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Changing My Lifestyle
I’m about a week in with CICO (calories in, calories out), and although it hasn’t exactly been easy, I’ve stayed below my calorie limit all but 1 day.
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Buddies Since Birth
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Sunday Plays
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Down on the farm
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What an ass
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A neat flower I found last week.
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Another of the Heidelberg
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It’s about that time.
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Couldn’t sleep last night, at all. Periodic bouts of insomnia are nothing new. So, when I know it’s a lost cause to even try, I kind of go off the rails digging into basic front end dev. I’ve been slowly making the Marfa theme (Hugo/Micro.blog) my own, with little tweaks.
Some things I got done last night:
- Finally figured out my issue with Tinylytics and got both the TinyKudos and the hit counter working.
- Was successful in modifying the direction of the pagination since it was intuitively backwards to my eyes. I’m pretty proud that I figured this out on my own as I was not expecting any of this to be in CSS.
- Actually read the plugin instructions on how to properly reference short codes for “reply by email” and “reply on Mastodon”. I spent too long trying to organize these within the author panel under individual posts.
- Created a prettier link to the “Conversation on Micro.blog” from individual posts. It didn’t look right clumped together with the other reply functions, above.
I failed at:
- Updating Font Awesome so that I could use the Bluesky logo on my Social page. Above my head. Attempted for the first time to fork and modify a plugin, which may have been over the top but a learning experience nevertheless.
- Understanding if it’s possible to use a hamburger menu for navigation.
- Still need to figure out if there is a way to get the TinyKudos button into the actual theme for individual posts so I don’t have to type it out for each post .
On my to-do list:
- Figure out how webmentions work in Echofeed. For some reason I’m not finding the documentation.
- WTF is going on with the formatting of these bullet points.
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Pretty, pretty good
We shipped our kids off to my mother-in-law’s for the night and drove out past the gorge to Dalles Mountain Ranch in Columbia Hills Historical State Park. The wildflowers were in bloom and the cloud cover kept us cool. It was very peaceful, and it felt good to burn some calories in preparation for a well-earned beer. -
Dealing with Tough Family Stuff
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Keep my old ICE car or get an EV?
My car is 13 years old and recently turned over 150,000 miles. I got it used in 2013 with 55k miles on it, so I’ve done fewer than 10k miles per year, including several cross-country trips. It’s been a great car with very few issues, but it’s showing its age and I’m debating if I should put the $4k in repairs it needs into it or get something else. I’ve loved not having a car payment the last 5 years, but I also don’t want to keep sinking money into it. -
Continuing to struggle with my weight. writings.bryan.lv
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Garden Notions
For the last five years or so, I’ve used the space next to my driveway for raised beds. I’ve got a 3,100 gallon rain cistern in my backyard and I hand dug a trench to the front yard for my drip irrigation system. It’s worked pretty well, but there are pros and cons. For starters, the beds are pretty close to the driveway, and my wife already ripped my bumper off once and tried to pass it off as if nothing ever happened (I caught it on camera). -
Power outage and a rough night’s sleep
We had some wind last night and it knocked out our electricity at around 1 a.m. My son was already sleeping in our bed, but my daughter woke up screaming bloody murder and wouldn’t go back to sleep, so I had to bring her into our bed as well. The worst part about power outages is that I can’t sleep without my CPAP machine anymore. I have a battery for it to get me by, but I must not have charged it after camping last summer. -
Cheapened by abundance
This morning, I accidentally bumped my HomePod while cleaning off the desk and some music started. Land Locked Blues by Bright Eyes came on, from his 2005 album I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning. It’s making me nostalgic. That is about the time I stopped listening to Bright Eyes and stopped buying CDs altogether. I was 24 that year. It was before smart phones became popular, and 2005 was about a year after I got my first iPod. -
Working for the weekend
Recently I got into the world of management and I’ve noticed e-mails coming my way in the evenings and on the weekends from director types and such. I am committed to my job and enjoy the work, but I’m not sorry to say that I’m not getting into a habit of responding to emails on Friday night, midday Saturday, etc. What I did do yesterday was take my two young ones to a birthday party at Conestoga Recreation Center and ran around a gym for a couple hours while they had the time of their lives. -
Sabato
I slept in until about 8 this morning and watched some Italian IPTV after I blogged a bit about our trip planned for later in the year. I’ve been trying to get into the mindset. Our friend offered to watch our kids for a couple hours, so we took her up on it so that me and my wife could go to the gym. We went for a swim. I tried to talk her into doing laps outside, but we only made it one lap before she was too cold, so we went back inside and soaked in the salty indoor pool and then hot tub. -
Long Distance Family
Before the holidays, I had my first phone conversation with a distant cousin I connected with on one of those genetic testing sites. I don’t make it a habit of reaching out to complete strangers with loose genetic ties, but I had been looking for Italian family on my father’s side in the United States and he had the same surname as my my paternal grandmother before she got married. I didn’t have a relationship with my father, so I didn’t have the benefit of having direct family introductions. -
This week, we started going back to 100% analog books at bedtime for the boy and I feel good about it. He’s almost 5, and we’ve read to him nearly every night of his life since before he was able to understand what was going on.
It started out as 3-4 children’s books. We ran out of material after a while, so Libby (library app) and Amazon Kids+ filled in the gaps. But over the last 6 months or so, he’s been wanting more and more to watch books read from content creators on YouTube. We’d still read him a book or two, but then allow him to watch books being read on YouTube Kids.
The great thing is, he somewhat surprisingly didn’t complain when we cut out the iPad. It seemed pretty harmless, but we agreed it was basically too much like watching cartoons. The readers often have too much commentary, or act out the characters in the books. He also wasn’t getting as much explanation or oversight. It took away the fundamental purpose of reading.
His preschool teachers say he’s ahead of where he should be, doing work of kindergartners and a little bit of first grade work. We don’t push him too hard on the learning to read and write, but I want to make sure he stays interested and engaged. It will come.
Tonight I read him four books, two of which were longer. I spent more time asking him questions and sounding out some of the words, all the while pointing to each word as I read them. He was really interested, and asked a lot of questions about the meanings of words. It was just nice to have more one on one closeness with him.
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Reflections on my quit anniversary and the new year
I had my last cigarette 7 years ago yesterday. Since that time, I've saved something like $25,000 in direct costs and have hopefully added years to my life. I don't write about this anniversary for praise or pats on the back, but instead to honor myself and explore my own feelings on the subject, which are complex.
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The holiday blues
I'm just not feeling the holiday spirit this year. Both my kids are young and I am trying to show up for them. I even saved up quite a bit of cash to pay for toys and gifts and take some of that stress off us, but I just can't get in the mood. I think more than anything, I'm feeling tired of Oregon and feeling the pull to move back to Michigan. -
Holiday Festivities
We had a very busy but fun weekend with the kids celebrating the holiday season. We went and saw Santa Claus in North Plains on Saturday, and then went to Steeplejack Brewing for pizza. Then, on Sunday, we went to the SHARC for swimming and later went to Zoo Lights at the Oregon Zoo. -
My kids are growing too quickly
Lately, both of my kids have been learning so much and it’s intense seeing them grow before my eyes. No. 1 is 4 and has known his ABCs and how to count for a while now, but he’s become so articulate, annunciating every letter perfectly (no elemenopee anymore). He’s also counting into the 40s and higher when reminded of the starting digit. Even more impressive are the questions he’s beginning to ask. -
An excerpt from an interview with Noam Chomsky prior to the October 7 conflict.
For 50 years, Israel has been explicitly trying to use the Holocaust as a propaganda weapon to justify crushing the Palestinians, occupying Palestinian territory illegally, practically destroying Gaza [which is] almost unlivable now. A million children can’t even get potable water. The constant atrocities in the West Bank. You read journalists like Gideon Levy, Amira Hass, others, daily reports. They think they can get away with this as long as they can wave the Holocaust in front of people’s eyes.
I should say, this is explicit. So if you go back to 1973, Abba Eban, a leading Israel statesman and highly respected, wrote a very interesting article in the more liberal Jewish journal in the United States, Congress Weekly. In this article, he said the duty of American Jews is to show that any criticism of what he called Zionism, meaning the policies of his government, any criticism is either anti-semitism if it comes from non-Jews, or neurotic self-hatred if it comes from Jews. And he actually mentioned two people. I was proud to be one of them.
Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges & Dr. Shir Hever on Israel & Palestine
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Weekly Update, Oct. 17
It’s been a busy couple of weeks. But I guess life is just sort of busy now anyways. In no particular order: The weather has officially turned over to Fall and we’ve been getting a lot more rain lately. I don’t mind it yet and the cooler weather has been a welcome change. The next couple of days are supposed to be sunny and I’m looking forward to it. My kids and I went to the big box home improvement store and picked up a bunch of Halloween decorations. -
More rambling on housing affordability
Real estate prices have been going down a little, but affordability is still a major issue. For example, a 984 sq. ft. house with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths in my area just sold for $400k. To put this price into perspective at current interest rates, a buyer would need an annual household income of about $120,000 to qualify with 5% down. The median income for a family of 4 in the Portland region is $114,400. -
Weekly Update, Sept. 22
The kids are watching a movie (Spy Kids: Armageddon) and my wife is off with her girlfriends paddle boarding. We’re winding down after a somewhat stressful week while DW gets some much needed time for herself. I finished a big report I was writing for work early in the week, a few weeks early no less, so I feel like I can release some of the extra anxiety that has been burdening me unnecessarily. -
Anxiety as a parent and raising good humans
As a parent with anxiety, I can already tell that raising two young children to have confidence in themselves, and to approach new and uneasy social situations with bravery, is going to be difficult for me. I had a difficult childhood, complete with a fatherless upbringing and abuse, which affected me in various ways, including low self-esteem. I didn’t participate in many extra curricular activities due to my anxiety. I struggled in school for that reason, too, both socially and academically. -
Autobiographical: Twenty-Year Anniversary of a Course Correction
I had a flashback this morning as I was getting the kids ready for school that reminded me of a time in my life when everything was so unsettled and chaotic. This seems to happen to me a lot more whenever summer starts to give way to fall, when I can smell the change of season in the air and the evenings get a little bit shorter. The memories of back-to-school anxiousness come flooding back and I get a pang somewhere in the recesses of my brain. -
Arizona Bay
I was having a text conversation with my brother this evening. He hadn’t heard of ChatGPT yet, so I showed him an example and he told me that this reminded him of that song by Tool about California being flushed away into the Pacific Ocean. I said, “Arizona Bay?” “Yeah,” he said. I asked ChatGPT again: “Tell me about the song ‘Arizona Bay’ by Tool.” This was its response: “Arizona Bay” is not a song by Tool. -
July can go to hell
Normally I try to keep things fairly light and impersonal here. I may tend toward the dark or sarcastic from time to time, but over all, I’m usually a pretty happy person. However, lately I’ve been feeling a little more easily bruised, overly sensitive, and just generally melancholy. I’ve been wanting to write a little more at length in hopes of lifting some of the weight up off from me, but life’s been pretty busy lately up until right now. -
Recovering after adventuring with my boy
Long couple of days, but feeling more alive today after some rest and lots of coffee. Got in about 2 a.m. (5 a.m. Eastern) the night before last. Had a couple hour delay with our connecting flight out of Seattle. All told, a 13-hour travel day with my 4 y.o. Carried him (40lbs) and his cargo about a mile according to my watch. My legs and arms definitely feel like they got a workout today. -
My 18-month-old sleeps great at night, but she has a hard time napping by herself during the day. My presence is usually enough to calm her anxieties so she can sleep, so I just hang out with her a bit after lunch on the weekends.
I’ve come to really enjoy this hour (sometimes two) of downtime with her while she sleeps soundly next to me. It’s a bit of a siesta and lets me focus guilt-free on reading, blogging, catching up on news, or checking Mastodon.
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It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to conquer anything this big in terms of home projects. Honestly, I don’t have many full days to dedicate to projects like this, but I’ve been sneaking in an hour or two here and there. Even though it’s nothing fancy, it feels good to work with my hands.
Last week I removed a soffit, which previously held some cabinets I removed a few years back. Mostly I’ve just wanted to remove it because it was aesthetically ugly and functionally useless.
However, we’ve always heard a “knocking” noise from this area whenever anyone showers. It was just enough to be annoying. So, two birds, one stone.
The knocking was from the expansion and contraction of a plastic pipe across wood. Whenever hot water rushed through the cold pipe, it rubbed against a joist ever so slightly.
Thankfully I did open it up, though. This is right below where two showers meet on the second floor, so lots of tight plumbing. Turns out that the master bath shower drain had a small leak. We were worried something like that might be the case and didn’t want mold growing under there.
I pulled out the side wall because it wasn’t mounted well and bowed in the middle. I also wanted to check for mold there.
On Friday, I replaced the side wall with mold resistant drywall and added outside metal corners. Yesterday, I fixed the leak (and the knock). Tomorrow I drywall the ceiling and start patching.
Honestly, I might hire out the texture. I’ve never done a job this big and it’s pretty much right in the middle of our house. If I screw that up, there’s no hiding it.
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What do you want to be when you grow up?
On the drive to school this morning, the kids were being unusually quiet, so I asked my 4-year-old son if he’d thought anymore about what he wanted to be when he grows up. He’s been really interested in Spider-Man lately, so I was expecting to hear the usual stuff like ‘super hero’ or ‘fireman’. But he flipped the script and said he wanted to cut tumors out of people. That caught me off guard and tugged at my heart strings a little. -
If I could talk to my teenage self
If I could talk to my teenage self, I would try to convey just how much value there is in being in a field that’s in high demand, and to maybe try to focus on getting a creative role in such a field. For the most part, I like what I do as a planner, but there is very little creativity, and the options are extremely limited in terms of where we can go. -
Trying to remain grateful for what we have despite feeling like we're outgrowing our house.
I bought my house in 2016 before I was married or had kids. Coming from the Midwest, housing prices were pretty crazy out here in the Portland region. Not like the Bay Area by any means, but I only had my own income. I was pre-qualified for a mortgage based on my Midwest salary the year prior. I had very limited options, so I bought a short sale fixer upper. When I moved in, the place was in really rough shape. -
Spent a good chunk of the weekend cleaning the house and making the yard look presentable because we had some friends and family over on Sunday for a barbecue.
The kids played with water balloons and a cheap slip and slide I picked up from Sierra. It was kind of cold but they didn’t seem to mind.
When they tired of that, they played on the tire swing. That has to be the one thing I’ve ever done that has ever been worth anything, installing that tire swing. It has paid for itself in free entertainment. No matter who comes over, they’re always using the tire swing. 
We all sat out on the back deck, had a few drinks, and ate too much food. My mother-in-law and one of her good friends' family came, too.
After our barbecue, we ran over to the coast on Monday for a short hike. Both of the kids seemed to really enjoy it. I was a little frustrated at first because the trails weren’t clearly marked and we couldn’t find the waterfall we were looking for. But it was hard to stay in a foul mood because the weather cleared and the beach was pretty nice.
I also got most of my tomato starts planted:
After a nice long weekend, things have been pretty busy at work in preparation for me starting a new position in a few weeks. I unfortunately got behind on some monotonous tasks while we were out of the office due to Covid, so I’ve been playing catchup with filing and such. I’m also managing a project that is transitioning a very offline bureaucratic process into an online format. It’s unfortunate that I won’t be able to test out the system in real life, but I feel good about leading this project and hopefully providing a good tool for whoever takes my job after I’m gone.
I heard from my new boss today. He and the director would like to get coffee with me next week as an informal way to get to know each other better and talk more about the position. I’m looking forward to it, and excited but nervous about the new direction my career is taking.
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This must be the place
You ever look in the mirror and wonder, “who the hell is that?” Seems every day my beard gets a little grayer, my skin a little worse, my body a little more exhausted. I’m trying to age gracefully but the thought of death has been living rent free in my mind since my younger brother passed two years ago and the signs of time passing don’t provide much comfort. To be fair, things have been better the last few months. -
Middle Age Experience
My wife and I are watching Fleishman Is in Trouble on Hulu and I’m really impressed by the writing. No real spoilers here, but I do talk about some basic plot info and some experiences of a supporting actor if you want to skip reading this. The main character of the show is Toby Fleishman, a recently divorced middle aged hematologist. His successful ex-wife, a New York City talent rep for performing artists, just disappears one day and doesn’t come back, leaving him and his preteen kids in the dark about her whereabouts. -
Lingering place trauma
It was what feels like a lifetime ago, but I still have some lingering trauma left over from my teenage years when my mom married my stepdad. I know she didn’t mean to do any harm and was in fact trying to do something positive for herself and her kids. She moved me and my brothers out of the city and into the country. It wasn’t cross-country or anything, but it was still far enough away to lose all of my existing friends and to feel very isolated. -
Location Efficiency
When I was looking for a new job, the main criteria was to live in a city that aligned better with my lifestyle choices and personality. I had a good job in Michigan, but I wasn’t thrilled about where I lived. I really just wanted to try something new because I was in a rut, but decided if I were going to make a big move, I’d have to be very deliberate about it because I tend to make decisions with my heart and that usually ends up biting me in the ass. -
Valuing Your Time
For someone who studied urban planning, I am not naturally very good at planning ahead for activities in my everyday life, particularly when it comes to how I spend my precious free time. I got into planning because I like cities and I want them to be better places for people to live. But planning for my own happier existence just isn't one of my natural strengths. I've had plenty of happy moments, to be sure, and not all happy moments are planned. -
Why Paying Off All of Your Student Debt is Not Always a Good Thing
On their very popular podcast, the Minimalists recently posted an episode on debt. Generally I think the ideas they espouse are really good, and I've learned a lot of helpful tips from them. In a country where far too many people live in excess, the Minimalists provide a road map for people interested in living happier lives with less. However, for those who enjoy their podcast as much as I do, you may have been as disappointed as I am with some of their views on debt. -
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Memorial Day Weekend
Since I have Fridays off, I had a four day weekend due to the holiday today. I could use more of these. I didn't get any reading done like I had planned, but I had a fun and relaxing weekend regardless. On Friday, Kate and I went down to Cedar Point to indulge our need for some cheap excitement. I wasn't feeling the best that day, but we still got in seven or so big coaster rides that shook my general malaise and made me feel truly alive for the first time since I can't remember when. -
A Weight Being Lifted
I find myself coming back to this place when I'm in transition. Now that I have some extra time, I'll write a little bit. I've just finished all of my coursework for graduate school and I turned in my professional project proposal on Friday for approval. If it comes back approved, then I have the go-ahead to start filming a documentary on public participation in the planning process. I won't name the community, but the project involves demolition of homes in the floodplain and gardening on the empty lots. -
End of Summer, End of Crap
I've found my way back here because of an old friend who always has the right things to say. The funny thing is, I don't even know where to start because I've been bottling things up for so long that I feel like I could explode into a mess of flesh and Type O Positive all over the tacky wayne's coating of my parents' basement. I guess I'll start small, with humility, and without lying to myself anymore. -
another one bites the dust
Yet another contributor of Bryan's DNA in a long line of Barnette and Robb dead-beats, has died. Meet the other "grandfather" that I'd never met: <img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v41/inthedeltawaves/BARNETTE_John.jpg" alt="Image hosted by Photobucket.com"> I love how they always chaulk people up to be these amazing people in their obituaries. As if setting up franchises should be held in high esteem. John Barnette, Jr., 79, of Comstock died Friday, September 9, 2005 at Golden Age Manor in Amery. -
guess who?
<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v41/inthedeltawaves/kindergarten.jpg" alt="Image hosted by Photobucket.com"> <img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v41/inthedeltawaves/imlovinit.jpg" alt="Image hosted by Photobucket.com"> -
1988-1991
Did you ever “french roll” their pants when you were a kid? I just thought of that and I’m laughing hysterically. -
struck by a thought while in bed
A simple Google search for the terms "defense spending" (in quotes) returns 477,000 results. On the other hand, a Google search for the terms "offense spending" returns a measly 161 results. Man, they've really got those fucking terms switched around. -
Those damn Nigerians...
Do some people actually fall for these scams? Is there really that one guy out there who logs into his mailbox and says, "Holy shit!...somehow the 5 million I never knew I spent, in a venture I completely forgot I participated in, came up missing!...and despite the remarkable peculiarity of their not knowing whether I'm a sir or madam, they're now going to pay me back this money because they went into a pact with a reputable bank! -
fresh ink
I'm finally doing it. I'm attempting to write again, and not just in a rambling, psuedo-poetic sense either. This time I actually have a plan, a general storyline, and I'm in the process of creating character sketches and doing geographical research. There is still much work to be done, but once these hurdles are out of the way, the actual writing will be a snap, and fun! It may be slow going when fall begins, but this should give me something creative to focus my energy on in the downtime. -
everything in its right place
four hundred pages into crime and punishment in two days. it's been sitting in my library for about 4 years and it has just now felt right to read it. i remember the exact day i bought it, too. from one of those creepy booksellers at the flea market 4 summers ago on my way to lansing. he was absolutely mad. i offered him $100 dollars for the whole box (they were collector's books, but none were in great shape), all classics. -
journal of an american psycho, part 2
been a while, old friend. clean slate? tell that to the ghosts. they've been knocking around in this old head of mine...conspiring through the walls where they've been captured..err...were captured. i should probably leave that analogy dead in its tracks. but the fact is they're here, really here, and i'm not bottling them, and hiding them in places any longer. mystic thought would have me forgetting my ego, transcending myself so to speak; and believe me, i've tried on a daily basis for years. -
you know it
crisp grace notes like a flowing falsehood flavored to taste after brazen attempts to pare film on the firmament, light broken apart and bent aberrancy for the sake of itself, or if for some other thing, I did not see it cross sections of old films and well-functioning defense mechanisms healed better, not so pretty “I feel” kissing you made me sick-frozen from fright of bite troubled is as troubled does scapegoats fancied like play lists played as bedtime stories for empty people with excuses between the bed sheets shrills to a march, whose heart is not there to solidify a fog into all-out rain, to further menace a drear grope my rain-soaked trousers, I’m meat worry not: your name is safe with me and there will be no lies handed out because we’re fiction enough to ourselves to tire us even in sleep -
Various shots taken on my road this afternoon
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education is overrated
Finals week is always a blessing. I'm apparently the reigning champion of procrastinators. My work load isn't all that bad, considering I quit Japanese sometime in the middle of the semester, but I did manage to save three papers for my other classes till the last minute. I ended up writing through the night, first for American Studies and then a reflective piece in the morning on Rumi. I ended up e-mailing it and I got a little bit of much welcomed praise. -
My baby brother is a <b>bad ass</b>
Everybody, do me a favor and: a)go to google b)copy this—-> Camp Striker Iraq "Bradley Robb" <—–directly into the search bar c)watch the chaos ensue -
<b>i could only dream that this become a reality</b>
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walls painted, floor 85% installed
cleaning out/throwing away all of the boxes i left here from before i moved to florida. funny, i saved so much. the best part about it are the photos and all of my writing assignments that i saved over the years, from grade school on up. the evolution of bryan was/is hideous. i should scan some memorabilia. everyone would have a good laugh, including myself. i also found a record player with needle intact! -
journal of an american psycho, part 1
today i woke to the sound of my focus-challenged, seventeen-year-old brother, and my 43 year-old mother fighting because she didn't wake him up in time for school. my brother, who has been through four high schools, for various reasons, many of which i believe to be fiction, has once again accumulated more than nine (9) absences in the better half of his classes this semester. meanwhile, in a not-so-distant corner of the house, where i was coming out of a dream where i was supposedly some kind of motorcycle pro who has just come out of a coma and is getting back into his training regiment, hear the sound of an adolescent boy's whine reverberating off the freshly de-carpeted wooden floor of the house, down the hall, and into my dreaming head. -
<b>Like eating glass</b>
It's times like these that I'm glad that I don't keep a lot of personal possessions. I'm moved out of my apartment and it really didn't take more than two days to get everything organized, packed up, and moved. There is one thing that I'm neglecting, though, and it's painting over the walls. I shouldn't have ever done it, being that it's an apartment but I was tired of living in mind-numbing white. -
wouldn't it be wonderful if everything was meaningless (pedro's title, bryan's prose)
i spent the afternoon and much of the evening right here much of the morning too the sun hid for the better part of a season this midwestern gray with its skies drained like my lungs suffocating with a Camel’s all deliberate speed but today no, yesterday the sun decided he was tired of suicide notes and came out with guns blazing forcing me to class to those trite teachers flagrantly approaching godliness to themselves and to the mindless dummies who grasp convictions based on cynicism– like fashion coughing up whatever hasn’t been stated except in the vague references of music and the undercurrents of a popular-by-unpopularity- existential- bullying weak who at first surprise with vocabulary but who still haven’t any idea what the fuck they’re talking about -
<font size="+1">uh oh, bryan</font>
derek: I went to listen to a Salsa station on my radio derek: lazy mexicans derek: it's not up and running "What people don't realize is that the so-called Seattle grunge scene grew out of several close-knit gourmet supper clubs - we would only pick up guitars to pass the time while our dishes were simmering, baking, boiling, etc." -kurt cobain -
what it's like to croak through everlasting winters, siding with escape
Last night the fill station attendant wore a thigh-length, faux fur coat, a garment whose strands were at least three inches in length, and black like that of his own locks. A subtle, pink neck bore the only separation of the two, leaving his head dangling in space above the jacket like a dot atop an upside down exclamation point. My excitement was not for the coat, but instead for the passion in which he wore it as he collected bags of trash from outside! -
when women stop carrying mirrors
it's not everyday that i'm drawn to someone's personality and demeanor just as strongly as i'm desirous of their physical person. today is gorgeous. -
...right where you're standing
I'm dreading my return to Lansing. I'm absolutely 100% tired of my roommates. 2/3rds of them are okay people, but the novelty of living with them has worn off and the whole thing has started to become kind of awkward. I think it would suit me to get one of those studios, 5X5 with a kitchenette and bathroom and that's it. Have everything I own in one room to save my concentration. -
The self is overrated
What's the big deal with individuality? If you ask me, it's more just a means to an end, a reason to draw lines around and/or between EVERYTHING. I'm speaking of individuality, not to be mistaken for creativity. Why are we always making up these boundaries about who we are and who we are not when most of the time this individualiaty is just dogma or stigma or hypocricy. What is the desire, the positive outcome? -
<u>Who I'm.</u>
I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that I'm completely, utterly afraid of commitment, almost in all aspects of my life. From who I am to who I want to be, to what I wear, to who sleeps in my bed with me, and the only things that stay constant in my life are fears and addictions. Good Goddamn it feels awesome to be truthful with myself. And now it's time to move towards the positive, to keep with the general flow as of late. -
the days go in and out like the alarm clock in my room...
…trial separation from the life i once knew man, i never update anymore. i should start again. i've been fighting off so many urges lately. i'm stuck here, right in the middle. "here i am…stuck in the middle with you." there's a girl, two floors up, waiting for me to arrive, but she's pretending she's not waiting. that's the way it's been. we dance and drink and screw. then we don't call eachother. -
Will The Last Hipster Please Turn Out The Lights? New York cool dies its thousandth death. A satire
He flicks his cigarette over the ledge. “It’s one of those things you think couldn’t happen here, not in New York.” A pigeon lands. He shakes his head. “But I guess I’m living proof.” The pigeon flies away. The next day, Gabriel García-Cohen moved to Bruges. As he might say, if he were still here and not in the fourth-largest city in Belgium: “For real.” Because it’s not just T-shirt designer/aspiring documentary filmmaker/vintage-ashtray entrepreneurs on the Lower East Side, and it’s not just Bruges. -
a michigan drive
[bullet holes] [the orchard out my bedroom window] [backyard west] [backyard east] [an all too typical sight] [slightly less typical] [it rained while it was sunny, this day] [take me to the place i love] -
so this is where boredom takes you:
so i'm looking through history pages to see what has happened on my birthday, february 20th, throughout time. i came across this: born on feb 20th:20/02/1898 - Enzo Ferrari, Italy, sportscar manufacturer (Ferrari)20/02/1901 - Louis I Kahn, Estonia, architect 20/02/1902 - Ansel Adams, photographer (1966 ASMP Award)20/02/1967 - Kurt Cobain, rock vocalist (Nirvana)died on feb 20th:20/02/1431 - Martinus V, [Oddo Colonna], Italian Pope, dies20/02/1790 - Joseph II, Emperor of Holy Roman empire, dies at 4820/02/1985 - Clarence Nash, voice (Donald Duck), dies at 80 of leukemia, in Calif20/02/1993 - Ferruccio Lamborghini, Italian auto-designer (Miura), dies Ferrari was born and Lamborghini died on february 20th. -
it's not funny when a skunk dies on your road. at night. in the summer. with the windows open.
But in the morning on the sober dawn of Sunday you're not sure what you have done Who told you love was fleeting? Sometimes men can be so misleading to take what they need from you Whatever you need to make you feel like you've been the one behind the wheel the sunrise is just over that hill the worst is over Whatever I said to make you think that love's the religion of the weak this morning we love like weaklings the worst is over. -
on this day in history...
1965: US orders 50,000 troops to VietnamPresident Johnson has commited a further 50,000 US troops to the conflict in Vietnam. Monthly draft calls will increase from 17,000 to 35,000 - the highest level since the Korean War, when between 50,000 and 80,000 men were called up each month. It will take the US force in Vietnam up to 125,000 but officials say at this stage demands should be met by conscription, without calling upon the reserves. -
and you thought we had it bad with pinocchio in office.
China convicts baby traffickers By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes BBC correspondent in Beijing There are villages full of boys who have little chance of finding a wifeA court in southern China has convicted 52 people of baby smuggling. Six of them were sentenced to death and five to life in prison in the biggest single baby trafficking case in recent Chinese history. Over a two-year period the smuggling ring is thought to have bought and sold 118 babies, many of them girls. -
McCoy Tyner - Illuminations
Shit, this record is…awesome! Still my favorite jazz pianist ever. He left the John Coltrane quintet in '65, two years before John died (they say free jazz died when he did), but this guy is still rockin' it into his sixties. Worked another 9 hours today. Can't wait for my day off [thursday]. Gotta get a car, gotta talk with an advisor, gotta sign papers for my new place [i need money…so any of you rich people out there, i have a paypal account, just let me know if you like funding good people. -
yeah uh huh
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everyone take 2 minutes and do this please
sign the petition to save the statler hotel from demolition: www.petitiononline.com/statler/p… this building is a detroit landmark that needs to be saved; we don't need any more surface parking lots! stop tearing our history down! they almost tore down the beautiful which is now under renovation because of efforts such as this. -
309,000...i couldn't even afford it if that amount were in pennies.
i want this lil house: www.realtor.com/Prop/1038… -
i got the money if you got the time
Do this: stolen from Name: Age: Reason for LJ username: AIM sn: Reason for AIM sn: Do you enjoy reading my LJ: Why: Interesting fact about you: Weird fact about you: Quote: Will you post this in your LJ: RECOMMEND A movie: A book: A musical artist, song, or album: An LJ user not on my friends list: Something to do in the next two months: -
oh detroit, lift up your weary head
why i was not aborted, i do not know. bryan barry robb II, born to bryan barry robb sr. and deborah lynn barnette-robb on the 20th day of february, 1981. my mom was a strong woman. gave birth to me at 19. she gave up her full-ride to nursing school and we lived in a motel in detroit because my dad wouldn't get a job. my mom walked the streets of detroit in order to find a job to support us while she was pregnant for my brother. -
havin' a good day. happy fathers day.
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apathy is a cold body
I don't like giving up on people, I really don't. When people hang by a thread, I try my best to reinforce it, best I can. I call people out of the blue to see if they're still alive. I go out of my way to drive to peoples' places, all over the damn state. Hell, I was the only person who called Nathan regularly after he was sent to Germany, and I wasn't even his closest friend. -
A Prayer for Owen Meany
If you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to have the courage to live it. I am but one small instrument. -
Whether I found the gold, I never told.
Hrm, the sounds of last summer are starting to be recirculated. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Of course there are cd's that you listen to, that compliment the mood you're already in, but theres just certain songs or albums that make me feel a certain way. I usually tuck them away for safe keeping, for those times when I think they'll be therapeutic. Summer is weird though. Only some albums are strictly summer albums. -
appearances
That will be some other tribe, some other me. You'll hold it like it should be held. A glowing flask, an odalisque, a cherry red-ripe flame, with its selling points filled with the narcissism of a serpentine alma mater.Rip it off, tongue it up and chew it with your teeth.Your finger will trace the cracked glass, in its beauty and in its metaphor that you'll pretend you do not see. But you cannot run from something that has already caught you, already nailed its sweetness to your lips and sewn your eyelids with lace. -
when 1 becomes numbness 3-fold
words once came easily from lips and to paper now there is no triumphant clause. no daydream memorandum. all is trite. bed sheets only get soiled further and ashtray contents climb. washes of gray and gold on walls from sunlight filtered through cloth haze. words from voices that are not my own words that make bad singing sweet. and despite their sweetness contain no benevolence. life has not been so succinctly self. -
Thar she blows! Dead whale explodes
read about it -
courtesy of nytimes.com
i don't care who started what, this is just absolutely distrubing. i could vomit. ^ "Children cheered while bodies burned after an attack on American civilians working for Blackwater Security Consulting of Moyock, N.C" ^ "Iraqis chanted anti-American slogans in Falluja yesterday as burned bodies of Americans were suspended on a bridge over the Euphrates River." FALLUJA, Iraq, March 31 — Four Americans working for a security company were ambushed and killed Wednesday, and an enraged mob then jubilantly dragged the burned bodies through the streets of downtown Falluja, hanging at least two corpses from a bridge over the Euphrates River. -
OK COMpROOTER
done this before, but i'll do it again because it's fun [and i always copy jeannie]: Step 1: Open your Winamp or other lesser MP3 player. Step 2: Put every song you have on random (no pre-made playlists) Step 3: Write down the first 20 songs it plays, no matter how embarrassing The Decemberists - Los Angeles, I'm Yours Sufjan Stevens - The Upper Peninsula Cursive - Sierra Grandaddy - Chartsengrafs Q and not U - Nine Things Everyone Knows The Unicorns - Inoculate the Innocuous Social Distortion - She's a Knockout Aesop Rock - Bazooka Tooth Rufus Wainwright - Somewhere Over the Rainbow Beulah - Don't Forget to Breathe Cap'n Jazz - Puddle Splashers Placebo - You Don't Care About Us Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea The Dismemberment Plan - The City Neutral Milk Hotel - Oh Comely Godspeed You Black Emporer - Providence Rainer Maria - Breakfast of Champions The Magnetic Fields - How Fucking Romantic Peaches - Kick It [ feat. -
five things
music–to have a working band again…don't even need to be playing for the public..just something of an outlet. 2. a job that allows me a)food and b)somewhere to sleep. 3. to be somewhere with a better climate/architecture/cultural events-diversity. 4. someone to share with…someone with eyes that burn me. 5. the ocean. -
much better than <b>bolding</b>
<img src="http://www.world66.com/myworld66/visitedStates/statemap?visited=ALAZARCADCFLGAILINIAKSKYLAMDMIMNMSMONENJNMNYNCNDOHOKPASCSDTNTXVTVAWVWI"> create your own personalized map of the USA or check out ourCalifornia travel guide -
two crazy-ass toe-heads back in '85
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pencil sketches and makeup on the passenger seat visor.
driving home. from wherever, so long as home is my destination. i catch myself looking around my surroundings and criticizing everything; bitching about every little thing, at first. "why can't….how come….where's the…." but then a peace usually washes over me. i see a bridge and a sign that reads "pine river" and i think how i would have killed to see that bridge so many times before when it was an impossibility. -
from sea to shining sea. or some bullshit like that.
Live At Ibiza: what's up man? spira infinitas: heya. just posting some pictures online. spira infinitas: what up Live At Ibiza: not shit, just turned in some laundry and took ashower. spira infinitas: i see. amy came over tonight with maria. i think she's trying to hook us up or something. Live At Ibiza: did she? is she still there? spira infinitas: no, she went home Live At Ibiza: dammit Live At Ibiza: she said she was gonna email me what time she worked tomorrow but she didn't. -
the brothers robb
my brothers and i out front of my grandmother's house before brad left to go back to iraq. he had come home on leave in september because my father died. eric, bradley and myself. -
rock the casbah
"This Coastie is ringing in the new year on patrol down here in the Carribean. I'll be with you guys next year though! Leave no beers behind and take lots of pictures for me! And remind T-Mills to watch his drink for GHB (GR Girls are sneaky)!" haha -
*somewhere in the system theres an open-ended list of all the lies we tell...*
what an interesting month this has been! i wish all of you could see the scene out my back window! the woods across the river completely blanketed in snow: absolutely gorgeous. if i find my camera, i'll snap a shot or two. completely different world than florida. but i guess that goes without saying. i had a nice trip…wish i could have visited a few people i've been meaning to. beyond my control! -
say what
god and i had the best make-up sex ever, today. oral report for government went extremely well and i got many good responses from it, especially concerning my comparison of the patriot act to george orwell's 1984. i also received a 96/100 on the exam. bought a cd for the first time in months, though i had to pay with credit, music is one of the only things that really puts that excitement in me with the giddiness of a child. -
rencontrer des personnes est facile
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merci
no matter how cliche it may sound, i really do have a whole lot to be thankful for… -
blah blah blah blah blah blah
Once again we ride these beasts to the said tributary of un-originality, where we will watch them drink, where we ourselves will drink, as Christ did with closed eyes and beard dripping, where he has and we will urinate what our bodies did not want, and on down the delta Buddha speaks between handfuls of nourishment and excrement, cupping his stubby fingers he sips without second thought, touching holy lip and tongue, all the while his purity never eluding him, who speaks not of an originality that lies in one man alone, no beast or tree, earth or stone, but instead in all things equally as one, where each is granted right to express by any medium, his thought which is not his, such as opening a window and allowing others to look in, as well as for himself to look out among their faces, reflecting their own remembrance of that chord within. -
this house it was haunted
this house, it was haunted the moment he took aim with no apparent motive crimson now flesh's fate pistol plane stayed tangent and in-line with the face of a once quiet child who'd always take the blame 'cause even a swift hand was attention still desired and through tired tenaments those wishes, they transpired the quiet buzz of appliances ping pong down hallway walls soft water from the faucet echoing it's whispered call: -
hrm...
ok. so i made an animation to commemorate mars volta. more importantly though is that it emphasizes omar's package. ode to tight pants. -
kind of bland
no charitable hello or glance in my direction just a graceful walk-by to test my lacking patience warming sensations, thoughts of sexual situations dark brown on gold and hand-me-down kisses denim wrapped candy skin to envelop my senses congratulations, this autumn has brought with it temptation inspiring scribbled sonnets on white diner napkins beige coffee ring stains over my love confessions heart-choked logic in thump-thump succession that's all i need is another superficial distraction to cloud progress by reality's definition "what a waste" whispered at my funeral procession but even a bland rhyming scheme can ease my tensions when my heart seems bigger than my chest's dimensions