jfboyd

Whew. Crazy week. Here's the short of it: last Tuesday night, while doing NaNoWriMo, I was at Cup O'Kryptonite, a local coffeehouse/comics shop. Odd combination, I know. Anyway, when I wasn't looking, a fellow writer accidentally spilled her large caramel latte all over the table, but especially on my little forlorn iBook G4. We cleaned it up as best we could, and I pulled the battery and the power plug. Knocked out of the running for writing that evening, I brought the computer home and laid it out to dry. When I tried to bring it back up, I discovered that the keyboard was fried.

A few more days passed, and then I had a family emergency at home (I'll elaborate in another post), and canceled all my Friday plans to deal with my cousin Corey. Then, early Saturday, I had to preside over our library's edition of the ALA's National Gaming Day, where several of our teens were participating in a Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament.

Finally, over the weekend, with the help of christapolis, we were able to get my Mac breathing again, and everything appears to be fine. Right now, I'm using a borrowed laptop from my friend K. in order to get on the Intarwebs, though, as I have to fiddle with the Airport Express card in my computer to get back online.

Fun, fun. I'm exhausted. How are all of you?

Thought I was coming down sick yesterday, but it seems I've warded off a cold. Feel more or less fine this morning--listening to Tech N9ne, of all things.

The main thing I've been up to this week is making progress on NaNoWriMo. In case you're curious, you can read my story here. Taking my cue from christapolis, I've been aiming at 2,000 words a day. Yesterday I passed it, the day before I fell short. I'm convinced; I can make this. I'm going to have to fight at some point, though it still feels easy right now.

Been thinking about my past and present; hell, I do that all the time, and I'm a little bit sick of thinking about either one. Have to remind myself that the only thing is to work and to do for now and for the future. Definitely been too good at living in the past, and I want to call that over. Actually, I'm selling myself short here, 2009 has been good to me, and I think that most of the puzzle pieces are in place once again. Now that we're coming down to the end of '09, I can say I absolutely feel myself again--despite or perhaps because of this crazy roller coaster of a year. It's been a blast, and I'm looking forward to 2010. We don't spend nearly enough time appreciating these years as they go by, and here we are, closing up another decade. Who is going to remember this long, forlorn decade, the 2000s? We can't even agree on what to call it--the O's? The 2000s? The aughts? Screw it, let's let the future decide that one.

Maybe I'm just rambling here, but let me just say, I'm so glad to have all of you. Maybe I don't show it enough, but I do feel it. Here's hoping the next decade is just as much of a blast as this one has been--even more so, in fact!

Took a hiatus, as I seem to do every so often. See, here's the thing--I occasionally feel that I just have nothing interesting to say. So if I feel that way, I just don't say anything. Not sure if that's really true or not, but it does seem to be something I do. It's like I need to pause for a while to save up some stuff to tell. Actually, things have been happening in my life the last couple of weeks, but I have to tell those stories in private. Maybe I'll do a catch-up post that's friends-only this week. Nothing bad, just have to keep it on the DL.

One thing I've done is I've committed to participate in NaNoWriMo 2009, along with christapolis, and many Central Iowa writers. It starts today! I have my bare bones plot, an old Mac, and a group of supporters--beyond that, we'll see what happens.

I also have one other thing: You, too, can view my NaNo progress, and hopefully cheer me on! I've created a new LJ Comm: jfboydnanowrimo

Here I will be posting my daily writing progress, and you can be entertained and/or horrified, and hopefully get on my back if I'm being bad. They say 50,000 words divided by 30 days=1,666 words, so that's what I'm going for. There are local write-ins that will be taking place in various DSM locales, starting today at Smokey Row Coffeehouse at 2 p.m. Central Standard Time. So, if you're an LJ person, please feel free to join the community, or if you are a web lurker, bookmark the page and comment--anonymous comments are welcome too!

Why does this shit always happen at times when you can't do anything about them?

My dental crown just came out. On Sunday night at 10 p.m. Fuck.

Still, I'm glad it did, and the way it did too. It just popped off; it didn't hurt. I saved it, and wrapped it up. The dentist that did it (from Topeka, Kansas, if that tells you anything) screwed it up when installing it, and it's bothered me for years now. Maybe now I can get it fixed up right.

In the meantime, I just have to be careful about eating and drinking.

Don't have any idea how I'm going to afford this either. Never rains but it pours.

Been spending the weekend looking after a very anxious friend. Made me think of the days when I had really bad anxiety (though it was not nearly as bad as what I saw this weekend)--I had someone with me who really couldn't understand or handle it. So I'm trying to do my best to be there and be understanding. I think it's going fine thus far. At least, we averted the crisis stage. Now I'm back at home, and going to play some Ghostbusters: The Video Game before bed.

Crownless, I survive.

My allergies seem to get worse year after year. I was up half the night sneezing, wheezing, and terribly uncomfortable. I'm home from work right now, and I feel like my head is going to pop right off.

The drugs I'm taking don't seem to be working at all, I need to get some Claritin or something. After my bout with walking pneumonia last fall, I was prescribed an inhaler for the asthma that pops up during these seasons.

Everyone's just so in love with autumn. All it represents to me is allergies, yard work, and the inevitability of winter, where I have to give up all my comfortable summer clothes for coats, gloves and shivering.

Yes, I'm whining, but I'm taking this one self-indulgence, haha. :) I will agree that fall is very pretty.

And now I'm going back to sleep...

Had an odd dream last night. Here's what I wrote down about it this morning. P.S., any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental:

Dreamed I was at a Genesis concert, which was taking place in a small, well-lit living room in the daytime somewhere. I was there, and Phil Collins and the group were moving around the room with the crowd, singing and playing. I enjoyed a song, and then returned to my original seat, where I discovered Misha's dogs, Maeve and Patton. Apparently they were with me, I had forgotten to tie them up outside, and they had been barking. And this guy and his girlfriend sitting nearby told me so. She was nice about it, and I apologized profusely. But this guy was a dick and I knew it, I had seen evidence of it earlier.

I said, "You, sir, are a jerk. A class-A jerk." I really unloaded on him, but he deserved it. Then I went out in the hallway with the dogs and tied them up. I explained to the girl that I hadn't intended on bringing them in and that I guess I was being absentminded.

We got to talking, and eating banquet food, and I ended up taking her away from her boyfriend. She said even though she had never met me personally, she knew of me from Genesis fandom circles. She said this as we started getting closer and making out. She had short red hair and was a little punkish.

That's all I remember.

I don't often do re-posts, but this one is worthwhile: Here's Misha's post with more pictures of Callie, or as I like to spell her name, Cali. :)

Had all sorts of weird cravings the last few days--hash browns this morning, dark chocolate, gourmet coffee. Yum. Don't know where this is all coming from...hmm, maybe I'm pregnant?

My life is pretty boring at the moment, so there's not much to tell. Not trying to be in radio silence mode, there's just no stories worth sharing. That's different, believe it or not, from the rest of the year--it's just that I wasn't able to talk about most of that. So whether I've got something or nothing, there's nothing to say. That sounds melodramatic. I'm having a very good time lately, it's just not terribly interesting from the outside.

Spent a good amount of time yesterday tending to the Hyundai, getting an oil change and cleaning the exterior and interior. It always feels good to put the house in order. Unfortunately I never changed out the bag in my vacuum cleaner, so I can't actually, um, put my house in order yet.

Eesh, as Sam Elliott in "The Big Lebowski" says, "I'm rambling." I suppose the biggest news is, I have a beard now. The reaction has been seemingly positive, so I figure I'll keep it for a while. Please direct all comments, positive or negative, to my secretary.



Trow is also fat and happy. Photos coming soon.

Labor Day!

Actually, I still find it hard to believe that it's September. I'm still waiting for July and August to call me back.

Today I'm enjoying a morning full of bagels, coffee, movies, and animals. At this very moment, I have Trow in my lap, and the two dogs, Maeve and Patton surrounding us. It's a very peaceful time.

In the last day, I have watched three movies: "Ponyo", the new Miyazaki movie, which I enjoyed thoroughly but described as 'pure sugar'. This I did with blue_moth and her boyfriend Sabe. Followed that up with "Gran Torino", the superb movie with Clint Eastwood, which is going to go into my collection for sure. Finally, this morning I got the chance to finally see the 1951 version of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" again for the first time in something like 13 years. This will make me sound like a film snob to say this, but it's true--the original is far, far superior to the remake. And don't get me wrong, I wanted to like the Keanu Reeves' version. But just about everything from the 1951 movie is better, except perhaps the special effects. The story is head and shoulders above the remake, in fact. Too bad, because I think the message of the original movie still applies today.

Still want to hit "Inglorious Basterds" this weekend!

I was pleased to get plenty of sleep last night--my sleep has been fitful this last week, because the Trowster developed himself an allergy that caused him to hack and wheeze frequently--especially at night. Not only did his hacking wake me, but it also worried me a great deal--the Trowster's health is very important to me. I took him to the vet on Friday, prepared for the worst, but all he needed (we think) was a corticosteroid injection. It seems to have taken, he's doing much better now, fat and happy as usual.

Speaking of fat and happy, I'm starving! Fortunately, blue_moth has delicious foods on the way.

Had a great time at christapolis's party yesterday evening, and made several new friends! Hello to you (you know who you are) who were at the party and are also on LJ, a subset of the party group ranging from 1 to 1. :) I also got to meet the guy who serves as the voice of Iowa Public Television, who I discovered also had his first job ever at a radio reading service. Also went with blue_moth, which was entertaining.

Today hasn't been exciting per se, but it has been satisfying. Started off with coffee with Eric, followed by a visit to Merle Hay Mall where we wondered why everything was closed (it's Sunday! Doesn't everybody go to church?). They were, however, holding auditions for "The Amazing Race", which we briefly considered standing in line for--until we realized that we both have lives. :) There was one hippie-looking guy wearing a bandana, though, who looked like a shoe-in. Probably best that we didn't try to compete with that kind of greatness, as entertaining as it would be for the world to see Eric and I competing in such a show. (This hearkens back to the heady days of college, when Eric and I were called over to manage the grilling of several foods for some of our female friends--because, of course, every guy knows how to grill. Except, apparently, Eric and me.)

The rest of the day has been spent working on cleaning out one of my rooms, which was by necessity filled with boxes for a long time. Now the room is empty and looks delightful. And my dining room is once again available for parties and social gatherings which I can by no means afford. :) As a matter of fact, Misha's hosting a dinner tonight, for essay_chan and me. I provide candles.

More kitty and Trow pics tomorrow!

Have had the good fortune to get to test out the new game Wii Sports Resort on my Wii tonight, and let me tell you this: the Frisbee Dog is the cutest thing I've seen all week. And I've seen me some cuteness, let me tell you, considering there's a kitten in the house. :)



How do you get any cuter than this--You throw the Frisbee, and THE DOG RUNS OVER AND JUMPS UP AND GRABS THE FRISBEE OUT OF THE AIR! Ahh! And if you do it just right, he does a little flip!!



Now let me ask you, how can you say no to a dog like this? I dare you! You can't. It's not possible.



How can you say no to a face like this? He just wants to play! Just throw the frisbee. Just once. Come on, just one more time...look at that dog jump!

I played 'til my batteries ran out. :)

Just as awesome was the Swordplay--there's always something entertaining about knocking people off platforms into the water with fake rubbery swords that are the unnatural neon color of dildos. That, I think, is the first time in the six years that I've been doing this blog that I've used the term 'dildos'. I think I like it. Hehe.

Wow, could it get any more gorgeous the last couple of days? I just spent the last hour out on my bike running my weekend errands around Beaverdale, listening to my iPod and enjoying the sunshine. Wonderful. So far my quest to do nearly all my neighborhood commuting by bicycle alone has worked out very well. I bike to the grocery store, I bike to Merle Hay Mall, I bike to my haircut place. I can even bike to local restaurants if I'm by myself and want some foods; I have to say that the best lo mein in Des Moines is to be found at Shang Yuen in my neighborhood. This is a fact corroborated by several of my friends whom I've introduced to this hidden jewel.

I think my fellow Midwesterners who have a bias against shopping in their own neighborhoods should take a page from this--I don't spend any money on gas, I get exercise, I'm out in amazing weather, and I support my local community financially. These are all pluses. It's also much easier to bike around Des Moines than conventional wisdom would suggest, if you know the right routes to take.

Anyway, enough preaching. Anytime I talk about biking, I think of this clip from Family Guy.


Spent yesterday at the Iowa State Fair with K.L., who is both cute and fun, and knows how to appreciate the kitsch value of something like the Fair, which I enjoy as well. In no order, here are my five favorite things from this year's Fair:

• The cute server lady at the Veggie-Table stand wearing the "I'm a hot pickle" T-shirt that I ogled politely appreciated from afar for five minutes while I waited to get my order of sweet potato fries.


• The farmer with the giant belly wearing the 1930s farmer overalls outfit. What was awesome about him was that what he was wearing wasn't a costume!


• Honey lemonade, baby.


• The Iowa Emu Chapter of the American Emu Association (picture below)


• The "Hot Beef Sundae" advertisement at the Cattleman's restaurant--not only because it's totally disgusting and I would never eat it in a million-million years, but also because it would make a great porn title. My thanks to the Interwebs for not letting me down and actually having a picture of this ad!

(Sorry for the quality, I took it from a cell phone.)

Had a lovely evening with K.L. and blue_moth with Kill Bill, Volume 1. Will have another lovely evening tomorrow night with blue_moth hopefully with Kill Bill, Volume 2.

In the meantime I'm enjoying a small thunderstorm before bed. The lightning is lovely and the thunder not overly thunder-y. Nice follow up to serious conversation with K___. Serious is how I'm feeling lately. It's enjoyable to have a serious, on-the-level conversation. People are so afraid of really connecting that we hide so much behind banter. I can't blame all of you; I do it myself.

Great mint tea, by the way, Misha--It's delicious with a thunderstorm! Thinking about topping it off with a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

This is all apropos of nothing. Sometimes it's important to record the day-to-day. I feel like I'm having a real hard time with existential ennui, and the best way out of that is to feel everything as completely as possible.

I can't figure out if Morgan Freeman is in "2010: The Year We Make Contact", or not. If so, he's uncredited, and the Intarwebs are failing me. Considering we are almost to the real 2010, you'd think I could answer this question in a second. However, I do know that Roy Scheider, John Lithgow, and Bob Balaban are in it. Yes, I watch old movies.

Of course, the biggest anachronism in the film is that the Soviet Union still exists. And, of course, the whole "building-spaceships-that-fly-to-Jupiter" thing. But screw that, I have a red cell phone and can watch millions of cute cat videos on demand!

I can't believe I'm just hearing about this book--it came out last October! Thanks, christapolis!

I actually have to cop to having been a huuuuuuge Garfield fan when I was a kid. In typical budding librarian fashion, I owned every book, in order, kept carefully in numerical order, starting with the standard daily collections, then going to the 'movie' adaptations, to the "Garfield Treasuries" of the Sunday strips, and finally to the one-off Garfield books, my favorite being a weird book called "Garfield: His Nine Lives", which featured a series of 'proto-Garfields'--a caveman cat, a '40s Noir detective Garfield, a trippy psychedelic Garfield, and others.

Then I grew up, graduating to more substantial comics like "Calvin & Hobbes" and "Jim's Journal". Going back, I could tell how simple most of the humor in Garfield really was. But it was still a major part of my childhood, and I still have every one of those books--despite my tumultuous childhood, in which I lost most of my stuff, even stuff that might be more technically valuable today.

And even though I tend to agree with most of the criticisms of Garfield--notably the crass consumerist nature of it--it still stung just a little to hear some of my very smug peers put down Garfield for being what it was, a simple, cute cartoon that celebrates the mundane.

Then came "Garfield Minus Garfield", twisting the whole concept of Garfield into this deliciously dark foray into existentialism. For those of you who haven't heard of "Garfield Minus Garfield", it was a website created by some guy (Dan Walsh), who realized that, by removing Garfield from most of the strips, Jon Arbuckle shines through as a deeply disturbed, very lonely thirtysomething, whose existential angst is palpable.

Now I find that not only did Jim Davis (the creator of Garfield) choose not to sue Walsh, but he has endorsed the concept, publishing a collection of the best of the "Garfield Minus Garfield" strips! This makes me very giddy, and for the first time in something like twenty years, I have a deep anticipation of owning a Garfield book again, just like when I was in elementary school, pouring over those book order catalogs that they used to send home from class in the '80s.

Stamp it and seal it, baby--my day is made today!

Cleaning and arranging and trying to fight off the Lazy Monster. Some days I feel like that scene in Akira Kurosawa's Dreams with the Japanese mountain climbers on Fuji-san, slogging forward while being tempted by the Snow Demons to sleep, sleep forever.

This week, though, I'm winning. Yay for momentum. Back to it.

One side note: you know what I miss? Reading books randomly at the bookstore in a comfy chair. Note to self.

I've been listening to birds, crickets, dogs, cats, and I've been enjoying the early morning air today. There is something to be said to having to get up early. I just wish I could stay out longer to enjoy it.

Pulled weeds nearly all day yesterday, literally and metaphorically. Then went biking with Corey. It wasn't as bad of a day as I feared it would be. But I did get a blister. Oops.

Now, that sounds like a great band name!

So, I hadn't really announced it, but I guess it's time I did. I has a roommate now. blue_moth, to be specific. I've spent the last couple weeks setting things up in The House, coping with my family and adjusting things in order to more easily accommodate blue_moth's things, which are voluminous, though not much more so than my own, which I'm still working out. More annoying has been dealing with my family as they interfere with everything I do and when I do it with my house. This is trouble I could do without, and though painful, hopefully it will only be brief.

Meantime, I can tell you that blue_moth is not the only roommate who has joined us in The House. Over the last week, we've been slowly introducing Trow to some roommates of his very own: two dogs, Maeve and Patton, and one fresh-as-today's-baked-goods kitten, now named Caliban, or Cali for short. I think that name's permanent. The dogs get their own area and stay away from the felines, and until now the cats have also been segregated. Tonight, however, blue_moth and I have started the process of tearing down that wall. It went fairly well, actually. Trow did a bit of hissing, but soon adapted to the kitty running around the living room while I sat on the couch with him. Eventually, he got off the couch and tentatively followed Cali around the room, watching him quizzically. The culmination came with them both on the couch, which went comfortably until the kitty decided that Trow's swishing tail was too awesome to resist. There's hope for the Trowster yet.

Speaking of inaugurations, I have a new Flickr account, and I've uploaded photos of tonight's animal extravaganza for you all to enjoy! Check them out here!

As it is that I've been playing with active kitties all night, it is now time for me to retire to bed. Enjoy the photos!

There's one thing I'm absolutely certain about: "Encounter at Farpoint" is a perfect introduction to Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Beyond that, I'm not so certain about anything at the moment. I feel shut down, burned out, tossed out, and more than a little cold. Some of the reasons for that are obvious (at least to some of you); the rest are probably deeper than even I know. But I'm trying to suss them all out, a long-term goal of mine. I've gained a great deal of data this year, about myself and how I interact with people and my life, all of which I think I could easily spend the rest of the year working on. I just don't want to bore the shit out of everyone I know while I work out this personal stuff. I feel like I spend a lot of time talking about myself and my projects, when honestly, I'm much more interested in hearing about everyone else.

What is it I'm working on? Everything. How and why I seek out the relationships I do, what I want to get out of the situations I put myself in, why I make the choices I make, how it is that I'm still unsuccessful in some pretty basic ways. And most of all, why I consistently fail to gain traction and advance. I'm not trying to say this as if it were some kind of "woe is me" sob fest--I think overall I'm solid in several areas. But some things are missing.

Over the last couple years, up until 2009, I was simply putting out fires a lot of the time--I felt like I was doing nothing but backsliding. That's no longer true, fortunately. My life is interesting, entertaining, and I believe that I haven't lost my potential after all. Now that I know that's true, I can move forward. The question is how, and in what ways I should best proceed. That's where I'm going. It's going to underlie everything I do for a while. I'm going to try to do it without making it so obvious, though. Otherwise I'm just going to come across as obsessively introspective, perhaps even self-centered. Not exactly a good quality.

But for several reasons, now is a very good time for me to refocus. Does anyone else out there believe that life is a personal journey, a chance to constantly evolve and improve? I seriously do. Maybe that's irrepressibly cheesy, but there it is. Anybody else want to go on an adventure with me? :D

I want more adventure. Always.

Damn it feels good to work on my house. Also, to be a gangsta.