polite and carry hankies, like I carry. We pulled into a motel in Mt. Sterling late at night, and the gentleman on duty got angry with the phone ringing and a song on the radio, which we switched off with a, “not that damned song again!” But he was very courteous with this bearded city boy who wandered in and usually speaks too quietly.

I know this is small. But I am tired, and it’s the most concrete thing I can come up with at the moment. And after living for three years witnessing few manners (which is not to say none), it’s nice to experience something like that when you are tired and just spent one of two days in a truck pulling a trailer.

And I totally have a thing for inexpensive motels and hotels. Even if the exhaust fan is broken in the potty, and I spray my Burt’s Bees deodorant in my mouth by accident because I sneeze from the steam.

TIMAB* i: 1,000 peeps.

There are a million things I have missed about Baltimore for the past five years while I have been away at grad school. The first thing is a thousand things: people. A city would not be what it is without its people. I have been to dumps that I loved because of the people, and I have been to beautiful settings that were completely ruined by being disproportionately full of jerks. Baltimore has a great location and geography and culture and history. But Baltimore is nothing without my Baltimoreans.

This includes people I actually know. My first day here, I ran into an old Scout leader at Superfresh, the place where I always run into people I used to know and sorta still know. In the evening, I chatted into two people I went to college with at Whole Foods, one of whom lived on the “party hall” with some of us upper-classmen when I was a senior and onto whom I used to dump trashcans full of snow while he was in the shower to a very loud, “Ahhh! Johnny!”

There are my brothers, without whom unloading my worldly goods after two days in a truck would not have been possible, and of course the rest of my immediate and extended family and friends. All of whom I love and throw snow and water and food on also. Snot rockets on some of them, in fact — a real sign of love.

But it is also good just to see familiar faces of people I do not and never did really know. Like people who have worked at the Giant since I was a little guy who had yet to even know what graduate school was. My parents’ strange neighbor who is usually only friendly with one of my brothers and myself. Security guards who used to follow us around the Rotunda as teenagers and who erased the tagging in green marker we put everywhere with our band name. Kids who used to get on my nerves playing outside at six (!) in the morning on weekends who are now large enough to bust my ass around the block. People who work around here who now have more and cooler tatoos. Newscasters who have gotten older and tanner but who too often have the same haircut they had while I was in gradeschool — especially Jeff Barnes who was in Baltimore, then in Boston while I lived there, then back to Baltimore when I moved to Carbondale. Same. Hair. Cut.

*[Things I missed about Baltimore.]

Arrived.

In Baltimore. I’m pissing myself with excitement to be here, but it still feels like a visit, like it has for over five years. The new Tevas I’ve saved for this day are being broken in, and the sounds of the city are soothing my tiredness after all that moving. I don’t get into my new apartment until a week from this weekend, so I am staying with family until then. It’s funny to see all of my earthly possessions in a large pile in the garage where a big pickup truck should be. It’s nice to know that everything I and the Mrs. each own can fit into such a space, though. My environmental “footprint” is getting smaller. And I feel good about that.

Bye-bye, Dale.

glass0806.JPG
We are off Monday morning. Despite having recycled and donated a ton of stuff, it’s alarming to see how much us left. But for two people, to be able to actually fit everything we own into one room (including transportation machines) with 1/2 of the room to spare is good enough.

Of course, whenever I move, it’s hot. And this weekend is no exception. Even moving out of Boston three years ago was during a heat spell. Spell. But at least there is no heavy furniture to carry this time. And at least I get to see a few nice family members who are driving all the way out here to help me move. I’m a pretty luck guy.

I am a very…sentimental guy, and I get sad when I do things I like for the last time. While I may sound “bitter” and like I hated all of my time here in Carbondale, there are things I will miss a lot. Biking is easy and peaceful here, and there are certain paths and routes that I like to take. I wanted to take the one I took the day I bought my bike and drove home with a big smile that made people stare. I wanted to take some photos in the Quad, in the Department, at Arnolds Market. To visit a non-crowded, non-$10 movie theater one last time. The trail around the lake on campus. The farmers’ market. Downtown. A lot of things I didn’t get to do for the last time, consciously savoring them to make me sad, but I think it’s a good thing.

This happened when we left Boston, too. I planned on going to Boston College again to take some photos, the Public Garden, etc. But things got busy, and it didn’t pan out. And this allowed me to just enjoy my time more, rather than really looking at the rubber on the steps as I left the subway on my home from downtown one last time to the quiet little neighborhood on the shore of Quincy Bay where I lived. This way, I didn’t get all gloomy about the last trip through campus, the back roads through the woods or to the movies/mall. I just enjoyed them without realizing what was a last time and what was not. Being too attached to things and activities makes it very hard to just be sometimes, and I suppose that abandoning Buddhism (for various reasons I see as a series of little smoke-screens now) for the last three years might have been a bad way to change the way I attach myself to things.

I don’t know if that makes any sense to someone who’s not foolishly sentimental. Like I am.

Prospected.

pros0806.jpg

I am officially a PhD candidate now. I think. There was some paper signed by the members of my committee that I think makes it official. Or something like that.

This is my new university ID photo. They made a mistake on my first one and had me listed as an undergrad, a mistake I didn’t discover for a long time. They also messed up the computer and gave me the same library privilages of a professor or something like that. The dude at the library told me, but I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter now, so I finally got a new ID. The Mrs.’s first remark was, “You look like a terrorist.” Damn, I do a little. And I don’t mean that the way it seems, which is plainly racist. Plenty of bearded white guys are crazy and are terrorists.

Not me, though.

At my prospectus defense: I am not well-spoken, so I wrote out my preliminary “remarks,” but no one seemed to mind. The purpose of the prospectus defense, as explained to me, is to be helpful, not to get grilled. And I didn’t get grilled. I got helped. A lot. It was very instructive.

However, my dissertation topic is slightly morphed now. I was writing about one thing in order to write about something bigger. The advice I was given was to just write about the bigger thing, which is sound advice I think. Turns out that the awesomeness of my department means that no one will make me write about enemies to talk about hate. I can just write about hate. Was encouraged to write about hate.

Funny, the guy who owns more gnomes than he’ll admit to is writing a dissertation about hate. Yeah, all my Marilyn Manson albums are between the Amelie soundtrack and Crash Dummies. Ain’t I a paradox?

(Seriously, I love M.M.)

Woody pen.

woody10706.jpg
Yeah, I’m gonna write about a pen. I looked at the amount of plastic lately that I kept throwing away as I went through pens, even refillable gel pens, which run out quickly and still waste as much plastic per writing distance as a PaperMate. Not to mention wood from pencils that I rarely touch anymore. I stuck with refillable and use-me-forever Space Pens for a while, but I wanted something different on a grad student budget. So I did some web-searching and found biogradable corn starch pens, cardboard and paper pens, the whole deal. I also found what might just be the greenest pen around: Goodkind Pen Company‘s Woody. I picked up one for me, one for a friend’s birthday and a “Widebody” for the Mrs. Thanks to the nice folks at The Greenstore, they came very quickly via the Postal Service, my favorite delivery service.

It is made of “reclaimed” wood, recycled steel and is laser-engraved (no paint). The ink is not petro-based like ballpoint pen ink usually is, and they tell me that the brass of the refills can be recycled after the ink is gone. It’s billed as a pen that is not meant to be thrown away, that is meant to be well-made and refilled and reused. To drive the point home, they come with a free refill in the same color. The package is made of 100% recycled and recyclable plastic and is reusable. Stamp it, drop it in the mail, and they will use it again. It’s very earth-friendly, but is it any good?

woody20706.jpg
I only have tried one of the four models (two if you count the different widths), and it is a very attractively designed pen. Mine has a cap like a normal ballpoint pen, with a sturdy metal clip on the cap. There is no wobble with the refill, and the engraving is very clear and deep. It is slightly thicker than a Bic pen, and the Widebody is very thick. Both are light-weight, and the natural wood provides a secure grip in sweaty hands. (And if you live in the US, you know how hot it’s been lately.)

I bought one for my roommate during my third year of college over six years ago at Walden Pond that had the Thoreau Society logo (which they still sell), and I remember it not writing very well. It turns out that Goodkind makes them, and they must have worked out whatever was up with the ink.

woody30706.jpg
The Woody writes beautifully and consistently and without the greasy smell I always get from ballpoint pen ink. It dries quickly and does not smear at all. No skipping. I have not gotten anything written on with it wet yet, so I can’t tell how it holds up under such conditions. It works for notes, letters and journalling so far.

This fall will be my last “back to school” ever, so I think I’m going to treat myself to the “Triggerwood” pen and pencil set for getting to work on the dissertation. I play with pens a lot, and this has been my favorite for over a week and half now — a long time for me.

(Check out my Flickr for larger photos.)

Edit: Goodkind has an official website up here. Flannel!

Johnny Green Boy.

purflow0706.jpg
I was going to write about my new favorite pen, but I suppose this is a better context to explain why I’m not drooling nightly over pencil and gel pens anymore. Pen next time.

I have been making an effort to make bettter choices lately in the area of the modern lifestyle dealy. I think it started to become a way of using things and buying things and getting around in the world after I went vegetarian four years ago and started thinking more about the things I buy and consume. Is this tested on animals? Is there leather in that? It might be cliche, but I think being a vegetarian and an environmentalist are not very different, since each comes from a similar conscientiousness. Or, if you are no friend to treehuggers or bunnyhuggers, from a similar neurosis. So I’ve now widened my circle of Johnny-Hug-Receivers to include the proverbial trees, in addition to the bunnies I’ve been metaphorically hugging for a while now.

The hardest thing has been allowing myself to just go with the “hippy” thing. I got married on a lake in a hemp suit and barefooted and had fancy hippy veggie food from a place called The One World Cafe’ at my wedding. But I would officially play it off as just the kind of “aesthetic” we were going for. The tan hemp we wore did go with the whole fall wedding in a lake amidst pinetrees setting nicely, in a place with wood walls and stone floors. After all, we drove a car and were occasionally lazy about recycling, not to mention my fascination with paper and disposable pens.

We have some friends of the family who are really weird about everything. Won’t shop at normal stores, wear normal clothes, wear deodorant, etc. They are not weird because they care about the planet or animals or anything; they just think that everything makes them sick. And they’re really obnoxious about it and insufferable, and they give nice weird people everywhere a bad name. I’ve never gone to anyone’s house and criticized the meat in the fridge or refused to eat at a table with a turkey on it. These people say things like, “I can’t believe you eat non-organic produce,” when they come to your house.

I don’t want to be one of those nasty people. When I quit finally smoking a few years ago, a smoking friend said to me once, “You’re not going to get all self-righteous because you finally quit, are you?” I’ve been paranoid about that ever since, and that might be good.