The catch-all category for random things about life in Austin, food & drink, politics, the occasional rant, whatever else.
Sun is out,
weather fair,
leaves catch light,
birds appear—
If I could harness
these wracking chills,
channel them to burn
like solar mirrors,
we’d end our talk
of drilling down—
Beautiful day out there;
hot as fever in here.
—
This was an attempt to write to a prompt at Read Write Poem using specific words. I didn’t use them all, but was surprised by the direction things went because of the words in the list.
I got tagged by my friend Melanie on Facebook with the 25 Things meme. I’m posting it here too because, well, dammit, I like my blog more.
For those who may not know, the meme rules state you should write 25 random things about yourself and then tag 25 people. I won’t tag anyone here. Just the 25 things…
1. The only time my parents let one of us (kids) name a family pet was when I named the canary Thomas. I recently asked my mom why we all lost naming privileges after that, and she told me it was because the bird’s full name was Saint Thomas Episcopal Church. We changed his name to Thomasina when he laid an egg.
2. I write a lot more poetry than anything else and I share very little of it. I’m going to change that this year.
3. My favorite place in the world is the high desert country of northern Arizona and New Mexico. The landscapes, the ruins, the mountains, rock, the cacti all just speak to me.
4. The longest I ever worked for one organization is six years. That was my old school district. I quit to go work for The Man in 2005. I took some tests did some career counseling only to learn that I am best suited to being a writer or a teacher. Go figure. I went back to teaching after 6 months.
5. I listen to the Grateful Dead more than anything else. I even drove from Austin to DC to see them at RFK Stadium because I was certain Jerry was going to die. He died two months later. They closed with “Black Muddy River.” It was beautiful.
6. I can spend hours happily playing feedback and noise on my electric guitar, peeling the paint from the walls and creating howling storms of noise, drone and dissonance. It’s good that I enjoy this so well since I can barely play what the humans refer to as music.
7. I grew up on Winnie-the-Pooh. He was my hero, inspiration and friend. I still have my Pooh-bear, living safely on a shelf in my closet where I see him every day (and where the dogs can’t see him).
8. Chile rellenos, mole enchiladas, Kim Phung’s tofu-lemongrass-vermicelli, waffles, cupcakes, and very hoppy ales could be my basic diet. I wouldn’t live long, but it would be a short happy life.
9. I much prefer the journey. That’s one reason I really don’t like flying. You get cheated out of the journey. Give me long highways in the middle of the desert or twisty roads through the mountains every time.
10. My first concert was Verbal Assault, Fugazi (on their first tour), Operation Ivy and G.O.D. (Guaranteed Overnight Delivery) at The Rocket in Providence, Rhode Island. I think my ears are still ringing.
11. Despite having gone to film school twice and worked on film sets for 4 years, I really don’t like movies that much. They’re okay, but very low on my list of priorities, interests and things to do.
12. I couldn’t care less about celebrities. I don’t even know who they are.
13. My favorite books are Don Quixote, One Hundred Years of Solitude, VALIS, Blue Highways, Lord of the Rings, The Sibley Guide to Birds, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
14. I never yell. Rachel says she’s never heard me yell in 14 years. The only time I can remember yelling (as an adult) is the time I yelled at my students during my first year of teaching. It’s the most unprofessional thing I’ve ever done.
15. I tend to obsess over things including things I enjoy doing. I have to keep that in mind and make an effort not to obsess. The things I obsess over never last. This is why I am very hesitant to set goals related to things I enjoy.
16. I love cycling. I do it more for meditation than exercise, but I love a good 20 miles or so to just clear things out. I’ve done 2 MS 150s and they were both enlightening. Sometimes I like to try to see how many bird species I can ID without stopping. 20 in 20 miles is my record. I don’t do this often. See #15.
17. I woke up in an emergency room in Colorado once. My friends who were there tell me I had been skiing. I suppose I believe them because I don’t know how else I could have gotten there.
18. Many years ago, I was on a train between Chicago and Austin. Watching the industrial wastelands of the Midwest roll by, I wanted to capture it somehow. I couldn’t afford film so I started writing. I never stopped.
19. Our cat, Simon, has decided he is my cat. I’ve never had a cat choose me before. I feel a little bad about this since Rachel is the one who found him.
20. Two of my teeth are perfectly reversed. First molar and incisor on the left side. I bite my lip a lot because of the this. Whenever I see a new dental tech, they always comment and one even took a picture once. I doubt this mutation will get me a spot with the X-Men, but my application hasn’t been denied yet.
21. I typically have to see something to believe it. This makes religion complicated. Doubting Thomas was always my favorite saint.
22. I’ve read The Bible, Tao te Ching, Bhagavad Gita and a bunch of others. There is wisdom to be found in all of them.
23. I pretty much hated vegetables until shortly after marrying Rachel. Now, I eat a mostly vegetarian diet. I really don’t like eating meat that much anymore, and when I do, I refuse to throw any of it away.
24. I knocked my front teeth out as a young kid and so had no front teeth for many years. This made corn on the cob a drag and so I hated corn until I was a married adult. See #24.
25. I love spicy foods. I can even eat raw habaneros. It’s not that it isn’t painful; it’s that I like the pain.
Bonus:
26. I am liberal because of my upbringing. I grew up in the socialist utopia that is overseas military bases; I grew up in churches that focused on the lessons of the Sermon on the Mount rather than the nonsense in Leviticus about homosexuals, witches and shellfish; and I was in Boy Scouts most of my life which taught me to respect and want to preserve the natural world and keep it wild.
27. The smartest thing I ever did was ask Rachel to marry me.
So. That’s that. I’m not tagging anyone in the blogsphere, but feel free to play along if you like.
I’ve found a lot of great stuff lately, and so, a links post.
Heather wrote a very nice review of A Place Without a Postcard.
Jon Swift included a post I wish I never had to write on his compendium of the Best Blog Posts of 2008 (Chosen by the Bloggers Themselves). Okay, so I picked the post, but it was nice to be invited.
I and the Bird #91 is out on From the Faraway, Nearby, very cool travel/nature/photography site that I intend to start following. Also discovered in this month’s installment of I and the Bird, are some really interesting and compelling sites that will likely become regular reads: Nature Remains, a celebration of the natural world by a gifted writer; the unclassifiable Via Negativa, which is definitely worth a detailed exploration, and Teach me about Birdwatching!!! where I hope to learn more about South American birds.
A few weeks ago, I discovered two really good sites: Flint Hills, Tall Grass and Coyote Crossing. And, let’s face it, blogs with coyote in the name are just cool.
Today, I learned from drivelocity how to put a favicon on my site.
Well. That all makes for a good day of reading.
There’s a tradition here at Coyote Mercury that requires me to once again post this picture on the last day of the year.
It’s funny how traditions are born. I posted it in 2005 because I wanted to post something. I posted it in 2006 and 2007 because, well, I already had the picture. In 2008, it has now officially become tradition.
2008 was a mostly good year, though losing Daphne made for an awful stretch that still hurts. Certain emptinesses linger as they are wont to do, corners of the house vacant, two dog beds instead of three.
On the upside, though, the Bush reign of error is drawing to a close, I discovered Hornsby Bend, I read more books than I ever have before, and I learned to like oatmeal.
So, happy New Year.
This site will look different tomorrow…
It’s weird that I’ve walked past this drain on the way down to the pond countless times and never looked at it twice.
For whatever reason, last weekend it finally struck me that it’s actually kind of cool. The three blocks remind me of some kind of ancient structure, aligned for some unknown reason, and when captured in black-and-white, it somehow becomes mysterious and foreboding.
(By the way, click on the picture, or any of the pictures over the past two weeks. I’ve finally figured out how to show larger images on pages without sidebars.)
There’s nothing like the morning clouds after a good cold front. Especially nice because of the fall back from Daylight Savings Time, the sun is in a slightly different place when I get to work.
Those changes affect seeing and so the ordinary jumps out unexpectedly making it all seem new.
When the typical turns atypical, the camera comes out and something as fleeting as clouds and sky is suddenly frozen.
I’m still kind of at a loss for words other than ‘wow.’
I doubt I’ll ever forget the moment they called Ohio, and we knew it was all over as soon as the west coast polls closed. We ate the cupcakes we’d been saving for the first state to flip after we finished cheering and jumping around.
Watching the returns come in, the country slowly turning blue, reminded me of the scene in Lord of the Rings when the Ents destroyed the dam on the Isen, and the water flowed down into Isengard washing away the monstrosity of warmongering and environmental destruction that Saruman had wrought. There was still a lot to do, battles to be fought and rings to be destroyed, but you could tell things were changing.
Everything yesterday was the same. Kids to teach, dishes to do, dogs to feed, and errands to run. But I caught myself grinning like a fool when I heard the words on the radio or saw a newspaper.
President-elect Obama.
Finally, on Tuesday, the good guys won, and though everything is the same, it’s a bit different too.
I feel like our country answered to the better angels of its nature in electing someone competent, smart, and decent. A combination that’s been missing too long.
My dad has said several times this year that he hasn’t felt this way about voting since 1960. For me, this was the first time I was able to vote for a politician in whom I truly believed.
It felt good and for once I feel a little less cynical about politics than I always have. I hope Obama exceeds expectations, but his work will certainly be cut out for him. There is much to do. Many wrongs to right.
Still, for the first time in a very long time, I suddenly feel good about where our country can go. It won’t be easy and it won’t be perfect, but it’s a start and it feels good.
Once again, I feel optimistic about our government.
It’s about damn time.
Hope.
President-elect Obama nailed that one.
I guess we know what community organizers do.
Wow.
I’m not sure if I am a real American or a fake American. Sarah Palin’s recent floccinaucinihilipilification of the not so pro American parts of the country has got me thinking (and, yes, busting out the big words that any real American would never utter, by gosh wilikers!).
So, to take stock.
I live in Texas. Real America.
But I live in Austin. Fake America.
But I live in the part of Austin that’s in Williamson County. Real America with a capital A.
But I’m from Rhode Island. Fake America.
Well, that doesn’t help.
I have heard that trusty red Alabama might be considered real America. Let’s see what some of those hard-workin’ betcha by golly wow real Americans have to say about Barack Obama:
“He’s neither-nor,” said Ricky Thompson, a pipe fitter who works at a factory north of Mobile, while standing in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store just north of here. “He’s other. It’s in the Bible. Come as one. Don’t create other breeds.”
[…]
“I would think of him as I would of another of mixed race,” said Glenn Reynolds, 74, a retired textile worker in Martinsville, Va., and a former supervisor at a Goodyear plant. “God taught the children of Israel not to intermarry. You should be proud of what you are, and not intermarry.”
[…]
“He’s going to tear up the rose bushes and plant a watermelon patch,” said James Halsey, chuckling, while standing in the Wal-Mart parking lot with fellow workers in the environmental cleanup business. “I just don’t think we’ll ever have a black president.”
[…]
“I’ve always been against the blacks,” said Mr. Rowell, who is in his 70s, recalling how he was arrested for throwing firecrackers in the black section of town. But now that he has three biracial grandchildren – “it was really rough on me” – he said he had “found out they were human beings, too.”
Of course this all came from the New York Times, so take it with a grain of salt, I mean, the New York Times?!? talk about your fake America.
They did let me vote, though, and I voted for one of the pro-American candidates.