Quote of the Day: James Michener

"We are never prepared for what we expect."

So I broke down yesterday and bought a new wedding ring. It turns out I had dropped a full ring size since I bought the first one which could explain how it slipped off my hand. I'll tell you one thing, I'm sure glad polygamy is no longer practiced because I wouldn't be able to afford that many rings.

I'm pretty sure I saw a future career criminal at the jewelry store. (Luckily, he was white so I don't feel too guilty for stereotyping him like I've done.) He was probably about eighteen or nineteen and he looked like the kind of person Eminem would have been if he wasn't a rapper. He was dressed like a thug, he had a little girl with him I'm sure was his, and was quite obviously high as a kite. He was buying a three hundred dollar watch as a present for a friend that he paid for out of a huge roll of hundreds. (Now here's a guy who can afford multiple wedding rings.) I mean seriously, how else could a kid that age have that much money? He also just gave off a bad vibe. A different bad vibe than the one that trust-fund kids give off. Yeah, I know I shouldn't stare at people so hard but sometimes I just can't help it.

Today, I realized that nothing makes me feel more alienated from my fellow citizens like reading the iTunes Top 10 list does.

PS
Sorry my blog is so boring lately. I'll get my mojo back soon enough.

Quote of the Day: Cormac McCarthy

"I’m not interested in writing short stories. Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing."

I was almost killed by Thanksgiving on Wednesday night. Stacey and I stayed in town late that night to have dinner with somebody (who shall remain nameless) on her side of the family. It was an adventure, and I am defining adventure as an experience that is fun to talk about afterwards but not actually go through.

First of all, we got there an hour and a half before anyone else did. When we arrived there and found the person cooking dinner running around frantically, I knew we were in for a good time. Actually, it wasn't all that bad for me because I just had to watch Mickey Mouse with a three year old. To be honest, I found the plot a little cliched. Also, if Mickey doesn't know what tool to use maybe he shouldn't be the leader of their little group. Also, Goofy is creepy. I think he may be a crude racial stereotype too.

But enough with that, let's get back to dinner which I'm sure Stacey had a great time helping with. As she was trying to not lose her sanity helping with the stress-inducing preparations, she discovered that the turkey was not cooked all the way through. There was visible blood in it and the leg would not pop off like it was supposed to. After they got done carving it, it was laying in a pool of blood in the bowl. I am no health expert but I don't think Sushi Turkey is good for you. Stacey warned me not to eat it, but unfortunately, there was no way to tell the rest of the group without hurting the cook's feelings and being cast into her personal outer darkness. If it's any consolation, we did feel bad as we watched them eat it. I'm sure we would have heard about it if someone died so I think we are in the clear.

Quote of the Day: Luc Sante

"I once felt a certain anxiety about my book-lined living room -- it was too much, no? It seemed to belong in the same category as the display of framed degrees in prominent places. Books do furnish a room -- in Anthony Powell's titular phrase -- but that room would be the library, equipped with 14-foot built-ins with a rolling ladder, and I've never had one of those. I had to consider which impulse was the stronger: the wish to let the world admire my complete collection of the works of Raymond Roussel, or the wish not to appear a bore. Having books crowd every inch of wall space in the room in which I entertained imposed a certain burden on the conversation, as if dead authors were leaning in, contributing dry, derisive chuckles."

I think I want a Kindle just so people can stop laughing at me.

Quote of the Day: G.K. Chesterton

“The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.”

I am too busy trying not to freak out about losing my wedding ring today to post anything of substance. (Man, we tore this office apart.) To be honest, I am not sure I am doing too good a job of not freaking out either. Not even the free Diet Mountain Dew I won helped any.

Quote of the Day: CS Lewis

"We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst."

As you can see, the weather has put me in a bit of a foul mood, foul enough to use a CS Lewis quote like everybody else does.

One of my big complaints about the rain is that nobody in Seattle knows how to drive in it. For instance, why is my bus consistently late when it's raining? I mean, if you can't figure out how to drive in the rain maybe being a Seattle Metro bus driver just isn't your calling. I still laugh when I think back to the guy I ran across a long time ago when I was still putting focus group studies together. He called up and told me he was cancelling for that night because of the weather. I asked him why he signed up for a focus group in November in the first place if he was scared of a little rain because it frequently rains that time of year. He said he didn't know it was going to rain when he signed up for it. Guess where he worked? NOAA. (The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Well, Sunday morning, when I went to go run a dog-feeding errand before church I learned that I am no better than anybody else. My car was stuck in the mud because I parked in a bad place against my better judgment and the judgment of my better half. Very stuck. The main problem was that my car kept trying to slide into the Escalade right next to my car every time I went forward. I was not only worried about the financial hit I would take if I hit the other vehicle but also about the literal hit the owner would put on my life if I did so because the Escalade was owned by my drug dealer neighbor. So anyway, I had to wait for him to leave and had to ride to church in Stacey's car for the first time ever. That's it. End of story. Blame the rain if you think it's boring.

Quote of the Day: Anthony Storr

"In Our Western culture, though not in all cultures, man seems so constituted that he can never rest upon his laurels. The moment he has achieved something, be it a position in the world, marriage and a family, a successful piece of research, a new book, painting, or musical composition, he is driven to question its value and look for something more. If problems are not there, he will invent them. Man seems to be a problem-seeking as well as a problem-solving animal. We are programmed to change, develop, and meet new challenges until we die. We are compelled to be perpetual travellers. If we travel hopefully, that is as much as we ought to expect. If we do not, we become depressed. The idea that we can ever arrive at a stable state in which life's problems are settles is an illusion. The only "final solution" is death."

Luckily, I am pretty busy today.

Today the woman who owns the little store downstairs told me I was crazy because she saw me walking down the street, reading a book, listening to music, and sending an email - all at the same time. (She left out my singing along.) She told me lots of things this morning.

She told me a story about a woman who had been begging for a cup of coffee in front of her store all day yesterday. She would tell people she just needed enough money for a cup of coffee; and once she got the money for a cup she would walk into Tully's, get a free cup of ice, and go right back to panhandling. My friend was pretty sure she was using the money to buy drugs. I asked her what she did about it.

She said, "Nothing because I was too scared."
"Why?"
"She was, you know..."
"What?"
"Black," she whispered.
"I thought she was going to knife me or have me jumped."
"Well, we certainly can't have that."


In other news, I have now lost 170 pounds in the past 13 months and that's including all those crepes in Paris.

Quote of the Day: Clive James

"Fiction is life with the dull bits left out."

I will be brief today for that very reason. I just wanted to touch on one thing I forgot to yesterday.

Our accommodations in Paris were "interesting." There are several Tim Hotels in Paris. One is a three star hotel located in Montparnasse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montparnasse) and one is a two-star located in Pigalle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigalle). I was quoted on the Montparnasse hotel which seemed like a good choice because it was right by a lot of sites we wanted to see.

Now based on the pictures, which one do you think we ended up actually being booked at? That's right, the one in Pigalle. In fact, you can see the very edge of our hotel touching the left side of the Sexodrome in that picture. On the other side, was a sex shop. We were in the famous red light district of Paris. You know, the one with the Moulin Rouge? It was pretty much like the worst parts of Aurora Avenue in Seattle condensed down into ten blocks. It was a very dangerous district to be using the pay phone in the middle of the night in, at least according to the woman at Western Union who gave us our money.

I can say a few positive things about our hotel. Our room may have been too small to open two suitcases at the same time but at least it was clean and when we complained about the two twin beds on our honeymoon they fixed the problem by zipping the beds together. They even had a free continental breakfast that consisted of croissants and warm milk and a rude French women and her son making fun of us for eating like the hungry Americans we were.


PS
I really did like Paris. In fact, I liked it so much we missed our flight out we were having such a good time. Or maybe it was because NW Airlines has a lot to learn about customer service. In all seriousness, I can't wait to go back.