Pragmatik

So I never take the NaNoWriMo challenge. There was always an excuse. Usually, it was graduate school. Well, always, really, since last fall’s dissertation work was school-related. There was also that week I spent in Boston that killed it, too.

This year, my wife has a new job. I am job-hunting and waiting and hopelessly unemployable. So, rather than a source of stress, I think writing a bad novel in November this year will be a source of sanity. This might be the only November where I might have the time to do something like this. If I have the time now, that is.

Writing will keep me busy besides my housework. The new joke is that I’m a “house bitch” which is, I suspect, moderately sexist in, like, three or four ways. I am enjoying cooking. I made really yummy chili Monday, from scratch, my first attempt. It was awesome. When I perfect it, I’ll share the recipe. Soon, I hope.

So, tomorrow, I’m running to the market to replace the coffee jar I broke today and to get some new hot sauce for dinner. Dropping off suit for pressing (wedding to go to Saturday, by bike!). Stopping at Dunkin’ Donuts for a huge coffee.

Coming home and writing.

My title so far (provided I don’t change my topic before then): Crazy Bitches.

It’s about men who wind up with (duh) crazy bitches. And, ultimately, it’s about responsibility, a minor philosophical obsession of mine (which leaves my affection for Nietzsche as something strange, if you know what I mean).

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Yes, we are doing a Halloween ride tomorrow night. Not a Critical Mass by any means — just not enough people. And by that, I mean there are like three of us. You should come, too, if you can get your bike to the Watertower after dinner.

Also for Photo Friday: Two.

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DC Metro, October 4th. I love that subway. Check out the larger (link above), my most commented Flickr photo:)

Photo Friday: Silence.

It finally feels like fall this year, for more than a day at a time. And finally, we get some rain to help our dryness. It’s like lotion for your thighs when you hike in the winter.

I celebrated with too much hot sauce on my tacos. Habanero. So. Good. This weather makes me want to drink too much coffee. And it helps me sleep. I’m very…alert. I have to wear socks now, which just causes havoc with my hairy feet. I should go test my bike fenders that I put on a week or two ago. Get all wet and cold and come home to drink scores of coffee. Good deal.

We had a good campout this weekend. It rained like hell when we stopped for food on the way up, and we waited it out over coffee. It was wet when we got to camp. But suddenly, I felt the humidity disappear, which was nice after how hot and sticky it was Friday. When the wet air got sucked Eastward, it felt like a cold sweater.

I still didn’t sleep much, in a “lean-to” with three dudes who snored in very loud and strange and entertaining ways. I gave them prizes in my head. “Y” got the award for the most non-human sounds. I thought the bears spotted at our campsite before we got there were coming for my trailmix. “C” got the award for largest variety. His snores ranged from gurgles to grinds. “J” got the award for sheer volume. He woke himself up frequently, and I had to stomp the floor boards a few times to get him to stop buzzing so I could get to sleep before he started snoring again — which never worked.

There was little snoring the next night, since everyone was pretty sore from our day-long hike. It was 40 degrees in the mountains that night, and I slept in a cotton sweater, tucked into a mummy bag. I was very happy to feel a chill on my nose that stuck out of my sleeping bag — until I had to pee at four in the morning. Dang it.

Getting boys from Hampden and the surrounding areas to cook their own food, to hike all day and not to kill each other along the way is an accomplishment. But we had a good group for the most part, so it was not that big of a task this time around. I remember what a handful I could be at that age. I think everyone had a good time, even the older guys who needed Advil pronto. I’ll brag and say that I was ready for more after two hours sitting around the campfire with a cup of coffee. But I share Bruce Chatwin’s “God of Walkers.”

I have a lot of photos to upload, mostly to Flickr. I’ll get more up soon. I’m tired from a good ride to the county with my friend today.

So we are taking some boys camping this weekend, to include a 20-mile hike. We are going to the C&O Canal, which has a neat story itself. I’d love to get a light mountain bike and ride the whole thing one day, which would not be hard — perhaps to kayak along the length one day, too, later.

The weather for Saturday (hike day) looks gorgeous. Not too warm, definitely not cold. The last time I was there was this same weekend in 2000. I was still a senior in college and hadn’t lived anywhere but Maryland before. I said “Goodbye” to the mountains and valleys there that time; I suppose I knew it would be a very long time before I would return. I was on journal hiatus in those days and instead wrote bad poetry and played a lot of music for staying sane during my grad school applications. And I liked to take a lot of walks. That was my other car-free period, before my three cars in two years while I lived in Carbondale.

I remember coming across a page on the Sierra Club’s site about keeping “nature journals” the way that John Muir did. It’s still there, so I downloaded and printing the template, hand-cut some paper and bound some little nature journals for the boys with red ribbon. If not for poems and notes, they can always be used for rummy scores and keeping track of things seen for future use. It’s as much something for them to think about as to actually use, if that makes sense.

We’re roughing it much more than usual. No kitchen or showers or toilets or electricity. I’m bringing my own food because I don’t want to be one of those pain in the butt vegetarians who gets too vocal about it. And, I like to cook.

Instant coffee in a camp cup. The smell of my musty sleeping bag with the ducks inside. My trusty daypack. Penlights. New hiking shoes. My shortwave radio. Fire. The stars that I took for granted when I live in Southern Illinois. It’s going to be a nice weekend.

My friend Kate is pregnant! She is new to blogging and sharing the trip at Urban Mama, which you should definitely check out. I’m stoked for Dan and Kate and very much looking forward to helping to test bike trailers for Baby. Dan and I figure that, if said trailer can hold a keg of beer, it can definitely hold Baby. And, in this testing, we can have a keg of beer. See, safety can be fun! And yummy, provided we get the right beer.

I participated in the Komen Race for the Cure yesterday. Got up super early and wore layers and had lots of coffee. I even got to be on TV (in the background) and see a certain news personality on whom I have a serious crush that my wife likes to tease me about (winks at Dan).

There were weird things about the whole event. There were a lot of people doing the walk (not the run) who were wearing brand-new track clothes and stretchy things I don’t even wear for 10 mile bike rides and 20 mile hikes. I could not tell if they were congratulating themselves for doing the “race” for a good cause or if they really thought that walking for a whole hour was a serious physical undertaking.

One thing that I thought was weird was how many people had their photo taken next to the one mile marker during the walk. The whole walk was three miles, and there were far less people getting their photos taken at the three mile mark.

Don’t get me wrong. I know that I’m no explorer. I don’t walk for Thoreau’s famous four hours a day. I never jump the back fence armed with tea, bread and a blanket like John Muir. No one’s arrested me for being in the wrong country during a coup like Chatwin. But I walk more than the Komen’s three miles in a normal day, usually even a day that involves cycling.

What I mean to wonder is, are my fellow Marylanders so sedentary that they need to prove to their family, friends or themselves that they actually in fact definitely walked a whole mile at one time? I wondered that as we passed the other mile markers and noticed less or no people getting their photos taken. And when scores of people collapsed at the end, perfectly young and/or apparently reasonably fit people, I did feel a little, I don’t know, awesome because I was ready to walk all day.

I hope this is not all true because we are taking 5-10 young men on a 20+ miler in the mountains this coming weekend. They are very good kids, but they are a lot less…active than even I was at their ages. My first 20-miler at age 14 wrecked my feet (I was stupid enough to wear new boots), but I made it. I know these boys can do it, but yesterday’s Komen walk has me a little nervous. I have not the upper body strength to be carrying anyone.

Speaking of Muir, I have something neat in mind for the youngins this weekend, which I’ll share later.

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The statues at the top of the hill near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. I didn’t take any photos at The Wall. (Regardless of how I feel about the current war, I deeply respect veterans.) After seeing the WWII Memorial and its grandness at the end of The Reflecting Pool, I honestly, I thought to myself, “This is it?” Until I started reading and walking and realized how many names there were on that wall and that the monumentality of that monument is in the fact that all of the names are listed. Then I realized why my father couldn’t go down the hill on his first visit, why he used to have a replica of the statues at the top in his office before he retired from the Army. I realized, but I could never understand.

He was there. He lost friends, eventually a cousin. I felt like some stupid kid who will never get it, staring at my sweaty reflection in the black stone — thanking God, the Universe, someone, that my father’s name never made it there.

For Photo Friday: Real Life.

So in Washington last week, there were Greenpeace volunteers out recruiting. I have a lot of memberships, to groups like the Sierra Club, Center for the New American Dream, ACLU, Thoreau Society. I don’t have one for Greenpeace, though I did choose my current cell phone after reading their green electronics report (it’s a Nokia). When a nice guy was talking to us about issues, not far from the White House and a lot of Popos, we stopped to chat. We told him we’d likely get a family membership but that money is tight now with the job hunting. He was nice even after that. Yay Greenpeace.

Then later on, we’re walking toward the Smithsonian, and there are some Greenpeace volunteers parked outside of Wholefoods. Now, I’m gonna say it. The Wholefoods closest to my apartment is not somewhere you’re likely to find a lot (which is not to say no) environmentalists or even people who give a shit. No. Instead, it’s the local status market for all the look-at-me’s who roll up in land yachts and German V8s. Shopping there is a nightmare of ignorant yuppies cruising around like they own the place, who have no idea what the hell Wholefoods even exists for. Seriously, if you have an SUV like that, everything else you might try to do for the planet won’t cancel that out, especially since I doubt the average 13-passenger vehicle owner lives in a small and efficient apartment. Shopping there makes me want to make people disappear, first of all the jackass employee who parks hers or his rusty bike parallel to the bike rack, hogging the whole thing daily. I only go there for things I can’t get at the two other markets near my apartment.

Anyway, there are these Greenpeacers outside of Wholefoods in Washington. We are hot, sweaty, tired, have to pee and just want to get to the Smithsonian as quickly as possible. I know they don’t want me to sign something that I would probably really sign. I know they want a membership and that they are not getting one until I get hired. I know they are probably hot, too. So when “Mr. 22-year-old I know something so I know everything” approaches us, I try to save us all time by telling him the truth: we are in a hurry. He exclaims, “It will only take a minute!” and keeps shooting it and stomping his feet as we walk away. What. A. Weiner.

I want to run back, shake him and make me tell him what kind of car he drives. I want to shake him for all the “greener than thou” people I know, especially the ones who tell me stupid things that are not true — as if I am wrong for not “knowing” them while they are in fact false, hence my not “knowing” them. Especially people who go out of their way to tell you how green they are, how much they recycle, how they have organic shampoo — all the while owning a car they don’t need in a city where it’s easy to live without one. If one more person tells me about how they recycle their bath water over a big meat sandwich on a foam plate that they bought, I am going to snap.

I am not talking about people who own cars. Everyone I know, with one or two exceptions, owns a car. Or truck. I’m talking about people who want to be “hardcore” environmentalists but not give anything up, so they get all vocal and try to make you feel inferior to their green status. “I recycle, so it balances out. [insert other very false fact here] Johnny, you should…” Living a lie, in very obnoxious ways.

I know I’m not the greenest person around. I do have a thing for non-recycled notebooks, cheap pens, Tevas, imported beer, etc. But I don’t drive, don’t eat meat, don’t use “normal” products for cleaning my apartment or body, I live in a small apartment, don’t have AC at home. At least I’m trying and not lying to myself and everyone else and judging people who aren’t themselves first judgmental jerks. I do judge judgmental people, though. That’s probably a personal problem. Or, I like to think, me being the agent of the universe and balancing things out in some cosmic and ironic revenge on idiots who loudly think they know everything.

But that has nothing to do with organic potatoes and aloe-based toothpaste.

You’ve heard that stupid adage, “Bros before Hos!” Yeah. I like to think I’m a good bro. A dude. Today I’m going to my friend’s wedding, my college roommate. But I missed the bachelor party. I was in Washington for my own anniversary. So was that being a bad bro? I can’t figure that out. I don’t go to strip clubs, either. So I always bail before that event at bachelor parties. Nothing is more important to me than my wife. I guess I can’t be a bro then? It’s not like anyone gave me crap about it. I’m just thinking.

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For Photo Friday: Wholesome.

Because the folks in that building get to decide how un-organic food becomes labeled “organic” even when the main ingredient is not.

I had a ton of fun in Washington yesterday. More photos to follow, especially on Flickr.

While two weeks ago was the ten year anniversary of when the Mrs. and I met at a party, today is our real ten year anniversary, our first date. It is also the fourth anniversary of our marriage. We really celebrate the 1997 date. So this year is a big one.

I was going to subject you to another long narrative post (and I still might), but for now, we have to pack and get out of here! We are playing hooky and going to Washington DC for the day. Taking the 61 bus, the MARC train and the subway all day. I love mass transit. Have a Moleskine City Notebook for the city with some stationary stores, book stores and Ben’s Chili Bowl marked off. Camera batteries charged. Now I have to charge mine with the coffee I shunned yesterday.

Fall is hitting Baltimore, and the lower humidity is bringing out the things that turn me into a ball of snot, toting around hankies. I have been lucky and not had such a widespread occurrence of these “bad allergy days” as I call them in recent years. Not even in Southern Illinois, with the whole National Forest down the street. But, to be fair, my apartment there was not made for airflow, just the climate control system. There was never any fresh air there. But this fall, I have these days pretty often. It’s not fun. My nose is peeling, and my pocket gets wet from the used hankies (eeeewwww).

When I finished college and moved out, I didn’t have to take daily doses of antihistamine anymore. I grew up popping those pink pills. They made me gag when we had breakfast at McDonalds on vacation, when I tried to take them with a big white straw with a yellow and a red stripe, stuck into my carton of milk after I ate those lovely little hotcakes. Everyone assumed that I had like the worst year-round allergies. Turns out its just cats and dogs that make me go that crazy. After college, I walked around Boston breathing without drugs, and I wondered if the coffee habit I’ve had since I was 8 or 9 had anything to do with those pills….

Fast forward to now, back in Baltimore. Band nights used to have me snotting. Drugged up Monday night, feeling like crap Tuesday. But now it’s coming regularly. I was up until 3:30 the other night, with snot and stress. Yesterday, I took a Benedryl at 1:00 in the afternoon. Did something mindless. At 2:02, I noticed that the world was moving slowly, very slowly. That it felt like someone put a warm blanket on my shoulders that had me leaning forward and fighting to stay upright. One nostril cleared, and I realized that the Benedryl was working its black magic. I walked past my bed, took the red fleece blanket off the bottom, grabbed my pillow. I crawled across the diagonal and snuggled up with my clothes on. I just wanted to chill for 1/2 an hour. Next thing I know, Mr. I Never Take Naps is waking up at 4:30 screaming, “Oh $#it, I gotta make dinner!”

I usually show up at band practice with a sixer of something fantastic or some vintage sodas. Yesterday, I forgot my sweater and glasses in the drug fog and had to go back to my apartment, started running late. I called ahead and asked Dan to make some coffee (because Dan is awesome). We got hyped up on coffee and jammed our rears off, throwing the idea into the air that maybe we should be a “jam band” since we don’t have a singer. But then the drugs had me slowing down and foggy, and I had to call it a night early.

I woke up today, feeling like I drank a lot last night because I had to take more and still fell asleep with my mouth open. All I drank late at night was a lot of water and a cup of organic tea. Already through one hanky, and I think I need to take medicine again for a Benedryl Tuesday. Oh well. At least this kills my appetite, and my fat ass could use to lose some unemployed pounds.

I hope I don’t have to go get on one of those prescription anti-snot drugs. I figure that, by the time I’m middle-aged, they will have people taking pills for green eyes and brown hair, and I’ll be on all kinds of prescriptions. So I’m enjoying the time when I don’t have any daily medications to take, just my coffee problem.

I’m already at a steady rate of stress. With the job/career/money thing to worry about. Every. Day. I don’t need other things to ruin it. There is a certain job I put in for that I would love to get. Hard to think about much else. So I don’t need little things getting in my way, compiled with the weddings and events that take up the weekends this fall. The events I like. But not things like what happened today.

I live in an old building, and the building’s plumber has to come out every few months and unclog our drain. It started getting full again when I noticed that the porcelite stuff that covers the tub might have to get re-done in a few months to a year, rendering our shower non-operable for like two or three week, etc. So while I cooked breakfast this morning, the Mrs. went to buy a plunger. No, we don’t own one. The other thing about old bathrooms is that the toilets can take your leg down if you’re not careful. I think it would be pretty hard to clog, to be crude, the crapper. Anyway, I fixed the drain. Felt good about that. While spending my adult life learning to think dead guys’ thoughts, I missed out on learning really useful things. Good thing the whole Boy Scouts thing from before that taught me a lot of stuff — seriously.

We had a birthday party to go to today, and I was planning on rocking my favorite (and really, only good) suit. The Mrs. volunteered to do the ironing since I fixed the drain. Swell. Only when she touched up my coat, she melted the liner, burning about a dozen holes into my relatively new suit. Totally ruined. While it was not a huge deal for today, now that I am without a suitable suit for interviews, hell, I might get one.

This does not help my ongoing stress over getting a job and — essentially — changing careers. Ran into an old professor at the Book Festival this weekend, and I didn’t need to think about that option. It’s not like that’s an easy process or like I have teaching experience. But he’s a cool guy and does not push me in that direction. I just thought of it for half a second when I saw him. But, thankfully, it was more as a last-resort than as a consideration.

Thought, I suppose, the day is not a loss entirely. A nice stop at Dunkin Donuts. New cartoons like “The Simpsons” tonight. Cooler weather. Band practice tomorrow (which always makes me feel better).

Oh, and I discovered the real root of “Catholic guilt.” Seriously. I’m keeping it a secret because you are going to hear about this on Leno and Letterman. Man, oh, man.