Well, the 'audition' didn't quite go as planned (for my Blog readers a brief update: I was to jam Friday night with a local Celtic rock band on keyboards by way of audition ... very last minute, planned earlier in the day on Friday). The band hadn't played together for some time, so they were quite high-strung and nervous about their performance. Throwing a wild card (e.g., me) into the mix just didn't seem wise. So Mason and I, and Mason's cousin and her boyfriend spent an enjoyable evening listening to the band at Rula Bula and winning Guinness pint glasses in their 2nd anniversary raffle. Went home very drunk (no, I wasn't driving), after an intermediate and very entertaining stop at Fascinations, a sex shop on Mill two doors down from the pub.

Further, I spent this afternoon driving around the entire Phoenix metropolitan area in search of a papyrus plant. Long story short, after visiting five Wal-Marts, three Home Depots and one independent nursery, I finally found one. But I got very hot, tired and sweaty in the process. I just have to say that that plant had better not die on me after all I went through to get it. BTW, Kerry, I borrowed a shovel so I could plant it. I would've asked, but you were still out of town.

Ah, domesticity. This is my last breather before the old triple grind of school, work and business starts chopping me up again. Wish me well!

Also from NPR this morning, the body of a lost hiker was apparently found sometime in the last 24 hours, and I quote, "just east of the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine."

Um.

These journalists seem privy to information that millions of people over the last 150 or so years would, in some cases literally, kill for.

If someone knew where it is, presumably, we'd no longer call it 'lost.'

From NPR this morning, more whining from right-wing Christian groups to the effect that required readings on the subject of the Koran will have the effect of proselytizing Islam to good, decent, god-fearing, blond-haired, blue eyed American youths.

Strangely, they seem to voice no such fear when curricula include books on Judeo-Christian heritage and holy texts. Rather, they insist that such studies are healthy and do nothing to attempt to convert others; they're just intended to educate and inform.

How I loathe this kind of hypocrisy.

I was working today to empty out boxes and tidy up the office in our new apartment, which is the last room left almost completely uncivilized by the hasty rush that was moving day and since our subsequent concerted efforts to impose order on the mounds of boxes and stuff.

In one box, just before tossing it in the trash, I discovered a receipt-slash-ticket stub from Ticketmaster that set me on a few moments of road-tripping down memory lane followed quickly by a nasty collision with shame. It's a quick story, and let me assure my loyal reader(s) that this isn't another Joseph-hater story, although it certainly contains some elements of that. But inasmuch as Joseph is concerned here, I'm just reporting facts here. I'm more concerned by my conduct in the situation.

Those who know me well know I'm a massive, huge, bore-you-all-night-with-trivia-till-you're-looking-for-a-pistol-to-shoot-yourself-with-to-escape-the-misery Gary Numan fan. Yes, Gary Numan, who most American music fans if they can remember the name, remember only that he recorded "Cars." So anyway, few years ago, he came to the US for the first time in almost 20 years. Then, a year, year and a half later (solidly in the time when Joseph and I were living together in the loathing-and-longing situation of which most of you have become familiar), he was to play in San Francisco.

Since Joseph had the only working credit card, he ordered the tickets online through Ticketmaster, of course. When they never arrived in the mail (actually, some months later I discovered they had; we just took them for junk mail and ignored the envelope), we made arrangements to pick them up at will-call at the show.

Fast foward to show date, which was (I think) a Friday and was (definitely) a work day. I was atwitter with anticipation and the day passed incredibly slowly. My mind on Joseph's exhortation that I not be late (he would rather not arrive at all than be late somewhere, but I get ahead of myself) as well as on my own excitement, I ducked out of work as early as I could muster (about 15 minutes) and drove a solid 85 m.p.h. down the 680 (at this time I'd like to point out that above 70, my truck in its condition then would shake like Katherine Hepburn in a snowstorm), swerving around cars, taking corners like a pro and generally doing more than what I would've thought possible to get home earlier than I could've been expected.

I came running in the door earlier than I'd ever previously arrived home, clothes already half off in an attempt to dress quickly for the event. I announced my arrival and our impending departure almost simultaneously and was ready to leave approximately two minutes after walking in the door.

I went to Joseph's door (this was one of many times when I was living under the same roof but in a different bed owing to differing ratios of getting along to horniness to willingness to work things out to sheer blind impulse [a nearly impossible calculus whose end result was usually more random than the most random number a computer can generate and whose result dictated which bed I was sleeping in that week]) only to be met with words to the effect of "It's too late for us to get there in time. We're not going." Understand that had we left at that moment, or indeed at any time within 20 minutes or so of that time, we calculated, we'd have been there 15 minutes after door time. That is to say, most likely 45 minutes to an hour before the opening act went onstage. This, to him, was late.


Begging, pleading and whining ensued, resulting in my ejection from the bedroom followed by the slamming of said bedroom's door in my face. "Go if you want," he said. "I refuse." Now of course, since the will-call tickets were keyed to his credit card and ID, this would mean that I'd have to buy another ticket which, having spent an appreciable chunk of a week's salary buying the existing ones and having, as a result, very little cash to spare, was nigh-impossible.

So I spent at least an hour and a half on the floor in front of his bedroom door, pleading with him to open it, pledging that I was no longer angry about the concert incident, that I'd forgotten it, that I agreed with him that not only did I forgive him but that indeed there was nothing to forgive, since he'd only done the obvious and natural thing under the circumstances. Tears, begging, whining, pleading, etc., all marked this period of time for me, met by stony silence or urgent demands that I go away.

I cringe inwardly at myself as I look back at the slobbery little Gollum I was that day. It was hardly the only day; indeed nearly every day involved a scene more or less like that, with Joseph radiating loathing like the smell of rotten meat and me simpering at his feet begging him to pay attention to me and simultaneously insisting that no, I don't smell anything rotten, why, all I smell is the sweetly understated aroma of your cologne.

Thing was, I wouldn't have done all that if it didn't occasionally work, if he hadn't, every so often, opened up, smiled at me, and made it seem, for a week or a day or a few minutes, like we belonged together. And my god, how I needed that reinforcement, since every other aspect of my life (my [lack of] friends, my painfully frustrating job [I enjoyed it in the abstract, but felt like I was having my hands chopped off at the wrist every time I had a creative or even moderately divergent idea], my ailing mail-order business, etc.) gave me about as much pleasure as removal of a necrotic tooth unhampered by the interference of anasthetics.

I blinded myself intentionally. I simpered. I sought approval in the only place I could (occasionally) get it. It sickens me. It shames me. It took me a long time to walk again without that crutch. I thought I was more adaptable than that. But I'll never intentionally let myself get into a situation like that -- that's one thing that came from this vast learning experience.

And I'll always regret never having gotten to see Gary Numan on that tour -- he'll probably never tour the States again.

As a post script, I discovered not too long later, that the actual door time for the show had been an hour later than we thought. We would've been about 45 minutes early, to which I sounded a gigantic, world-reverberating

D'Oh!

Enough reminiscing for one day. Someone's waiting downstairs for me. And there's no door between here and there to be slammed in my face.

Another weekend passes by, another week begins, and so I look back at the past few days.

Looks like, after much wrangling, I will be a full-time graduate student in the fall. It's really seeming like I'm going to do more work getting registered for classes and getting my GI Bill benefits than I will on classwork. But now, two trips to Tucson later, two half-days of work missed and many carbon-based-fuel exhaust pollutants added to the atmosphere, I'm registered AND the government is paying for my school. Generous blokes.

Likewise, with my truck properly registered, my driver's license cleared, the vehicle insured, I'm now a fully legal driver for the first time in longer than I should admit. It's quite an experience not having to watch my rear-view mirror half the time and making inconvenient detours to avoid law enforcement. I should do this more often.

And just as our DVD and music collections reach the point where there's nowhere else tidy to store stuff, we add to it with The Fellowship of the Ring, M*A*S*H season two and The Simpsons season two. Much fascinating bonus material on the LOTR:FOTR disc, including the much-touted ten-minute Two Towers preview that predictably turned me into a flustered fanboy immediately, demanding that the movie be released immediately.

As for the Simpsons, I watch with the commentary on, since I've obviously seen all the episodes before. Some of it's pretty funny, and all of it's interesting.

Also picked up Sirena by Cousteau, thanks in great part to their previous album getting fairly heavy rotation on Kniwt's late, lamented Internet radio station. A fascinating and unique band they are, sort of a loungy come-down band with a velvet-voiced singer and profoundly melancholy lyrics.

Reading of The Cryptonomicon continues apace, at 200 pages now, and I still am not sure what's going on, although I'm learning a lot about cryptography, bubble-era dot-coms and the information war-within-a-World-War against the Axis. There does seem to be some synchronicity occurring between the book's three story lines, though, and I have a feeling the eventual payoff will be substantial.

I really should write more often so I don't have to cram so much into each entry. I AM done with school for a couple of weeks, after all. Not much to do but keep unpacking the apartment (the living room is finally complete except for miscellaneous debris, the kitchen nearly so, and the two upstairs rooms ... well, let's just call them works in progress) and neglecting my fortunately resilient customers.

I'm trying hard, really I am, but sometimes it takes me a long time to fill orders and answer questions and such. But I'm pouring a lot of effort now into improving that.

Every so often, when I get to thinking that Mason just kinda takes me for granted, the way you take your couch for granted or the kitchen light, he cuddles up next to me on the couch, massages my shoulders, says nice things and just generally proves me wrong. Sometimes it's good to be wrong! :^) I must admit I return such favors rather less often than he deserves.

Monty requires walking. More hearing from me soon, I hope.

Sometimes I wish more of my friends lived here in Phoenix with me. I have almost innumerable friends in California, a couple in Hawaii, a couple in Tucson, one in New York, one in New Hampshire, several in Britain, a couple in various areas of Canada, not to mention Washington, Oregon, Virginia, Germany, blah blah etc.

But here in Phoenix I have two, not counting Mason or my family. I love Mike, Richard, Mason and my family to bits but sometimes I crave variety.

Uneventful weekend day today (to which I must respond with a hearty 'yay!'), which included watching of The Road to Perdition. Despite spending the entire movie going, 'eep! Tom Hanks! eep!', I thought the film was fantastic. Nothing like an old-fashioned gangster flick with gray-area moral dilemmas, an unsettling climax, a predictable but unifying ending to get you thinking about life, family and the struggle to do the right thing.

I must say that despite being distracted by his Tom Hanks-ness, I was impressed with his performance in this movie, playing a character quite unlike any I'd ever seen him play before.

Dropped my nachos on the floor. Didn't want to miss the opening of the movie waiting in line to beg for more. Was bummed.

Current reading: Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Neal's my hero. This book rocks, despite or perhaps because of the fact that, about 50 pages into it, I'm still not entirely sure what it's about besides cryptography. A novel about cryptography ... who'da thunk it? Please buy his other books and read them, too. They're all great (especially Snow Crash, which out-William Gibsons William Gibson): Zodiac, The Diamond Age, Snow Crash and his non-fiction computer age manifesto In the Beginning Was the Command Line.

I must further give snaps in an unlikely direction: The Passing of the Techno-Mages trilogy of Babylon 5 novels, which I just finished Friday. It's rare that a novel of any type sticks with me for days, causing me to think about the nature of life, living, good and bad, knowledge, understanding, belief, wisdom, doubt, fear, ignorance, selfishness, will and fate. And I thought Galen was cool when I saw him in the short-lived and ill-fated Crusade series. I didn't know the half of it.

Ah, yes, here I am, online again finally after the move. Took almost a week, but I think we can blame that mostly on the incompetents at Qwest who failed to hook up our phone till yesterday.

After a difficult week at work (I was, because of scheduling nightmares, filling in for two people at the same time, hence working my ass off and still falling behind) during which Mason was working non-stop on reassembling the apartment, it has been nice this weekend relax-working, emptying a box then watching TV, hanging some blinds then reading a book, assembling computer parts then ... well, you get the idea.

One thing that really amazes me is that I feel more at home here, in this new place, than I have anywhere I've lived since leaving home to join the Coast Guard. I can lay in the middle of the living room floor, spread-eagled, wave my various extremities about and not hit anything. All the furniture is nice, but not too nice, very Danish Modern to suit Mason's tastes (since I had almost none to contribute to the household except a nice hutch that has been spray-painted green and was serving as a bar in our old place).

My artwork, including some photos from my old days on the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle, adorns the walls. One wall of our entryway is purple, another a lovely dark shade of red (I know it sounds weird, but really, the colors work very nicely. New bamboo blinds adorn the glass back wall of our apartment, which looks out on our modest backyard, which is beginning to resemble a jungle from all the plants we've subjected it to.

Moving day itself was, predictably, a bear. Whosever idea it was to move in July needs to be beheaded. Oh wait, it was both of us. The expected number of workers failed to materialize, partly because Mason couldn't convince any of his physical activity-allergic friends to join us and partly because a few of my friends bowed out at the last moment. Consequently, we were left with Mason and me, my pregnant sister, my brother-in-law and our next-door neighbor from the old place.

At some point, we discovered a quaint little grocery filled with overpriced imported food items, wines, funky sodas, fresh-baked breads from a local celebrity baker, etc. We fell in love with it instantly. It stands near a horribly pretentious wine bar with a fantastic selection of beers and wines and across from a similarly pretentious Italian restaurant I've never been to.

Photos will follow as soon as I can get the film developed, mostly because I'd like to show the contrast between the crampedness of our old place (liked the place very much, especially the patio, but it did get a bit close from time to time) and our new place.

I also find it endlessly fascinating and a bit sad watching my dwelling gradually lose its soul as things go away. But perhaps I imbue material objects with too much of my own self. It has been fascinating watching this place's soul, on the other hand, emerging, totally different despite the fact that the contents are almost entirely the same.

So that's it for now. Back to WCIII. Yay!