Robot Poet

Word of the Day: Hoecake (Note: not the same as a Bitchcake)

Monday, Monday. Kiss my ass.

Had a good weekend, though, Finch was up, we ate, we drank, we watched Sun Trash and Goon Moon play the hell out of some rock and roll. Finch provided passes to a Dr. Marten’s warehouse sale and I picked up two pairs of nice new leathers, unfortunately it was their “square” ware house, or “squarehouse” so there were none of the more outlandish varieties of shoe. Unless you take your crazy in shades of brown or black. But they were $30 a pair and you just can’t beat that, so while they may not have flames or spikes they look nice and they make me feel special. Very special. We also got a pair of clunky Docs for Sophie, which she’ll be ready to wear in about 4-5 years, just in time to learn to stomp the crap out of other kids at the playground. They seriously look like they’ve got the same amount of tread as the pair I bought, baby mud tires.

Word of the Day: Biscuitlike

Boy an I ready for it to be the weekend. I’ve been on my own in this office since Tuesday morning and it’s not fun. Usually when Karl leaves for days at a time I get some preparation, such as:

Who’s going to be calling me screaming?

What will they be screaming about?

How long will they scream?

Can I do anything to stop the screaming?

Unfortunately I have none of these answers available to me so all I can do is say “Duuuuuuuuh” and tell them I’ll call them back. It usually works but then there’s the guy who just called me saying he needs something RIGHT NOW and it’s VERY IMPORTANT and that he TALKED TO KARL LAST WEEK. Well that’s dandy, but Karl doesn’t take very good notes and I haven’t been able to psychically link to his mind today so I have no idea what he wants or what I can do to help. At least it’s Friday and I don’t have to deal with it for more than another, oh, 7 hours. Gah.

In better news, the legendary Josh Finch will be in town this weekend for merriment and strong drink, starting tonight. We may go out to Berbati’s Pan to see Goon Moon, some indie band I’ve never heard of that apparently has the artist formerly known as Twiggy Ramirez from Marylin Manson and some guy that collaborated with Josh Homme on QOTSA and Desert Sessions. Their Myspace music is pretty good, not what I expected. So if Finch is down, then I’m down, and good times will be had by all.

I’ve been seriously thinking of getting inked lately, I have my first tattoo all planned out, I just need the monies to get it done. I have a feeling that once I get that one done I’m not going to want to leave the chair. I already have my idea for my second and third, just not locations or specifics. The second will be a full color panel from a Calvin and Hobbes strip, probably one of the beautiful watercolor splashes he’d do that weren’t bordered, something like this:

The third will reflect another beloved comic from my youth, it may be a bit overused but I want a little Woodstock from Peanuts somewhere. I’ve always thought tattoos were supposed to be really deep and serious and reflect some landmark in your life, and even though my first tattoo is going to be that way I’m still pretty much a big kid and Calvin and Hobbes was a huge part of my childhood, as was Peanuts. So maybe for Christmas or something.

Something about Autumn/Wintertime always puts me into a Belle & Sebastian mood. Specifically If You’re Feeling Sinister or The Boy with the Arab Strap. Something about the soft, fragile, adolescent voice of Stuart Murdoch and all the tales of promiscuous prep school kids makes me imagine gray, blustery winters in some New (or Old) England town where everyone wears 70’s throwback wool coats and scarves and ascots and argyle socks while having dry, intelligent conversations about plays and obscure hobbies.

Basically I imagine a Wes Anderson movie.

But it fits, and I like it. So every year when the night comes on a earlier and the colors go from green and blue to brown and gray I pop in If You’re Feeling Sinister and imagine that it’s almost time for Final Exams at North Warshamptonfilgershireton Prep and pretend that arranging and classifying the collection of empty Robin’s eggs I keep in a shoe box under my bunk is a legitimate use of my free time.

Word of the Day: Pulverulent

Our expedition into well charted territories was a success, that is Jacob and I found Christmas trees. The ladies and babies stayed behind as the weather was bordering of foul, and Jacob and I were happy for the chance to move freely as men and stomp our feet in the mud and play with saws, even if the wind bit our faces like tiny wind faeries with tiny wind pickaxes. I recall being disappointed in the performance of my beard, as I’d been told that the beard has served as a distinguished man-muffler for legions of history’s greatest men, from Jesus to Zeus to Zach Galifianakis, however my chin and neck would take issue with those assertions. It does make me look cool, though.

Jenny and I put the tree up later that evening after it had a chance to dry and deposit it’s cache of stowaway spiders in my home like a festive Trojan Horse, the lot of which I’ve been swatting and squishing from carpet, tabletop and even my own wife. Curse you nature, come into my home will ya? I digress. The tree looks perfect (pics to come) and from mere appearance you’d discern it to be the ultimate cornerstone of the festive sensory experience; it looks like a tree, feels like a tree, sounds like a tree (as I was present to hear it fall in the woods), the sap on my hand confirms it’s taste to be “treeish” but alas, probably the most integral ingredient to a successful Christmas tree was missing. The tree does not smell like a tree. It smells like nothing in fact, no sharp nip of pine in the nostril, no earthy aroma, nothing. it may as well be a fake plastic mockery of nature’s flagship sacrificial ornament! What the hell kind of tree doesn’t smell like anything! No matter. I’ll just be buying another wreath or garland or something. The wreath I bought while getting the tree does smell like Christmas and I’m sure my front porch is really enjoying the scent.

On a more Al Gore-ish note, we’re currently in the middle of a nasty “winter” storm; strong winds, ceaseless rain and more than a few cases of flooding. In fact as of late this morning the whole town of Vernonia is cut off from the world as Rock Creek and the Nehalem river have joined forces and are currently holding the small community hostage. I believe their demands are “more salmon, less redneck sewage.” 500-600 people who left for work without incident this morning may find that they suddenly have an opinion on not only Global Warming™ but the subtleties of the hotel/motel rate economy. In other word’s they’re kinda fucked. I however was able to survive the night with no damage to report, despite notably higher blood pressure as a result of my dormant home security system doing brief “alarm self check” when the power went out momentarily at about midnight. The baby managed to sleep through that but I’m sure the ghosts of my ancestors felt my momentary panic.

In pleasanter news, (I assumed that “pleasanter” was a misspelling, touché spellchecker.) I’m borrowing Adam’s copy of Super Mario Galaxy and Jenny and I agree that it’s pretty much the raddest game ever (”raddest”, too? Is my spellchecker even on?) and I’ll definitely be striving for my own copy for Christmas as well as Metroid Prime: Corruption, which I’ve heard is also radberries.

Well, until tomorrow.

Word of the Day: Ameliorate

It’s Friday, it’s payday, my boss is gone, there’s classic Christmas music streaming and that rash is clearing up. Can it get any better than this? I submit that it cannot.

While typically my days at work are spent actively plugging away at some spreadsheet or catergorizing a contractor’s job as either “approved”, “held” or “who cares”, there are a special few days when the wok load is light and I can focus on much more important tasks. Things like checking my email, reading record reviews, downloading music or clicking the Stumbleupon button like it’s going to drop a treat on my desk. Those are the days I can look back on and say “I really made a difference today”. Afterall, those RSS feeds aren’t going to read themselves. (Though with the program being called an “RSS READER” you’d assume that they would.)

Anyway, tomorrow is December 1st and I’m actually getting a jump on the Christmas decorizing. Bright and early tomorrow (read: noonish) Jacob “The Hoff” and I will suit up and head off on a random expedition for the perfect trees, wives and babies most likely in tow. Though we don’t know what tree farm we’re going to we’ve agreed that a freshly murdered harvested tree is much more appropriate than one sold from a gas station parking lot and a helluva lot more appropriate than buying a plastic tree from Home Depot, even if they do come with a remote control to apply the cheer from a comfortable distance. Some say I’m a lamer for getting a fresh tree;”It’s cold out”, they say, “You have to water it”, they say, “I got bit by a rabid squirrel that jumped out of a live tree and they had to amputate my foot, boo hoo”, they say. Bah! Getting your couch covered in sap and clogging your vacuum with pine needles is all part of the magic! Especially after Christmas when you’ve got a sad, drooping husk peppering your Berber with millions of tiny brown splinters as you drag it to the back yard and toss it behind your shed next to the defiled corpse of last years tree to linger for eternity as a warning to other festive plants and a testament to the sad, tragic cost of tradition. But hey, trees (probably) don’t feel pain and what the hell else am I going to hang all this tinsel from, my beard?

That’s actually not a bad idea…