Now Playing:
The Kinks, Village Green Preservation Society

Lately Played:Harry Nilsson, Son of Schmilsson
Jackie Mittoo, The Keyboard King at Studio One
Various, How Soon Is Now? (Smiths Tribute)
Hidden Cameras, Mississauga Goddam
Papercuts, Mockingbird
Aphex Twin, Come To Daddy

Last night's Halloween party went well. We had quite a bit of fun just hanging out with our guests. I put a spiked black collar on Flannery, who strutted around proud of her bad self in the thing. We ate tacos and snack mix and vegan cheesecake. Some of us drank Electric Reindeer wine. I spun a Halloween mix the contents to which I'll eventually post on the Pop Culture forum.

I can't find information anywhere on when trick-or-treaters start coming around tonight. We were told that quite a few will frequent our house so we stocked up on the candy. Please, kids, come and take it all. My self-control is terrible and despite the fact that I'm overweight, my body still keeps informing me it's time to start putting on my winter warmth.

I feel good right now. I got the bills done and it's always a major accomplishment to get those done right around the first of the month. I'm not very good at remembering to do them on time.

I'm not sure but I may have just officially stopped caring about this election. I only have two more days but the buzz has overtaken me and I'm sick of hearing about it. Too bad we'll be hearing about it for the next 3 months due to the inevitable dragged-on court battles sure to happen no matter who wins.I'm leaning toward voting for Nader as opposed to being pragmatic. I'm also considering writing in John McCain or Dennis Kucinich. And I wonder how people can tell I'm a Cubs fan.

If I could dress up like anything for Halloween tonight, my top 5 choices (in no particular order) would be:
-- an Oompa-Loompa
--Marc Bolan (of T. Rex)
--any of the apes from Planet of the Apes
--A Hobo (which I pretty much dress like 4 days a week anyway)
--Jonah

Last night I wound up on a writing groove much better than I've had in a long time. Got to bed way too late. Woke up with Stacey getting up and was falling back asleep for perhaps another half hour when I heard her yelling. Turns out our power went out while she was in the shower. I keep a lantern around for such occasions and we lit candles until our times to go. The power was out in our whole little area of town, turns out. The cat knew something exciting was happening and was absolutely thrilled.

With Nebraska a solid Red state and vicarious Iowa presidential election news only providing so much action, the big deal for us Nov. 2 is an initiative that would allow various forms of gambling (primarily casinos and more electronic gambling in public places) in Nebraska. I don't really view this as a great idea. Yes, all we have to do is cross the river to gamble in Iowa (or stay ON the river and hit a boat!) but I also don't want the element that accompanies gambling popping up anywhere near my neighborhood. I like to think of casinos as classy places with the Rat Pack and smooth gangsters and dancing girls but all we ever get in the casinos here is white trash and old people. The last thing we need are more casino country concerts and the eldery warding off senility by throwing away money and enjoying cheap buffets. I'd like to play the moral card here but I think people should be able to make their own decisions. No, this is more of an issue on which I assert my horrid snobbishness.

I gave blood today. Took up my whole lunch hour. I always love the questions they have you look over and circle "Y" or "N"...Beware, readers...your sexual deviance could prohibit you from sharing blood. If you are a man and have slept with another man anytime since 1977, that could stop you from giving blood. If you're a woman and have slept with a man who's slept with a man anytime since 1977, it's possible you could be shooed away as well. If you're a man who has given money or drugs to someone for sex, and that person has slept with someone who has slept with a man AND you've recently gotten a tattoo and/or piercing AND you've visited a foreign country lately (or slept with someone who has) then don't even bother.

I promised the kids we'd talk about a "scary movie" of their choice (well, their choice as approved by me and their dad) for Sunday School. We're using this year to focus on learning to see past the surface on things and analyze what's really going on within whatever one sees/hears/observes/experiences, doing so as Orthodox Christians. Tough to do with middle-school kids of the Video Game Generation but I believe it will be good for them. Anyway, the movie we're discussing is "The Ring." I've not seen it so we'll have to rent it tonight so I know what questions to email them tomorrow morning. Also tonight is the Richard Buckner and Damien Jurado show. Then tomorrow we'll get ready for tomorrow night's party at our house. Busier than I like for a weekend to be, but should be good times.

My intention is that this journal be more than weekly. Last week wound up terribly busy, however, if I remember correctly.

Thanks to Chris Estey for some interesting comments on my last post (on the livejournal version, however...go here if you're reading this elsewhere). I always love comments.

Now Playing: Elvis Costello, When I Was Cruel

Elvis Costello one of my landlord's favorites. Well, our landlord is actually a couple. How many people are lucky enough to have a landlord with whom he can talk about Cure albums and decent films?
We went over to their place Friday night, it's just a few blocks away. Super layout and decor. You can tell they're art, film, theatre, music aficianados. We made friends with their nervous little chihuahua (that thinks it's a terrier), Kafka. Ate wonderful food. Talked for hours.

My new computer came last week. I feel a bit more myself again, an admission I'm not necessarily proud of. We realized we'll probably need to save up for a new computer so Stacey can play Sims 2 while I'm doing whatever it is I do all the time. Some of what I do is getting everything together for our church's bookstore, a brand new duty for me. I'm also getting set to review a new Smiths tribute record, new albums by Hidden Cameras and Papercuts. I'm also writing something I'm not sure how to describe...so I won't.

This morning I woke up and my left shoulder holds a strange ache. My whole arm feels simultaneously sore and weak and tight. I was just trying to flip papers while stamping them and it bothered me. That side area of my neck feels less than good and somehow related as well.

Please, God, just let this election be over soon. I actually don't hate politics -- I think many people just dismiss politics as some broad subject that only a certain circle of people get into and care about and are affected by while in reality it's a euphemism for the everyday decisions that end up shaping culture, life, death, so many things. Anyway, elections are terrible anymore. Posturing is inevitable but the lies, deceptions, distortions are just as damaging as any policy anyone's made. Anymore, elections are like walking into a dark alley and getting to choose who will mug/beat/violate/wreck you. I still deep down think that "it does matter, it really does!" but only because one of the candidates is particularly horrifying. In the interest of brevity and getting work done today, not to mention making myself even more irritable and preoccupied than I already am...that's enough ranting for now.

This morning I've felt a strong desire to listen to Who's Next. That will probably be followed by Love's Forever Changes.

If you're in or near Omaha, contact me about a Halloween party we might possibly have this weekend. We decided this past weekend to have one, but then both of us hit apathetic stretches and any conversation about it became an "I don't care" exchange. Hopefully tonight we'll have more details...the party will PROBABLY be on Saturday night...I think we're going to see Richard Buckner and Damien Jurado on Friday night (and so should you!). If the World Series is still going I'll probably be rude and have it on in another room. Those are really the only details I know so far so if you want to come and have any creative input ideas then by all means toss them at me.

"Getting Exercise" is a great excuse for Stacey and me to walk from our house to the Old Market area and snoop around. After reuniting with our favorite second hand store (perusing old clothes, collectibles, chicken kitchen paraphenalia, etc.) we went digging around in the Antiquarium's record store, knowing we couldn't really buy anything but just wallowing in the basement's great atmosphere. We headed toward the stairs to leave and Stacey told me that going to these places makes her miss Chicago. I miss Chicago a ton. Omaha's good and just right for our economic and spiritual situation but Chicago is, well, Chicago and we're both feeling the itch to visit again, knowing it won't be too soon.

The situation could very well have happened at The Office or come straight out of Office Space.
My boss wanted to listen in on a teleconference (where people pay a nice big fee, dial in and listen to Experts Talk About Issues) so she had me sign our office up for it. The confirmation email came last Monday and I sent it along to her so she would have the information at her disposal. This included the dial-in number and the passcode needed to hear the conference. Technology is a beautiful thing and the lovely thing about email is that one can send information along so people have it right in their own laps without having to ask others for it at inconvenient times. My boss is also vocal about not wasting paper or printing things out that don't need printed out. So, like I said, I forwarded the informational email along to her so everything would be right where she needed it. I ended up being sick, really miserably sick, Tuesday through Thursday (well, through Friday, but I managed to be at work that day). The teleconference took place on Thursday. I woke up a bit after noon to find a voicemail Barb had someone else in our office leave for me asking where all that information was. I logged into my email and she'd emailed me, as well. I emailed her back, telling her that I'd forwarded all the information along, even giving her day and time (I've taken to saving nearly everything I send for this very reason!). She replied that if I had done that she didn't know what it was. The person in the business office who used to sign her up for these used to send her a hard copy, she said, and that's what she was looking for. I was absolutely blown away by the fact that not only was the blame pushed back onto me anyway, but that she still wouldn't acknowledge that I even sent the email and that a hard copy is what she needed despite the fact she never told me that or asked about it. This is the sort of ongoing thing that causes my nearly constant chronic neck pain and stressed-out insomnia some nights. The crazy thing is that I actually like my boss as a person. Too bad the job market is lousy.

Sunday afternoon we went with Walker to go see a movie. The only one playing anywhere near the time we got there (the two we had wanted to see had already started and weren't playing again for quite some time) that didn't look as if it would just outright steal 2 hours of our lives was Napoleon Dynamite. We ended up digging it quite a bit. The film comes uncomfortably close to how I was at that age. The difference is I was very sheltered, went to a Christian school, and lacked even the slightest bit of self-confidence. For example, I crushed on the same girl from 5th to 9th grade. Then, finally in Grade 9 I started becoming friends with her. As fortune/fate/Satan would have it, we sat next to each other in typing class. Yes, I'm old enough (and our school was backwards enough) that I learned to type on an electric typewriter and it wasn't until 9th grade. Anyway, we talked and became friends and I asked her to meet me for breakfast on this youth group trip we were taking to Indianapolis. My intention (and as I recall, I'd hinted at it a couple times) was to use this breakfast meeting to ask her to our "Spring Fling" banquet (our version of a prom, I suppose). She agreed to meet for breakfast at a cinnamon roll place. I went and waited for her for quite a while, then figured she must have slept in. I started walking back to my room and saw her eating breakfast with this other guy. That one took years to get over and every little crush after that was more painful and so self-conscious that the next two or three girls I liked, I could only communicate with them via sloppily-scrawled notes. I made Napoleon Dynamite look like a popular preppy jock kid, come to think of it.

Last week NPR had a rare (his first in 19 years, they said) radio interview with Bob Dylan. The interview, the first chapter of his new book, and a few other things are right here at npr.org .

Nothing like losing half the work week to being sick. I'm the first to admit that I call in the occasional "mental health day" for one reason or another but this week I was out 2.5 days with the cold/flu thing. Didn't want to spend too much time on the old computer but managed to keep up with the email, for the most part. Owe my grandma one, though. The bad part about being home sick from work is that because I'm sick I can't do other work I'd like to at home. Tuesday afternoon Stacey was sick (yes, she was sick earlier and I caught this from her!) and we at least got to commiserate. Wednesday afternoon I and the cat watched two Westerns on television. She liked that I was home and kept curling up next to me, on top of me, getting irritated at the fairly frequent bathroom trips resulting from following advice and drinking lots of fluids. By Thursday I was sick of television and nothing I really wanted to watch was on, plus television was hurting my head at that point. I listened to Smile and the new MeWithoutYou and that helped alleviate the terrible combination of sickness and restlessness.

In other news, the deal I was waiting for Dell to cycle back to came through, I've made my order and it should be shipping 22 October. I made sure to get a DVD burner on this one since people are asking us for copies of our wedding DVD.

Tonight's a big night. Sure, we're not quite recovered from our sicknesses but I won free tickets to go see RENT tonight. I saw it a few years ago in Chicago but Stacey's not seen it. I think she'll enjoy the show. She's picking up dinner from our favorite cheap Mexican place (Alvarado's, for you Omaha folks). After a rough week, that'll be a good start to the weekend.

The aftertaste from Cold-eeze has me soured for the afternoon. I'm in a pretty good mood, just don't want to use my mouth for anything. Poor Stacey's out today with strep throat and I've got minor symptoms. I'll battle for at least a few days this week. We got free tickets to go see "Team America" tonight but everyone might be better off if we don't go.

We visited the zoo for the first time on Saturday with Walker, who had been there before. I've never really been much for zoos but I have to admit that Omaha's is impressive. We felt bad for some of the poor imprisoned animals (knowing full well that some of them end up in the zoo because for one reason or another they can't hack it in the wild), especially a lonely tiger whose depressed roar will probably haunt me for the rest of my life.
Also checked out Eden, a new place on 14th and Farnam. It's a bistro/Greek/coffeeshop/bar that's got all of the above until 1am anytime but Sundays. Our food was pretty tasty (sorry, not a food critic here) and they have a decent ice cream variety. The atmosphere is quite nice, actually. Not bright or flashy, but lovely Greek environment that's both classy and accessible. After hours of walking and gawking at entrapped quasi-wild-life, we were happy to find a place nearby with such a wonderful combination.

Today's post will no doubt be saturated with the banality I find myself surrounded by. See, I even ended my first sentence with a preposition. I write my own scandals.

One of the Omaha area's nearly unknown jewels is Alvarado's, a Mexican restaurant with two locations. Both look like bombed-out Taco Bells. The 90th & Maple site is generally nowhere near where we are so we end up going to the one just across the river in Council Bluffs. Alvarado's offers not just tasty but hefty portions for a good price, 5+ bucks for a platter with entree, beans and rice. The Omaha Pulp (local weekly rag) usually has a coupon for a buy one, get one half off deal. The Council Bluffs location also has the Ms. Pacman arcade game and both are open 24 hours. I mention all this because right now I'm craving their food, though I'd settle for a 7 layer burrito from Taco Bell. Every time we go to Alvarado's (and for a couple months, it was about once a week -- always carryout) I end up eating way too much. Last time I swore I'd only eat half next time but I'm not sure if I trust myself enough tonight.

Last night our priest, Fr. Stephen, and his wife came over so he could do a "house blessing." We had a wonderful time...after the short blessing ceremony (which consists of prayers and psalms) we had some orange cheesecake Stacey made and drank a little coffee, drank a little wine. He's retiring...in fact, his last regular Sunday liturgy is this coming Sunday. He and his wife will still be living in the area but will "disappear" for a few months once the new priest is officiating. I agree with Fr. Stephen that now is as right a time as ever for him to retire but I'll miss him greatly.

The rest is even more boring. I'll spare you.

Lately anything I've felt like writing or even just half-mindedly posting, I've felt like spending more energy and time than I can really use at work. Either I'm in an old-age state of accelerating verbosity or I'm feeling less obligated to tap in the mundane. Either way, I need a little exercise (not just physically, but as far as just putting thoughts down).

Good news to report on the computer replacement front. The insurance company has acted in a very timely and reasonable manner and I'll be getting my computer replaced very very soon. I should have an order placed in the next couple days and a new computer within the next couple weeks.

As happens with so many things, this whole situation gave me a chance to meditate on a few things. The Vagrant Cafe zine has suffered from both unfortunate and overwhelming circumstances for far too long now. Yes, things are very very busy. They always are and always will be. However, I have a couple more months when I'm not in classes but will have a good computer...this should be a good kickstart. I've been able to sit here and WANT to write and edit and such and even have some time to do so, and that's helped me remember that I still want to do that. Ideas keep streaming through my mind and more importantly, I've had time to actually think about who we are and what we want to do.