Michigan vs. Notre Dame

The greatest rivalry in college football - Michigan over Ohio State as we all know - may soon be bested by the other greatest rivalry in college football between the two winningest teams in college football history.

The contract between Michigan and Notre Dame has been extended through 2031 season. The two most storied teams in college college football will play each other every year for decades.

By the time this contract expires I expect Notre Dame to realize the mutual benefits of joining the Big Ten conference. Then these two schools will play each other every year forever.

And at some point the Michigan over Notre Dame rivalry will become the greatest. Ohio State will take its place in the second toughest rivalry back seat exactly where it belongs... behind a classier school with a stronger heritage.

Face it red and silver, more people just like green and gold...
almost as much as maize and blue.

The Buick Is Dead

On Monday, last Monday, I did a bit of work at The Second City in Novi with Amy Duffy, stage manager. I helped her build a new set for the upcoming months. It was fun.
I drove out there in my proud vibrant colorful car of character. Though some of us do not, I know most of us like the Buick... some of us love it.
But on that fateful evening, after I made my way to the car
parked just adjacent to the fancy restaurant patio
for all the rich food eaters to marvel upon,
I found it would not start. This has been a problem for weeks, ever since I returned from my trip out west.

She had trouble starting once on Ann Arbor, but we were able to resuscitate her with help of Mitch from MSU's baby black Beamer.
She had trouble starting once when I stopped at a gas station for a refill. It almost seemed to much for her, but a mechanic helped me revive her.
And then she failed to start again outside The Second City Novi. Amy tried to help me bring her back once more. We tried for a half hour... maybe more. But... but it was hopeless. I had to pull the plug. I couldn't bear hearing her struggle just to crank her engine once. Every turn of the key built a larger frog in my throat. On the verge of tears, I told Amy, "It's over."

I called my father to come help me unload my belongings - the trunk of fun, the Buick paint, the change I kept in her console we would use to pay the occasional parking meter. She would have to carry these burdens no longer.
Before I left her, I painted her over one last time, making sure to tag under her hood and around her interior. I wanted to leave her as pretty as ever.
Now I have.

Her empty shell sits in the rear of a lot in Novi adjacent a barren swamp. As much as I know her soul rests in a better place now, I cannot help but miss our rides together. For my own selfish reasons, I long for her to come back. But she cannot live forever.

Although there is the possibility - perhaps the probability - that what is left of the Buick will become part of a new public sculpture being called The Detroit Dream Project.

Nevertheless our days together are over. Things may never be the same.

It's Been Long Enough

I think I'm ready to post again. Tomorrow.
Prepare for the sad news tomorrow. 'Cause that's what it will be. A sad news post.

In the meantime... an early sunrise from 30,000 feet up...
and south of Kalamazoo-ish, MI

I am Lloyd Dobler

I think... that I am Lloyd Dobler.
I just watched 'Say Anything' for the first time today...
and I think it was a mistake..to have never known this story before.

Lloyd is a gentleman.
Everyone trusts Lloyd because he exudes responsibility and confidence, but at times he is nervous or fidgety.
Even when he is unsure of himself, at least he does what he believes in, what he wants.
That Ione Skye has a nice smile. It's big. And happy. And resonates a lot of the same things that Lloyd is.
Lloyd is also hopeless.
Lloyd is also vulnerable.
But he is passionate, persistent...
"I'm not going to meet someone like Diane Court at a kegger."
Lloyd rambles in the same way that I think.
Lloyd makes sacrifices for his friends.
Is Lloyd charming?

Am I Lloyd Dobler?
Maybe I give myself too much credit.
I mean, I'm not a fictional character...
but I think I try to be...
at least, a little bit...
sometimes.

"Nobody really thinks it's going to work..."

Jeremy Blake Swam Out to Sea

This is a modern day Romeo & Juliet tragedy...

Jeremy Blake wrote a love note, removed his clothes and swam out to sea one week after his love, Theresa Duncan, committed suicide.

Blake was a guest in Ann Arbor as a part of the Penny Stamps Distingushed Visitors Series operated by the University of Michigan School of Art & Design, March 25, 2004. I saw him speak of his work... animating as a painter paints... and on film projects such as Punch Drunk Love. I was impressed with his art and his accomplishments at a relatively young age.

Romantic or insane? I would argue both. And Shakespeare would agree.
Maybe I would do the same.

Beck "Round the Bend" video by Jeremy Blake

Better Than Me

I love playing basketball with people who are better than me. They make me want to work harder to earn what I want. And playing ball with them makes me want to be a better player. They make me want to be more fit. They make me want to play more ball.

And not just basketball. I want to play more sports. It's good for me. It makes me feel healthier. It makes me feel confident and accomplished, at least in terms of sports.

Fun is healthy.

I Cook an Omelette Like It's My Job

handpicked greenest beans and delicate fragments of cheddar embedded into a white and yellow pigment brushed with brownness,
a fillet of egg-ly divinity

...my job

This Is Where I Go

Want

There are a number of things I want. I know what these things are. Some I want more than others. Some are petty. Some I feel I simply need.

A Louisiana hick (read:populist) governor Willie Stark was scripted once to have said, "Sometime... a man so full o want, he plain forget... what't is he want."
Words of wisdom from a "(?)wise(?)" man...?
I'm not so sure this wasn't false. Or maybe he had us all fooled.

But I know I want. And I really want somethings. And I think I know so. And I am pretty certain what they are and are not.

At this point I'm not sure I know what I'm talking about.
3AM!... no, 4!

My Good Mornings Are Often After Noon

As I've said, I operate while unemployed on an awkward schedule. I cannot seem to fall asleep before 2AM, and I definitely struggle waking before 10AM. Of course, when others are awake in the house, I struggle sleeping too.

I seem to get more work done when everyone is a asleep. When the house is calm and quiet, I can focus on tasks at hand. I can read steadily without distraction. I can write these posts in no time. I am productive when my family appears absent. Sometimes I get lucky when they are all gone during the day. I need an office... or a place of my own.

This morning I woke at 12:40. This is in fact not morning but afternoon. My family is either gone or sleeping still on this unusual day. I've knocked a lot of my routine out in only half an hour. I am making eggs... oatmeal... and pancakes for breakfast...
or maybe just pancakes, well see if anyone else shows up to help me eat them.

Good Aftermorning.

I am not XL

Folding (read: sorting and laying "neatly" in rows on the former entertainment center that is now my "dresser") some of my clothes today, I noticed a fraction of shirts that are labeled XL. I do not wear these shirts because against my slender physique, they resemble man-sails. Most of these - actually now that I'm thinking of it - all of these XLs are gifts from family members. I have once in my life purchased a XXXL fleece hoodie, huge and unbelievably warm, like a blanket for wearing.

I don't know when or why my family decided to promote me from Medium to XL, but they did so without my acknowledgment. Sometime when I became the tallest person in the family, their perception of me changed.
Perhaps there logic was that my new height determines a new girth.
Perhaps they thought that because my father wears XL that I being taller now should.
Perhaps they thought better to be safe than sorry: too big rather than too small.

None of this makes sense to me.
Granted clothes are scarcely made in my size. Stores rarely sell tall pants trim enough, or long sleeves long enough. And XL sweats always shrink baring too much forearm or belt.
Granted I am taller, but have never been as thick as my father (and by thick, I mean strong, Dad.) I've never even been able to borrow a belt.
And granted too small is ridiculous, but too big is just goofy. I like to be comfortable in my clothes, not constricted, and not robed.

I am not a giant. I am not Big&Tall. I am not extra large.
Family, please stop gifting me clothes. Just... don't.
PS. I may be more stylish than yous anyhow.

Another AllNighter

I thought I was done with all-nighters when I graduated from college, but here I am awake at 4AM on a Tuesday night, Wednesday morning - or somewhere in between. When will I never learn? Probably forever. Who knows else what? I'm lost-ifused...

ate some ice cream that me dad had mixed hand-picked cherries into. I (h)ated it, and spit all the fruit out... of my mouth.

(((gibberish)))mumble
,
I'm tired but not sleepy
insomnirific music videos
nocturnal state not a goo-
smashing bottles over cowboys heads, and Slash on guitar
,,,whooaaaaaaaaaaaah -OA.

I feel dead in my eyes. I slept all day almost til the sun was down except it wasnt really up today(yesterday) because it was rainy all day which I liked but I slept

this is my favourite picture




little josheye

Dreams 7.17.07

I had like four dreams last night/this morning. Crazy. Let's see what scraps I can recall from them...

In one dream I could float around. My shoes were like some sort of hover shoes or something because I just glided around an inch or so off the ground, but I definitely felt like Gumby.
With the slickness of my new sweet ass shoes, I sneaked into a corporate office building to try and find a friend who has refused to speak to me for a while. I "skated" (or "coasted," or "Gumby-ed") my way around a maze of peach-walled cubicles only to be stopped and questioned by random nagging staff. I thought at some point I had seen this friend but was influenced to leave rather than continue searching.
As I hovered my way out front - it was night by the way, and I know not why - this friend came chasing out after me. We talked awkwardly for a minute. Friend offered to call me soon sometime to hang out... as if there had never been anything wrong. Then I woke up, wondered about the shoes, and went back to sleep hoping to dream something better.

In another dream I was walking down a street, reasons unknown. It was also night. I passed a bank heading into a parking lot, and saw two young guys with guns preparing to enter said bank. I don't think I cared, so I pretended like hadn't seen them, but one gunman called to me telling me to "come on inside" with them. I ran. Ducking around one brick wall, I was forced to try escaping into none other than a McDonald's. (This may have been worse than being taken hostage, but I was spooked.)
I hid under a cashier's counter as the gunman barged in. He jabbered on something about looking for me. People screamed a bit, but not much. And eventually, because in this dream I am too big to fit under a counter, he spotted me. As I stood to face him he said something cocky, pointed his gun at me and fired.
I flinched, but instead of feeling a bullet hit me in the chest or arm, I felt it wedge in my right ear... not like a bullet shooting my ear, but like an ear plugbeing pressed in. I looked back at the stunned gunman, and pulled his bullet from my ear. It was unscathed, looked brand new. Then another bullet sprouted in my ear... and another in the other ear. What the hell, indeed! I pulled these out, but alas, two more. We chuckled over it. The gunman hesitated to try and shoot me again. Feeling mildly invincible, I offered the gunman the bullets in my hand. He asked me for more. I continued to pull bullets from ears until he was satisfied.
Thank God I woke up from that one.

In another dream - also night - I was stuck in a house with people I do not know. One reminded me of Colonel Sanders. He was the grandfather. I was one of three kids, a friend of the grandson.
I can't seem to remember much of this dream, but it involved some supernatural gift the grandson had that chased some evil from invading our home, or dimension, or planet... I guess.
At the end, the grandfather crashed out in the garage where he lived. My friend's older sister came home wondering what was up. I tried to flirt with her for a minute; she ignored me; and before I knew it, I was boarding a bus home in front of their house... in the middle of the night.

Writing about those dreams made me forget the fourth one.
If I remember it ever, I will come back to this entry and tell yous... but that is unlikely.

One Firework Experiment

I don't know why it took me eleven days to post it. Maybe I just had to think about it for a while. But this is what happened the first time I tried to photograph a firework.

It's a little messy, but in a way that makes you want to play with it...
like finger paint.

Who Am I in My Dreams?

I have already forgotten my dream from last night, but this story is not about that dream. It is about who I am or who I become when I fall asleep each night.

Granted I have plenty of trouble remembering most of the time. Many times I am simply myself in usual or unusual situations, like going on a road trip with people I know. Few times I may not even be in the dream. Sometimes I am watching from that third person floating-over-people point of view. But sometimes I am someone whom I aspire to be.

My dream Saturday night/Sunday morning - while I don't recall the most of it including the plot line - involved me being a pilot. Well... not an experienced or even a trained pilot, but I was flying a plane. I was a co-pilot in a commercial jet. The pilot was trying to teach me how to operate the controls. Most of the buttons were labeled with labels from buttons that I have actually seen before, like on a laptop keyboard or a cash register... or an arcade game.
At some point - I think after the first landing - the pilot skipped town. I was left to pilot the plane, AND I was given a new apprentice to teach how to fly it. Needless to say, I did try to teach him, but we mostly ended up doing aerial acrobatics in our commercial airliner and landing (safely) in the water while we played with the buttons.

I often become a "me" that I daydream of being: a pilot, an undercover agent, a chef. These are all on my list of back up jobs in case I fail as an artist or filmmaker.
But what bothers me is that I have never in my dreams been a baseball player or an astronaut. These are at the top of my list. In fact, I would give up (at least for some time) being who I am now to be play baseball or go into space. But I do not dream at night of being these "me"s. I wonder if this is because actually becoming either of these seems so far-fetched or out of reach. I could be a chef quite easily, but how much closer I am to becoming a secret agent, or a pilot.

Knowing that chances are slim that I may ever play in the Major Leagues or leave the Earth's atmosphere, I would love to at least dream that I can.... even if it's just once.

Battle Scar Make Me Proud

I like my shiner. It is too bad it is only temporary. It makes me feel tough. Sometimes I squint my eye just to make it hurt because it makes me feel tough. Behold, my battle scar.

Only Two Certainties

Right now there are only two certainties in my life.

One is the necessity for a glass of milk each morning. I simply cannot function properly if I do not drink a glass of milk when I wake up. It's like a cup of coffee. Or if I don't have it, I may as well have woken up on the wrong side of the bed.

The other is basketball, which is the only extracurricular thing (aside from searching for employment) that I do with any regularity. Well I don't do basketball, I play it, but... it is... it gives me some kind of routine to attach on to for now. And it's good exercise to boot.

Dream 7.14.07

Yesterday was my dad's birthday.
So in my dream, it was also my dad's birthday. I decided to take him golfing. My stepmom and little sister also came along though they do not golf, but they wanted to spend time with Dad.

We went to this new upscale golf course. The place was packed. Obviously it was very popular... and very expensive. At the only counter - I don't remember waiting in any line - we could order pretty much anything you would find a pro shop, or a bar. Naturally we needed:
a tee time for two,
golf balls,
lunch,
a membership (I think,)
two golf bag strollers because there was no way golf carts could drive this course - I'm pretty sure there was an elevator somewhere -
and two kegs... which could be carried on the strollers. (I guess we were thirsty.)
Unfortunately because this place was so new and fancy, the bill totaled over $600. I put it on my credit card. I don't how it went through because my credit card is overdrawn right now, but... over $600.

The first tee was on the close side of the building on the second floor. By the time we hiked up to it, the line at the counter ran outside, and a line had hiked up behind us at the tee. I looked out across the course.

It was like nothing you've ever seen before. It was indoors in a massive warehouse-sized complex. This place was bigger than a WalMart. Each hole was corridored off from the others by ceiling-high nets and plexiglas walls. Arranged in a maze, the holes wound around corners where the doglegs were more like U-turns. Golfers were banking shots off of walls. Some holes overlapped others above or below as each seemed to move up or down multiple floors. This strange course reminded me of an uncanny mixture of an indoor driving range, a mini-golf course, and a carnival fun house, but on a much larger scale.

My dad and his new clubs were already prepared to tee off. And as he took his first swing, I was still trying to strap the keg and my bag onto the stroller. People waiting behind us began to heckle. While I tried to hurry faster, they only grew more impatient. My dad had banked his first shot around the corner and onto the floor below, so he offered to go ahead and play the rest of the hole while I was catching up. We could play back together on the second hole. He, stepmom, and Racheal walked downstairs.

Meanwhile - this is where things get worse, not better - I thought I had strapped everything in properly. I looked for my driver, but my clubs are an incomplete set and some of them get misplaced once in a while. The driver was gone. I could've borrowed one of my dad's, but he had gone ahead. 'Come on,' people continued to harass me. The line was building. And the counter attendants were peering up the hill (or corridor, or incline, whatever.) I just grabbed a club, dropped my ball, and swung. I topped the ball. It bounced between the walls a bit. I dropped another. I swung again. I missed. Then the keg and my bag fell off the stroller. People were getting loud. I started to look for my family, but I didn't see them.

As I tried to pick up my things and pack them onto the stroller, a couple golfers jumped in front of me. They teed off, and the line gradually edged me against the wall. I threw my bag over my shoulder and pulled the keg along on the stroller. (I'm pretty sure I left a club behind.)

I took off cutting across fairways wandering throughout the second floor. I began calling for my dad who was forced to continue playing without me. I felt like a little boy lost in an amusement park. Here I am standing in the center of this maze that is some insane golfing complex looking for my family because we've been separated. I spun searching in every direction, but saw no one I recognized. I could hear only golf balls flying by. The passing golfers ignored me as they played through. I sat down and started to cry...

I had tried to do something nice for my dad and my family. I had found this amazing new adventure. I paid for a very expensive outing, which I had not even been a part of yet, and it was coming closer to an end with each passing minute. Watching the feet of each passing golfer felt like clubs swinging against my chest.

I got hit in the ribs with a golf ball. No one bothered to yell 'Fore.' I staggered to my feet, and started down the path to the front counter. At the bottom of the hill, my dad had just arrived up front as well. He was looking for me at the counter asking if they had seen me. I came up beside him. I tried to explain what happened, but I was still shaken. I didn't need to; he understood.

We gave the owners (or managers, or counterpersons, whatever) some hassle over the trouble we had. They tried to give us trouble back. But in the end we gave them their kegs, they gave us our money back, and we played through... from the fifth hole where my dad had stopped golfer traffic in order to find me.

Thank God Nothing Bad Happened Today

Apparently today was Friday the 13th and I missed it. If anything bad had happened I wouldn't have been able to blame it on the unfortunate coincidence that today is both a Friday and the 13th day of July.
Aren't I lucky?

...which reminds me.

There are at least four separate cordless phones in my house.
When someone calls the house, no two ring simultaneously...
and no two share the same ring tone...
but every ring sounds like a chirping bird - a different chirping bird,
so when someone calls, the house sounds full of chirping birds...
and since we collectively rarely answer the house phone,
each chorus of chirping birds is followed by the typical answering machine recording... and a finale of two quick and sharp dog barks.

I hate it because I think it is funny,
and I think it is funny because I hate it.