The New abNormal

I started going bald pretty early on - - - I'd noticed (even if I didn't want to admit it to myself) in my early 20s that it was just starting to get a bit thin up there, but I kept growing the hair out, desperate to ignore the encroaching reality of my follicle shortage. Ironically, having long hair when you're going bald only serves to make that developing bald spot all the more obvious. Then, one day, I was with some friends, reviewing pictures taken from some sort of outdoor event and I remarked how odd it was in the way the sunlight was hitting the back of my head, making it look like I was going bald back there. The impending silence skewered me.

That next morning, I caught myself considering which way to comb my hair so as to display the least noticeable thinnitude - - this is really not the sort of thing a 25 year old should have to think about, by the way. It's just... weird. Not that there aren't worse things with which to be saddled, I'm just saying. Anyway. For all of perhaps three seconds, I considered my options. Toupees and medicines promising restorative miracles? Transplants? Nah.

I went to a friend's house and had her shave my head. "You can't quit - you're fired!" I told my hair. There's just no sense in denying a truth which everyone else sees so clearly.

I see a nice little analogy woven into that, but honestly, that's not where I'm going with this. I was actually thinking more about how a lot of movies use really bad hairpieces. Nicholas Cage has a long run of them, and Bruce Willis isn't getting much better. In fact, even though I'd recently declared Mr Willis "Cinema Bacon", I just saw "Surrogates" which dramatically challenges that statement.

I blame the bad hairpiece.

And yes, I'm sure they WANTED him to look like a Ken doll - but honestly, the damn thing was so horrible that I just couldn't take him seriously. Not even remotely.

Now, Lord of the Rings? For the most part, good hairpieces. Wigs. Whatever. Maybe Weta does hairpieces? Dunno, but they really set the bar nicely up there, clearly out of reach of most motion picture companies. 

Anyway, that's my plea of the movie makers. Please, consider your hairpiece budget. Try to default on the side of extravagance when pondering the amount of money you're willing to spend on a wig, and don't scrimp. Otherwise, we're going to be looking at that drowning rat on your star's head for the entire movie, and if that won't drag us kicking and screaming out of our happy little place of disbelieving suspension, not a whole lot will.

Oh, and crappy popcorn. But that's a soapbox for another day.
 

Question: What's your idea of "Cinema Bacon"? You know, just like how in meals, bacon just makes EVERYTHING better (except maybe ice cream, and I still see conflicting reports on that), there are in the motion picture industry, those elements that just make EVERY MOVIE at least a little better?

For example, Bruce Willis. His presence in a movie - no matter how brief his role or how bad the movie is - elevates it at least a little bit, makes it a bit more enjoyable overall.

There, I've said it: Bruce Willis is Cinema Bacon.


What is your Cinema Bacon?

thermalscorpion  and I have started brainstorming (BRAAAIIINNNNSSSstorming?)  on other pop culture standbys which could perhaps benefit from a little zombie action. and, really, who couldn't, right?

Here's a few of our ideas. Feel free to add any others you might come up with.


* edited - sorry, man, I spaced the original name. :(

Coolest name: Darko Matic. A Croatian sales associate who worked on the cruise - I call dibs on this name for a future novel.

Funniest former drill sergeant: Tim from the cruise staff. Funny man. Good taste in hairstyle. Is evidence of the maxim: "It is better to laugh WITH someone than AT them."

Best evidence of human Cloning: Brian, also from the NCL cruise staff. This guy was freakin' EVERYWHERE. Dear NCL: pay this man more. Like, enough to cover all his multiples, at least.

Most inexplicable catch phrase. "Chikka chikka." Our cruise director, Que, says this at the end of EVERY announcement. Now the song "Oh Yeah" has become tattooed on my brain. Dude. Please.

Favorite ship-board activity: Shout it Out! Trivia. Red Team rules. Blue team can SUCK IT.

Favorite Excursion: Dune Buggies in Huayamal. So. Much. Fun.

Favorite meal: (tie) Smoked shrimp and swordfish skewers, and the Chocoholics Buffet.

Best Moment: looking off the balcony to see a coordinated group of dolphins numbering 20-30 bounding from the ocean - breaking formation and rushing beneath us - and taking enough time that I could call Jillie out to the window to see it.

Favorite Tour observation: When on our jungle boat ride in Belize on our way to seeing Altun Ha, the boat driver Mike pointed to a nearby building painted with beautiful flowers - the sign read "Raul's Rose Garden." Mike said to me - "you know what that place is, right? As a man, you get that?" My eyes widened. "Oh, it's a ....?" He grinned. "Yeah. But not a good one."

Least favorite moment: on the plane ride home, the flight attendant (her name is Janice, works for Delta) shoved my backpack into the overhead bin - - - SHOVED, like drew back and slammed it into place - - and, when the other flight attendant pointed out that there was a laptop inside, said, "not my problem." Delta? Fire that woman.

Still more to come later.

(author's note: in light of the recent devastating earthquake in Haiti, I'd like to point out the apparent disparity of the quality of life there and the quality of life on the average cruise ship. But as you'll see, it was never lost on us. Our hearts and thoughts go out to the impacted people who are being directly and indirectly impacted by those tragic events.)

My first immediate thought is that it's really cold in the Pacific Northwest. Like, chilly, wet and tragically grey cold. And I'm shocked to feel concern at how late the sun rises here. But let's turn back the calendar a bit.

Jan 9th: We flew out from Seattle through Atlanta to Miami. We took Delta, because that's what they scheduled, but.... well, more about that later. There were issues with space and the like, but Delta has a new on-board individual screen thing so you can play games at your seat. The trivia game was free, and you played against everyone else on the plane. I won a few times, which helped to kill time and postpone my excitement about being on an actual vacation. We arrived in Miami and instantly suspected our pilot had somehow turned us around and landed back in Seattle. It was actually colder there than in Seattle! What's up! We somehow managed to find ourselves at the hotel, in spite of our shuttle driver's best efforts to drop us off at every other hotel in the area. Nice guy. :P

Jan 10th: My younger brother Thad didn't get his passport in time, so we unfortunately had to wish him well on his impromptu Miami vacation, while the rest of us (wife, daughter, mother, stepfather and youngest brother) made our way to the docks. The entire process of making your way through security and prep to an international cruise are pretty impressive if you think of them in strictly impersonal ways. The truth is that it's a lot of waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Get in one line, which is nothing more than a queue for another line; which pools you into another queue. We consoled ourselves with the hopes of one day being free from the waiting. That wish never really happened, but it did become often irrelevant. But anyway. We were eventually let onto the ship with our groovy little room cards and free to move about the ship.

Narrow hallways ? Maybe. Smallish rooms? Perhaps. But here's one thing I have to tell you all: if you're ever going on a cruise, do yourself a favor and shell out the extra cash to get your own balcony. Every morning, we saw the sun come up, and looked out our private door into whatever new world the captain had steered us to during the night. We saw dolphins out the window - we saw other ships, we watched the ports come and go. It was our own little Tardis, there, in cabin 9068. It was magical.

With little fanfare, we sailed from Miami harbor and into the great unknown perpetual horizon.

Jan 11th: Dining is a bit of fun on cruise ships. We had the choice of 4 mainstream "freestyle" restaurants, all of which were covered by the cost of our tickets. Other restaurants were also options - steakhouses, sushi and teppanyaki, you name it - though at an extra cover charge. We opted to save our cash for souvenirs and shore trips, though I did sneak off to get sushi once since no one else wanted to go. We also spent our first day at sea - this is a unique thing. Everyone's kind of just wandering around, and since it was still a bit too cool to hit the swimming pools, we dropped the kids off in the "kids area" where they played with all the other kids and we hit the shops and planned out our week. We also found that the cruise line really needs a starbucks.

Jan 12th: Roatan, Honduras. Our first day ashore, and probably in the overview a best choice. Roatan is a very poor place, to be brutally honest. We went with some other families to take donations to an orphanage and a school, but honestly there's just not enough that can be done for that country in small doses. I got to use my spanish a lot here, and had some great conversations with the people who drove us around and the teachers in the school. The entire day here merits its own blog, to be honest. It was one of the most vividly beautiful places I may have ever seen, but at its heart they were a people devastated by internal and external conflict. We were dropped off back at the docks, and wandered listlessly through shops filled with bizarre souvenirs, many of which were actually made in other countries. At the main pier, a marimba band played carribbean music - also culturally incorrect, but oh well.

January 13th: Belize! We took an actual excursion - we took a speedboat to the mouth of a river and took it upstream. Our guides pointed out a good deal of the wildlife - herons, crocodiles, bats, iguanas - and then pulled ashore for a tasty meal of stewed chicken and beans/rice. Very delicious. We then took a brief bus ride to the Altun Ha mayan ruins. I learned that "Maya" actually comes from the original conversation of the first spanish conquistadores with the native inhabitants of central america - it literally means "I don't understand", and was the response to the questions "Who is your king? What is your nation of origin? What do your people call themselves?" Good times.

We climbed to the top of one of the ruins and although I didn't do anything cool like a handstand or anything, I did manage to eventually catch my breath and take some amazing photos. I wanted to buy things, but resisted the urge to purchase a gallon of rum. In the end, we said goodbye to an amazingly friendly and beautiful country and I took with me a lot of photos, some great memories, and a desire to learn to speak belizian creole.

I believe it was on this night that we learned about Haiti's earthquake. It was pretty sobering, and it stayed with us the rest of the week - - it's a strange thing, being on a vacation and spending money in the illusion of luxury.... and in spite of already being aware of a nation's poverty, being made even more aware of it. It made me start to look at the overall impact of our trip, as well as the strange financial ecosystem created by cruise lines. Every port, industry abounded just for the purpose of showing people the best sides of their nations - - - and not just some stereotypical facade, but really showing us what the country was about. In return, the tourists threw handfuls of money at them - - more money then they otherwise drew in from local employment. It's a strange thing.

January 14th: "Costa Maya" - actually a port near Huayamal, Quintana Roo, Mexico. We made this a day of fun, and joined a dune buggy caravan. Serious. Fun. Adrian and Omar, our tour guides, led us through the town, with a couple brief stops for drinks and pee time, and then to a beachside oasis. I have decided where I want to live in my next life. I even took pictures. I rested in a hammock. We touched a live starfish and conch snail. We drove like indiana jones through a jungle. I even sang the theme song as we did it. Oh yes.

January 15th: At sea. We were aware now that our trip was coming to an end, but busied ourselves in activities to otherwise ignore that looming reality. I played a "shout it out!" trivia game (go Red Team!) and met some really cool fellow travelers whom I am now "facebook friends" with. I had sushi. We did a good deal of things and nothing at all. We watched the ocean.

January 16th: Great Strirrup Cay, Bahamas. I went. Parasailing. I was going to make a "I got really high in the Bahamas" joke, but, given everything else with Haiti, I just thought maybe so frivolous a reference would be inappropriate. We played on the beach, we took in the sun, we went back and collapsed. A monkey made from a bath towel hung from our ceiling.

Janary 17th: We arrived back in Miami - warm, humid Miami - and waited in many more lines before finding ourselves at the gate for our plane to Seattle with a momentary layover in Cincinnati. Worst. Flight. Ever. The only consolation was winning a few more planewide trivia games - we even shared a shuttle ride to our car with one of my opponents, who loudly cursed my name. Heh.

I slept in far too long - 10 am ET - and feel hung over. I suppose I am, in a manner of speaking - - I indulged in a good deal of vacationing, and now I must pay the price.

More to say - this is just the basic overview - - and I have photos to upload. But this is a good start. Welcome back, Seattle - - just.... please whisper. Thanks.

And here it is, my top ten "top ten" lists I don't want to ever see again:

10. Top Ten Scandals
9. Top Ten Fashion Disasters
8. Top Ten One Hit Wonders
7. Top Ten Natural Disasters
6. Top Ten "Where are they now?" specials
5. Top Ten Wage-Earning CEOs
4. Top Ten Political Failures
3. Top Ten Catchphrases
2. Top Ten Sexual Diseases
1. Top Ten Top Ten Lists I Don't Want to Ever See Again.

Come on, you've got all year. Make some calls, make it happen. Thanks.

I think the problem I'm going to have to at one point confront is that I, at one point or another, am going to disagree with every movie critic I ever agree with. Or listen to. Or read. Or watch.

I know, this is the point where I would gesture to the animator, who will instruct the CGI artists to make the "rolling eyes" face - but since I've gone completely overbudget, I'm just going to have to tell the soundtrack composers to do the "wah waahh" sound from the brass section.

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Okay, so I get to be a little excited about this, but I've finally put "The Morrow Stone" up on Amazon. It's currently there as a Kindle, but CreateSpace is setting up the hard copy as well, here.

I'm also re-launching my old CD, "Obsidian Bridges", and even included a few newer songs not on the original CD. I'll let folks know once that's been set up, if they're interested; I'm just waiting for them to complete the page.

So, yay. Back to your regularly-scheduled blogs, already in progress.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus

Seriously? How'd I miss this guy? I keep waiting for some internet prankster to jump up and say "HA HA! Fooled you all!". Has anyone else heard of this "Krampus" mythos? I'm fascinated by this idea that Santa has a posse made up of chupacabras.

So much more interesting than elves or flying reindeer.



That's Saint Nicholas (San ni claus; santa claus - - for those of you who've never noticed that etymological evolution) on the right with the miter and the staff. the Krampus has the horns and the long tongue. Apparently, Claus doesn't like to get his hands dirty, so he has one of his thugs smack the naughty kids around.

Seriously, who doesn't love studying old religions?

Another November's come and gone, with me having 50,000 words to show for it. I'm a little shocked, actually. I started the month strong with a 12k weekend, and then just puttered for the whole middle of the month. I got to about 30k with 10 days left, and then wrapped it with another 11k weekend. My head hurts, but I feel good for the workout, like I just ran a writing marathon or something.

The downside is that my book is only about half done, and I kind of left some of the main characters "in the trunk" - and I'm actually not entirely sure how they're gonna get out of their predicament. But I'll get to look in on them later in the book, so it's not like I'm gonna be stuck on this bit for long.

Whooooo. Ten chapters. Nice.

Granted, it's all a first draft, still, so I've got still a good ways to go: I'll need to knock out the rest of the book and then start up on an edit; but I'm not going to confront that task quite yet. I'd like to get closer to wrapping the first draft and then start working on another book idea; an anthology with some other local writers. More on that as it develops. For that matter, if you're an unpublished sci-fi writer and are interested in collaborating with some others on a purely self-promotional project (as well as being self-published via the internet), then please let me know. We're still nailing down the specifics on the project's parameters, but so far it's looking to be pretty enjoyable.

So, like so many things in my life, it's going to be a lot more fun than it is profitable. However, it's also looking to be a good deal more of a step in the right direction, professionally.

But anyway.

On a totally unrelated note, has the world just gone kind of crazy lately, or is it just me??

If you've read my blog more than, say, twice, you're already well aware of my unashamedly gushing fandom for Joss Whedon - - though admittedly it really started and ended with Firefly, I'll still watch and struggle to enjoy pretty much anything the man does.

I gave Dollhouse a chance. Several chances, really. And I enjoyed it. I was completely swept up by the "missing 13th episode" - only found on the Season 1 dvd set - and thought, "damn, this man knows how to spin a yarn!"

Season 2 was pretty impressive - once I found it on line and was able to watch it up until it was taken BACK OFF THE AIR for November.

Dollhouse had the makings of being a really good show, in spite of its early struggles. I enjoyed it. It had a really good cast, and, lets be honest, had Eliza Dushku, who I'm inexplicably a fan of. Yes, she's no Meryl Streep, but she's got a good presence when she's in her zone (go back and watch the Bank Job episode. She just needs to be angry or professionally focused and then I can't stop watching her.), and she's fun. She makes a better antiheroine than a standard one - - she'll always be better as Faith than as a Buffy.

But of course, Fox has cancelled the show. Of course they would! What else would they DO with shows I like? I'm trying not to enjoy Glee, because clearly my setting a DVR for a show becomes Fox's kiss of death.

I struggle to figure out what it is that Fox has against Joss. What, seriously, is it? They don't just hate him, though - they hate a lot of people. Mostly the people who want to watch the shows they put on. I don't get it. It escapes me.

I do, however, think I've stumbled upon why Joss keeps going back to Fox.

Fox is Joss Whedon's insane ex girlfriend.

No, think about that a moment. You've all had one of those relationships, haven't you? Where the sex was unbelievable, but they were just a little bit...umm... crazy? And maybe the crazy played into it. Maybe it was the crazy that made the physical parts so skull-shatteringly impressive. And you'd break up with them - because some insurance companies will threaten to drop your coverage if you don't - and, like a year later, you find yourself standing behind her in the grocery store, and she looks great and you talk, and she seems so much less dangerous than you remember her being, so you go out again, and six months later she's set fire to your DVD collection, deliberately threw your cell phone into the hot oil vat at McDonald's and told your friends that you've joined a cult and never want to speak to them ever again.

That's happened to everyone, hasn't it? Totally.

But everytime you think you've gotten away, she just randomly shows up again in your life and all the previous crazy has been forgotten - or at least doesn't seem so bad in hindsight.

See, Joss, you just need a better girlfriend. Fox - - oh, she may be lovely, and she might be great in the sack. But how many times do you need to wake up in the morning to see that she carved her name in your back to see that she's just not good for you?

You just need a good relationship. Like with ABC or NBC. They're good people, from decent families. Or maybe HBO or Showtime. They have more money to throw around and are a bit more concerned about their actual viewers than Fox.

Just - - - don't say no, yet, Joss. Think about it. Look at the new wounds scratched across your skin and the spray paint on your car. And just rethink it. Maybe it's just time you moved on.

Is this question even relevant anymore? If it had to a be a single CD, then I'd just burn my own mix of about 20 songs I love (which honestly varies from day to day), and NO MATTER WHAT THEY WERE, I'd be sure to hate them within the week. And, since this question didn't specify anything about a deserted island (and speaking of which, do we even have those anymore? I kind of thought they were all turned into beach resorts by now.), I'm going to assume I could just have a piano. In which case, if there's a song I get a hankering for (and due to the inexplicable ban on "surplus CDs" do not have), then I'll just learn it and play it. Or play something close to it.

Clearly, I have a problem when it comes to nearly rhetorical questions. Hey, let's talk about our favorite flavors of ice cream!

Okay, okay, yes. I watch TV. But I just saw a clip from one of the shows I watch - "Castle" (mondays on ABC) - and Nathan Fillion is wearing his old gear from Firefly! Yes, indeed, Browncoats, Malcolm Reynolds rides again - suspenders, gun, the whole shebang.

And when their victim of the week is killed in a graveyard with a stake through the heart... yes, he makes a crack about Buffy.

Fun times, man.

A plug I'm happy to pass along - an old friend of mine is putting on a one-woman play about the life and works of Dorothy Parker - "You Might As Well Live" through the month of November.

She's amazingly talented and, let's be honest - Dorothy Parker is pretty much made of awesome. If you're in the area and have the opportunity, go support my friend Ashley in what is certain to be a really exceptional show. The details are here - I sadly can't make it down there, so at least one of you needs to go on my behalf :)

Part of my job involves a lot of conference calls, many of which are attended by many of the high-mucky-mucks in my organization.

Without going into too much detail, a call from my morning included discussion of the H1N1 flu. Two great points which made me nearly fall from my chair in uncontrollable giggles were:

The Safety Concerns involving Hand Sanitizer, and Social Distancing.

Apparently, one of our buildings tried to get their local building maintenance to install a series of bulk hand sanitizer dispensers in the public restrooms, but were denied on the grounds that it presented a fire hazard. Yes, you read that correctly. FIRE. HAZARD. Now, granted, putting it in a more centralized and more easily accessible place is better; and putting it in the bathroom is somewhat redundant in that most people (MOST PEOPLE, I said, I'm a cynic) wash their hands with soap and water and applying hand sanitizer wouldn't be as necessary (the more likely fact being that a lot of people would use hand sanitizer in lieu of washing their hands. Which is just gross. But anyway.)  and besides, just going INTO the bathroom makes you a candidate for using hand sanitizer. So, redundant, sure. But Fire Hazard?

Yes, hand sanitizer contains alcohol and is flammable. But let's be honest - there are a lot of things that can catch fire in a bathroom (including methane, right?) and it doesn't happen so very often. I fail to believe that the introduction of hand sanitizer will exponentially or dramatically increase the chances of huge fireballs.

The hand sanitizer conversation digressed into the overall safety of having hand sanitizer AT ALL - it's toxic and children aren't supposed to ingest it, etc. At this point, I started laughing so hard that I couldn't hear the rest of it.

The next topic I was able to hear involved the current hot-word of "Social Distancing". It's a cool term - in case you haven't heard of it, it just refers to keeping away from undesirable people - - currently used in conjunction with people who are sick. A person's sick? You socially distance yourself from them. "Ohhh, you don't look well. Get away from me!"

In the plus column, it's good to see how seriously my company takes this whole thing, but I'd be happier if they extended their monkeysphere a bit in these conversations.

Bah.

Still, though. Flammable Hand Sanitizer. That is just gonna give me the giggles for a while yet.

In honor of the one year anniversary of starting last year's book, I've posted a small snippet from it, here:

Work has already begun on the sequel.

Sorry; it's been harder to get back into the swing of things than I anticipated.

So let me try and catch up here.

A little over a month ago, Jillie started complaining of low level stomach aches, lethargy and her appetite pretty much vanished. She got pretty skinny over just a few days, was voraciously thirsty, and started using the bathroom a lot. We didn't think TOO much of it, but after a few days of this we all got concerned - including Jillie - so we took her to the doctor.

 

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My family and I used to go camping and hiking. A lot. Well, "a lot" by my current standards. And one of the things I do remember - aside from really not generally enjoying it - was the moments that really felt good about it. It'd usually happen when you cleared a rise and paused to rest. You could often see, in those moments (and usually only then) just how far you'd come. It would also, unfortunately, underscore just how far you'd have left to go, but that's just the pessimist angle.

This year has been chock full of a goodly assortment of ups and downs, but things have a way of balancing out in the end, don't they?

I know I promised more information, but my brain's just too tired to be coherent. Bear with me a bit longer, friends.