Bloody diamonds.

bldia1206.jpgFinally got to see Blood Diamond yesterday. I realize that it is a work of fiction, but it kind of made me sick. There I was in the county surrounded by white people pushing each other to get out of the auditorium, and I wanted to sell the Mrs.’s ring and donate the money. I have never seen a herd of people pushing each other out of a movie theater like that. The skinny b!tch next to me in the crowd smacked me three times putting her coat on and didn’t even say anything to the dirty look I was giving her. We were literally next to the bathroom, and the movie wasn’t exactly very long. So it was not a mad rush for the pisser or the crapper, confirmed by my watching everyone run out the door of Hunt Valley and into their big SUVs and back to whatever housing development with $1.2 million plywood houses they live in.

No, everyone ran out of that movie because for at least a minute or two, they felt badly that their buying habits might hurt people. That their lifestyles are conducive to suffering. Everyone had their hands thrust into their pockets to hide their bling, and they just wanted to get back to the land of whitey to think about something else.

And I know because I felt badly about the diamond on my wife’s hand and the fact that I bought it without knowing where it came from and that I spent money on a new Vera Bradley purse for her for Christmas when people are starving, dying, killing each other all over the planet. I know how these whities felt because of the whitey in me, the jackass who buys stuff he doesn’t need with no regard for where it comes from, what it does to the planet.

My wife wondered, “Do you think this movie will change people?”

I am inclined to say that it will not, unfortunately. But I’d love to be proven wrong about that.

Santa loves me.

I usually score schwag of the utmost awesomeness for Christmas, with this year being no exception. Santa and family members gave me:

Animal House

Clerks II with the hat and other gear

A “What Would Nietzsche Do?” T-shirt

Blue silk Moleskine

Gnome sheets

Gnome soap

Shaving set from Burt’s Bees for when I eventually shave the monster beard

A journal for recording books read, opinions, etc.

Hemp wallet

Chia Herb Garden

Hankies with my initial on them

Gnome calendar

Today we are headed to catch Night at the Museum to feed the kid in me. The Rotunda is rocking the two films I want to see most right now. Glory. I hope you all had a nice holiday of your choice. I want to start celebrating Boxing Day next year. For sure.

Rainbow in Baltimore.

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[For larger image, click here!]

We’re having another warm Christmas in Baltimore this year. Last year, it rained hard enough to have a nice rainbow to the East of Hampden around the end of day, when the Eastern sky is usually colored nicely against the falling sun in the West. Now it’s raining enough to not allow me to have a repeat of the nice bike ride we took around the side streets in Roland Park, to the East of Roland Avenue. It’s like sledding — wiiiish, you’re doing 25 mph in a second’s time, and then you are in low gear killing yourself to get up the next hill.

This is the rainbow from the balcony at my parent’s house. I might have posted it here somewhere or sometime before, but not this shot.

I need to be reminded that Monday is Christmas. I am finished shopping and wrapping and working. I have to do some things I really don’t want to do before then, but still. You’d think I’d be a little warmer feeling about the holiday or something. Little things like the dentist, still being a little sick and my downstairs wankers — I mean neighbors — (who were finally quiet for a week got loud last night) a bit get to me, like I shouldn’t let them. I really suck at compartmentalizing and perspectives. I didn’t take any morning revenge on them, but I didn’t tiptoe around either. They are really creepy, too, but I won’t vent too much about that.

Listening to Christmas music. Lots of coffee and tea. I’ll get into the spirit more. I was before last night, anyway. The thing I don’t really feel like doing tonight involves cookies, so it can’t be horrible.

For Photo Friday: Weather.

Bulb.

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During my first Christmas season after leaving home, my mother sent me a mini X-mas tree with tiny decorations and a wee nativity scene.  It’s adorable.  But better than how cute tiny trees are (and how darling hairy guys who call things cute are) was how much it reminded me of why I miss my family when I live far away.  Lived, rather.  The card mentioned having a ten-foot tree in Roland Park (i.e., returned to Baltimore) one day but that this little one would work for now.  Well now I live in Roland Park, and while our building is not fancy at all, it’s old enough to have nine-foot ceilings.  So we could fit a bigger tree.  But I don’t want another tree anytime soon.  I like to put this little one up.  Like I do every year.

Dental X-mas (ii).

Yeah, so the dentist said that my little filling didn’t quite break off, that it looks like I brush too hard with too stiff a toothbrush. Okay, fine and good. Lots of worrying for nothing. And I mean worrying. Whoever was in there for an hour before me was getting the hell drilled out of their teeth, and that noise, that noise, well you know that noise if you’ve ever accidentally had your front teeth broken by a ring (not in a fight though, which sounds much cooler) and had to have them drilled away and capped.

I was elated. I gave the dentist two thumbs up with his hands shoved in my mouth. No dilling! But no. Or yes. I have a “surface cavity” on another tooth, from eating too much candy. Ain’t that a bitch?

A CANDY CAVITY!!

At least I got to have breakfast at Cafe’ Hon after not having anything done today. And I get the other thing and a cleaning done tomorrow. Cross your blogging fingers that the little cavity is all he wants to drill me for. Please. Yes. Do. A nice X-mas gift would be no more holes in my head than the little one he wants to put in tomorrow. Better than candy, this time.

Dental X-mas.

In the summer of 2002, I broke the side of my back tooth on a Corn Nut. Got it fixed, etc. Now it seems that half (or all) of what was plugging the hole is gone. So I get to spend a Christmas week day at the dentist tomorrow morning. Yay.

It doesn’t really hurt. I assume and know that exposed toothy pulp dealy hurts like hell, and I can say that does not seem to be the case. I can eat and talk and have tea. So I hope they just fix glue to glue and send me on my way. As opposed to, you know, drilling another hole in my head. Though I guess I can live through that, right?

Corn Nuts be damned.

Coffee spreads darkness?

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I have been sick on and off for almost two months, and I really like tea when I am sick. Some nice English Breakfast (or, better, Irish Breakfast) with considerable sugar and a splash of milk, and I feel a little better already. I could never put my caffeine addiction on hold enough to actually have tea for breakfast (except for a month and a half in 2003 when I was vegan and didn’t like black coffee and never drank any, neither of which are the case now), though. But the last few sicknesses were very…throaty, and I have discovered the joy of a pot of strong tea in the morning. For all of its virtues, French press coffee is not kind to a sore throat. My wife got me sick again last week, and she turned out to have a less severe type of strep throat, so we assume that’s what has me hacking up things that look like green pasta in the morning (yum!).

Back to tea. Very yummy. My current favorite for mornings is the Republic of Tea’s new Irish Breakfast, a tin of which is on its way here with some Christmas gifts, some self-Santa playing on my part. Probably tomorrow.

On the other hand, I was on medicine and tea all last week, and the whole series of days seems like a blur. So maybe the burn-through-it-all of coffee is a good thing, too. Or maybe I wasn’t drinking enough tea, since it hurt to swallow all week (poor me).

I finished Christmas shopping today. Post Office tomorrow to send gifts to Oregon and Florida and a few packages to arrive from online shopping, and I’m all set. Things I ordered were late the last two years, and it did more than bum me out.

Speaking of bummed, the kickstand I bought today won’t attach because of bolt size issues. And I was all happy to find a black one, since all the hardware on my bike is black. Long story involving stoners and me trying to file metal down. To the local hardware store I go this week, lest I lose a precious finger.

And, in closing, some advice from Nietzsche on coffee and tea:

A few more hints from my morality…No meals between meals, no coffee: coffee spreads darkness. Tea is wholesome only in the morning. A little, but strong: tea is very unwholesome and sicklies one o’er the whole day if it is too weak by a single degree. Everybody has his own measure, often between the narrowest and most delicate limits. In a climate that is very agacant, tea is not advisable for a beginning: one should begin an hour earlier with a cup of thick, oil-less cocoa.

Nietzsche, in Ecce Homo (page 239 in current Kaufmann translation).

Bikes for Christmas.

I wonder how feasible something like this would be in Baltimore.  Probably not very.  We don’t even have a BikeBaltimore blog like Portland does.  But I am not posting it to be a pain the bikeseat.  I sure don’t do anything for bike advocacy around here.  I hardly even ride when I can walk instead.  I post it because my friend Brian is in the article, and you can see more photos of him if you click the first one you see.  Tell him to move back to Baltimore and to set up something similar here.

Waking up sick: now with Awesomeness!

Music and household/kitchen items and small actions that you can use like drugs!

1) Wake up, put PJs on. Give your downstairs neighbors who were loud all night the benefit of an early wake-up by riding your deskchair around on the floor. This will also knock some of that nasty stuff in your throat/nose around. Spin a little. It’s fun.

2) Pee, and try to hack up something you can spit out with that satisfying “thwap” in the water. Wash your hands. Put on some Rammstein, beginning with the soft “Wo Bist Du?”

Ich liebe dich.
Ich liebe dich nicht.
Ich liebe dich nicht mehr.

3) Louder Rammstein as you sit with tea to try to get some of that crap out of your throat so you can actually talk. Go nuts, and make sure you look at it. If it’s foggy outside like it was in Baltimore this morning, imagine trying to blow all that fog out of your nose. It helps. You are a giant. You can do it, Slugger.

4) Take medicine and orange juice and hit computer. Wrap in a red fleece blanket (red is sexy). Put on some Cat Stevens. “The Wind” will make you feel better, and “Can’t Keep It In” will help get out some more of that nasty stuff.

5) No sad music. Only an overabundance of cheerfulness will kick your cold. Or something like that. No Radiohead. The Clash, The Ramones, something speedy and affirming to get you started.

6) When you can talk, beg your S.O. to get you some vanilla ice-cream for breakfast. If [s]he’s awesome, [s]he’ll be down for it. Eat 1/4 of the pint while listening to Crash Test Dummies’ Christmas record. That deep voice will get the rest of that crap out so you can start your day.

7) When your S.O. says that you should take the day off and not read or be productive, don’t fight the urge to be a lazy-ass. You worked through being sick all week. Chill for a day. Shop for presents online, and play Call of Duty. Leave something ass-kicking on in the background. A playlist of Tool’s faster songs or Interpol.

8) Repeat as needed.

Grinch story as somewhat Nietzschean.

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It’s a serious possibility that I am just fever-brained and/or reading too much Fritz.  But how about the Grinch as the epitome of ressentiment?  He can’t stand the proud Who people and makes them out to be evil/materialistic/wrong.  How about the redemption through music?  Living in a mountain cave with only animal companion[s], Zarathustra-style?  Though I think it’s bunk, since then the Grinch displays elements of the weak and the strong morality.  Nevermind.  But imagine if Dr. Seuss read Nietzsche?

Sick.

I am sick of being sick. Off and on for a month. I went to bed to watch the news at like 10:45 last night. I’m never in bed then. I think something might be wrong with me.

I am sick of my downstairs neighbors. They have some jerkass friend of theirs staying with them (for like a month or two now) with this booming voice, and they keep me up almost nightly. Long story. It can’t help to get better with this crap. It’s supposed to be stopping, for exactly the second time. I hope so, for their sake. I can be vindictive. Did you know that?

And this makes me feel sick in my little heart: Paul Fisher has died. I got his mailing address a few years ago from a mutual acquaintance and have been meaning to write to him. Too late now, and it’s very sad that such an inventive man is gone.

Monuments.

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I’ve been having a very Baltimore existence lately. Went to see the Washington Monument get lit up Thursday, for one thing. I admit that I almost pooped in my pants when they set off the fireworks at the end of the countdown. Really. I thought someone got shot or something. And no, I didn’t realize why we were all crowded on the West side of the statue, the only place not on fire later.

Been getting to see a lot of the city on foot, which is great. I love Baltimore best on foot. Even over on a bike.

I know a lot of people think/know that Cafe’ Hon is not exactly the “real” Baltimore, and I suppose I should resent it a little, as it perpetrates its authenticity less than a block from where I grew up “authentically” in Baltimore. But first, I don’t want to get into a “who’s more Baltimore” pissing contest. I have my funny OHs and Ds that should be Ts, and I don’t think it’s worth trying to prove who’s more…whatever you want to call the Hon-saying Baltimore. Second, I like the Hon, especially the bar.

Anyway, part of the Baltimoreness lately is a visit to Cafe’ Hon tomorrow with my mother-in-law, the first visit to the restaurant since I’ve been living back here. The last time I was at the bar was post-wedding last month, and we were all dressed up — which made me self-conscious. Not that the Hon Bar is not a dressy place, just that I am not a dressy guy, and I don’t like to walk around that way more than I have to usually. Or maybe I was just drunk from the wedding, which I doubt but really should have been with my being a lightweight drinker these days and how much I actually drank, etc. Whatever. Enough about drinking. I need to find a job in a few months.

Roxxx.

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My brother is crazy about his little Pug named Roxy. In this photo, what you can’t see are her sweater (pink and leopard print), Christmas collar and purple harness. Brother-man’s getting married in June, but he tells me that Roxy is his daughter for now, since he and his soon-to-be wife don’t want to have kids for a while. I don’t blame them.

Roxy gains weight whenever I am around. I can’t resist how pathetic little pugs look sometimes. She looks like she didn’t spot in time before hitting a wall and that it still hurts. I fed her enough veggies to qualify her for PETA during Thanksgiving dinner.

[Larger image at Flickr.]

The God of Walkers.

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Yesterday, my God was the God of Walkers and the Bike. I got in an eight mile ride (short for a weekend ride, but I’m out of pedal practice) and a five mile walk to Whole Foods to score some Burt’s Bees gear and Preserve toothbrushes. The only bad thing is that it made the cold I can’t seem to shake ten times worse. But I find this passage from Moleskine and walking hero Bruce Chatwin heartening just the same:

He offered to show me over the Institute. In their library the books were all Bahai literature. I noted* down two titles — The Wrath of God and Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, Bahai Ullah. There was also a Guide to Better Writing.

“Which religion have you?” Ali asked. “Christian?”

“I haven’t got any special religion this morning. My God is the God of Walkers. If you walk hard enough, you probably don’t need any other God.”

From Chatwin, Bruce. In Patagonia. Penguin Books: New York, 1988 edition. Page 33.

*[In a Moleskine? :^)]

34th Street.

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34th Street, right after they lit it all up. I saw so many cameras that night that I got a little self-conscious with mine. Obligatory to post a photo, though, as a Baltimore blogger, I guess. Or at least as a native Hampdenite.

Photo Friday: Stillness.

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Caffe’ Paradiso, Cambridge, Massachusetts. November 2006.

I’m going to pass up my hundreds (yes, too many!) of photos of Walden Pond from three weeks ago for this week’s Photo Friday (Stillness). There were two events of stillness while we were in Boston: our pilgrimage to Walden Pond and when I sat in my favorite coffeeshop for a few hours and worked and wrote. This is a photo of the latter, one of at least four or five cups of coffee I drank while I sat and read Nietzsche’s The Gay Science and recounted events from our trip in my Moleskine, in burgundy ink.

I didn’t want to leave, but I was starving, and we were going to have great Vietnamese food that night. The belly rules.

[Larger image at Flickr.]