My hair was starting to get kind of tangly, so before my shower this morning I broke out the clippers and reinstated some discipline on my high & tight. (It wouldn't pass muster in the actual service, since it's kind of shaggy around the front & sides.) This is the haircut I've been giving myself for years now, but I've got to be a lot more ( Read more... )

Ever have one of those days where every train of thought that you board seems destined to take you express to some source of deep and burning embarrassment from your past? I woke up remembering something terrible I did when I was eight, so I tried to switch topics by thinking of what a nice time I had when I went home over the summer-- and ( Read more... )

Saturday-- How I hate walking dogs on Saturday. I think I've mentioned before that even though I ride my bike for work all week, I do it with less enjoyment than stress. Riding on city streets twists my stomach all up, even though I do it all the time. So the main appeal of my weekends is that I don't have to dodge semis on Ashland or cabs on ( Read more... )

So I ended up doing a little bit of last-minute dog-sitting yesterday and this morning, which I was ambivalent about. On the one hand it would allow me to watch AMC's Halloween marathon, including the much-maligned "Halloween III: Season of the Witch", which I've wanted to see for years, ever since I was a kid. But on the other hand, it would ( Read more... )

Fire chief: 25,000-acre blaze was set

What kind of shit-for-brains does such a thing?

Since I am often watching the old person's TV channel (Channel 23, MEtv) there are lots of commercials for automated wheelchairs and health insurance. One of them, which comes on almost every commercial break, begins with the following line ( Read more... )

So tonight's overheard bar conversation was lifted from the group who dominated the place all night. Between playing the standard 80's retro butt-rock and taking lots and lots of photos of each other dancing and lip-synching to said BR, two women and two men had a gossipy conversation about an absent friend, at a really unnecessary volume, about ( Read more... )

Occasionally I will lament that I have never made a career out of my writing, in spite of a rock-solid determination at the age of eight that it was the keystone of my future life. My ex-wife, parents and many friends over the years have tried unsuccessfully to shove me into any number of writing-related careers-- journalist, advertising, ( Read more... )

All week I've managed to walk my pups and be home by 2, or 3 at the latest. I've managed this by being short two dogs this week, going to bed early after the bar, and riding like a crazy man. Hence, each day this week has found me comfortably ensconced on my couch in time for the bombastic opening credits of "Magnum P.I." and sometimes even " ( Read more... )

Last time I was home, my step-mom and I were talking about this and that, and she asked if I was seeing anyone. I said no, and that I didn't want to get into it, since virtually everyone I've spoken to in the last like, ten years knows what my problem is. She nodded and said that in one of the tribes she had studied, you could bring a topic to ( Read more... )