It's that time of the year again...

I actually forgot all about it. With everything that's been going on with the move and clean up and life and whatnot, the last thing on my mind has been my impending birthday. But, it's fast approaching, and at 1:44am on October 1st, I will turn 28 years old.

And boy do I have a lot of grey hair! I blame the hundreds of all-nighters I pulled in studio. And the women in my life... Ooooh, those women... *shakes fist*

Here are some people with whom I share a birthday:

1903 Vladimir Horowitz
P i a n i s t

1920 Walter Matthau
A c t o r

1921 James Whitmore
A c t o r

1924 James Carter
P o l i c i t i a n / U . S . P r e s .

1924 William Rehnquist
J u s t i c e

1935 Julie Andrews
S i n g e r / A c t r e s s

1945 Rod Carew
A t h l e t e

1950 Randy Quaid
A c t o r

1962 Dale Hibbard [Doesn't have his own wiki...]
U n c l e

1968 Cindy Margolis
M o d e l

And here is me in my birthday suit. For some of you, this is going to be...

SHOCKING!!!

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

Well, I'm beginning to feel rather unproductive and sloth-like, despite the time spent cleaning my room, helping around the house, taking care of the animals, and searching for jobs. I think it's because despite the progress I've made, I'm still not done. I've got real problems with finishing things...

But anyway, I found a great little piece of work today. My journal from 1989! I was ten at the time. It's incredibly brief and only spans between June 29th and July 23rd, but the entries are delightful. I'm going to include a few of them here, as accurately as possible:

June 29, 1989 [First Entry]:

Blaines [Blaine is my cousin] last day here. We ate pancakes for breackfast. Went up town and to ambleaens staition. Man came to work on house. I think were going to Tawas Mi. We played in the mud. The recipy for mud soup is:
6 cp. of white dirt
2 cp. outside sandbox dirt
1 cp. water
I just got an ax and baseball cards from Grandpa. I made a birdfeeder, and helped dad.

July 3, 1989:

Tonight we are going to see "Honey I Shrunk the Kids. I just got a letter from my cousins the Hankinsons, the letter had a picture of a mouse on the front. Dan and Penny came over with baby Justin.
We are now leaving for the movies.
After the movies I got a Bubble gum Flurry.

July 7, 1989:

At 9:00 mom goes to get her nails done. After breakfast we go to Melissa's house [my aunt]. Then we went to town and got groushrey's. After we had lunch we went swimming. For dinner we are going to have Pizza Bread. I didn't get the Nerf Ping Pong set but instead I got a G. I. Joe that I've wanted for a long time, and four Meudiam sized sweet tarts. I hope I get my picture of the Titanic done so I can hang it up. I had half of a sub for dinner. Before bed I had a samdwich.

July 14, 1989:

I did not do much exciting things ! ! ! ! ! ! !!!!!!! !

July 16, 1989:

This morning I still had the pain in my stomache. I told mom and she said that I had a tempresure of 100.2 F. So I had some Tylanoll and I had to have a slush and some crackers, after that I felt better. Around lunch we went to the Heritig House [an up-scale restaurant], there I had some Sprite and SHerbert. Then whem we went out to the car threw up. So we stopped at a Party Store and got me some coke. But tonight I still feel sick.

July 23, 1989 [Last Entry]:

Today is the Ani [short for Anniversary, which I obviously couldn't spell, Party]. I hop I get a Lego set or computer game. Last night I went to bed at twelve o'clock. I've mainly stayed in where it cool. I finished my paint set.

What skeletons live in your closet?



There isn't any room for skeletons in my closet...

















Yet!

(From Consumating)

Things I like about Michigan

* The way that on some days, the clouds go screaming across the skies on wind so strong it seems as if the world outside my window is set on 'fast forward.'

* The way folks get geared up and excited about things at very large scales. I'm particularly speaking of football. I watched the Michigan vs. Wisconsin division opener with my grandfather yesterday and after the game he was getting calls from friends and family as far away as Texas to talk about the game. The Wolverines did hand Wisconsin a lost, but neither the coaching or the playing was as clean as it should have been. Not like it was in their route over Notre Dame. [And the Spartans handed the Fighting Irish a brutal lashing in the torrential down pours in Lansing last night, setting up what is sure to be a marvelous battle between themselves and Michigan in the Big House--that's what Michigan's stadium is called--two weeks from now.]

* That brings me to another like: College Football! I'm not much a sports junkie. I keeps tabs on the Tigers, Redwings, and Pistons, but not much more until post season play starts. But man, do I like to see these college games. Especially from my alma mater, Michigan. It's just one more fun, positive, enjoyable reason I'm proud to have gone to that school.

* Nature. My parent's house is in the middle of nowhere. Well, it's a little closer to the edge of nowhere these days, with sprawl being what it is, but regardless, it's remote. Byron, a village of some...800 people I would imagine...is two miles south. Gaines [where I grew up the first 6 years of my life and even smaller than Byron] 5 minutes north by car, Durand, 10 minutes. And none are what you would call bastions of civilization. So, the predominant rural character of this place, so different from Vancouver, is refreshing [though, admitedly frustrating]. There's my grandfather's garden and orchard which I've been plundering most every day for apples, pears, grapes, and tomatoes. The ants, hornets, rabbits, raccoons, birds, and deer seem fine with the loss of my share. With 8 acres between the families, there's a small portion of wooded land to wander in, swales, wet areas, weeds, and thicket. Edges like you can't imagine.

* I love the stars. Being remote makes star gazing possible. I haven't taken the opportunity to do so yet, but the simple fact that it's there is quite sublime.

* I'm enjoying the family. It's been a long time. My aunt and uncle from Lansing were out the other night. We went to my cousin's son, Jackson's, 2nd birthday day party. It was a Blue's Clues Party, so everyone had to come in orange and blue [the most wonderful pair of complimentary colors, in my opinion]. It was nice to just hang out and observe and talk. I love the little kids though. They are, beyond any doubt, the most amazing people on this planet. And adorable to boot! Their innocence and gullibility is charming, though I fear I'm going to be known as "Cleatus" with far too many of them.

* Teasing! My family is a dangerous and playfully entity. We show our love and affection through a wide variety of jokes, whitty quips, and playfully malicious humor. You aren't a part of the family until you've been teased and learned to tease yourself.

* I like taking trips through time. Cleaning out my room has given me a great opportunity to look back and reflect on how far I have [or haven't in some cases, as I type with my favorite Star Wars toy--a TIE: Defender--setting close at hand] come. It's especially interesting to flip through the old college tests and essays and papers. I must say, I was a most impressive student, once upon a time and just as sarcastic, ironic, and snarky! The professors ate it up! And man I was the cutest little boy EVER!

* I like the changes. Specifically, it's obvious that fall is approaching. All too obvious. It's frickin' cold out! But the weather changes daily. Heck. Hourly. Sunny, rainy, warm, cold, blustery, quiet... And the leaves are changing on the cotton woods and ash trees.

I like change.


Change is good.

Centers...

Ah, the room... The present center of my most industrious activities these days. It's a disaster area. If you can believe it, this is a shot after two weeks of cleaning and packing. It's actually looking better today, I'll get some more pictures of it this weekend.



Shoot. The resolution on this is really tiny... This is "the middle." The center of my families' 8 acres. There's a fire pit on the ground just out of view. When the land was first purchased by my grandfather, it was all weeds. It'd been cleared and farmed at one point and I recall that it'd been pasture at one point too. In the southwest corner there was a large pit and the typical collection of rocks [glacial erractics] cleared before farming took place. In the northwest, there was a swampy swale. In "the middle" an overgrown swale that held water almost the entire year. In it was 8 large cotton wood trees and a swamp willow. We cleared it out, drained it, and it eventually became the well-shaded, fire-pit endowed, summer camping retreat and communal barbeque.

From the left to right:

The picture starts off looking west towards the road. The first house you see belongs to my aunt and uncle. Panning further to the right, behind the twin cotton woods and the poorly stacked wood pile is my grand parents house. Just to the right of that, behind the small orchard, is my grandfather's garden and pole barn. Next you will see me and my sister's playset. Then, my house! It's rather austere looking from the north [and yes, that's polyvynal siding...], but that's because the house is designed to maximize solar gain in the winter, and therefore, the north side has virtually no windows. [Actually, all the houses were either designed by--or based-on in the case of our house--a local architect who was using passive solar heating, earth berms, and natural ventilation to reduce heating and cooling costs. The garage is actually an addition we put on over a decade ago. Then there's my father's pole barn [and its new addition].



And I just really like this one...

What is the worst mistake you ever made?



I've kept my big mouth shut on far too many occasions.

(From Consumating)

Where do you spend more time: the real world or the dream world?



That's an interesting question...

You see, I sleep in such a way, that, upon waking, I rarely ever remember what it is I've dreampt. I would say, on average, I'll wake up between 6 and 12 times a year, in that half-dazed sort of manner that allows one's consciousness to continue to recall his curious thoughts of slumber. Half as many as those, continue to stick with me at any length. Thus far this year, I only have the image of my home--the woods and fields and hedge rows of Michigan--as if it'd grown through the centuries of man's habitation with the creation of many canals and inland seas and lochs and shallow marshes and the spectacular quality of light that the abundance of water gave to the area, as the hostile aliens searched for a fallen star, the Princess of the Galaxy. But while that image is quite fleeting, I do know that the length of time covered in that dream was, at the very least, a matter of some months passing. Perhaps longer. And despite it's fleeting nature, it still sticks, quite resolutely, in the front of my mind, some 4+ months after it's initial passing.

However, there are days spent awake and working, which are just as lost to me. The day of Sept. 17th, 2000, for instance, is just as blank and void as last night's quiet dreaming and each are far less memorable, than the white golden ponds of a canaled and invaded watery Mid-Michigan. So, who's to say the two worlds are so distinctly seperable? Where is the evening's dusk, and morning's twilight? What of those worlds?

(From Consumating)

Hello. My name is Shaun, and I'm an alcoholic...

*sigh*

I haven't had a drink in 12 days.

It's driving me crazy. Well, not so much the lack of alcohol. That's merely an unfortunate side effect. I'm feeling on this still dreary, still cool, still wet day, rather frumpy. I miss all my friends in Vancouver. I've added a quote to the bottom of my page, from that crazy French author dude, Francois de la Rouchefoucald, the creator of such gems as:

"Confidence does more to make conversation than wit."
"One is never as happy or as unhappy as one thinks."
"There are heroes in evil as well as in good."
and
"We are all strong enough to bear the misfortunes of others."

I find myself quite delerious from the isolation here. I'm rather unhappy living in such a small fishbowl... For I have learned, in the last month, that I have been quite blind to the importance of my friends in my life, and have on many occasions, used my time with them quite unwisely.

Oh bother!

Well, I've spent this rather cool, wet, and dreary Michigan morning searching the World Wide Web for a part-time job.

There is, for lack of a better word, nothing available according to those resources that fits my particular profile and desperation. I'm about to shuffle off and de-stress with a hot shower [ooooooh! soooo sexy!] and then have lunch. I'll look through the help wanted ads of the Flint Urinal as I do so. I figure, that's a far more sensible avenue to take when looking for part-time, local work, but I did want to put in an effort looking more generally for a job that would better fit my particular interests and field of study. All is not lost, because after lunch I plan on navigating that all important, professionally wise, socially awkward ladder to the professional world we all know as...



NETWORKING!!



But it's not so bad as all that. Just going to send out some feelers to those I know in both academia [to my undergrad program and the writing center] and the professional world. Wish me luck!

"You all, everybody!! You all, everybody!!!"

You scored as Charlie. You're sweet, adorable and caring but with a bit of a bad habit.

Who is your "Lost" alter ego?
created with QuizFarm.com

The title quote for this post, from the lyrics to the fictional band Driveshaft's hit single, are actually from an episode of Donahue, the Flint, MI based talk show, when he visited Flint in the 80's after GM's first round of plant closings and layoffs. One of the audience members gets upset and addresses everyone as "You all, everybody!"

And, in other news, according to these scientifically accurate tests, my kinky turn on is biting, my mythical creature is the angel, I'm a romantic in bed, and I'm a nerdy girl. I guess 2 out of 4 ain't bad...

Mmmuuuwwahahaha!

Yes! I've finally succeeded in setting up a modem connection with my laptop.

No more hassling with an ancient desktop PC and monitor! [Well, the monitor is unfortunate, because it's one of the massive 21 inchers, but the resolution is crap.] Well, it's not really the computer's fault either. It's just old. And my sister's a bit of a virus protection Nazi. So much so, that for some reason, you can't even access hotmail. Or access vital pop up windows without a complicated set of advanced algebraic computations... Well, really all you've gotta do is hold down the key when you click something, but sometimes that doesn't work!

Okay, I should really be cleaning. Even though I've only got one box left to put stuff in. I'm basically saving all my Legos and my Star Wars stuff. I think I'll have my sister put everything else on eBay to be sold for approximately SIX BILLION DOLLARS!!!


Give or take about $5,999,999,800 or so...


Hahahaha! The cats are crazy tearing around through the house. Poopy Kitty skampers about playfully, while Lulu Ann swats, hisses, howls, and bats at him like the socially inept and neurologically damaged [but sexy!] feline that she is...

It ain't easy being green...

You are Kermit the Frog.You are reliable, responsible and caring. And you have a habit of waving your arms about maniacally.

FAVORITE EXPRESSIONS:"Hi ho!" "Yaaay!" and "Sheesh!"

FAVORITE MOVIE:"How Green Was My Mother"

LAST BOOK READ:"Surfin' the Webfoot: A Frog's Guide to the Internet"

HOBBIES:Sitting in the swamp playing banjo.

QUOTE:"Hmm, my banjo is wet."

Take this quiz!



I also have a new joke, courtesy of my father!

What do you call a homosexual dinosaur? [See comments for the answer!]

Reece's Pieces for everyone!

Well, for the first time since since getting back home, I went into "town" today. "Town" is in quotation marks, because it's not really a town that we go to. Flint Township is, like so many other countless across America, a vast, sprawling, retail breeding ground which seems to be catering to an ever aging, ever fatter demographic with nothing really to do but shop when there's nothing on TV.

I did my part though, whilst at SAM'S Club, by buying a massive 80lb bag of Reece's Pieces for $5.00. Ironically, we ran into my grandparents at SAM'S as well. It was ironic, because they live right across the driveway, but since I've been buried in my room for extended lengths of time, I haven't seen them since last Friday. Well, after we clean out SAM'S Club, and I tear open my bag of candy, after 3 hand fulls [which is about 1 handful less than what you'd get in a single-serving snack bag of Reece's Pieces] I was pretty much done with eating them, so we stopped on the way home to get some bananas because the back of the bag suggested that I should "squish Reece's Pieces into a banana for a crazy change." I thought, "Hell yeah!" I made a rather phallic little snake monster by smooshing the Reece's Pieces into the proper positions and consumed it with the half-hearted passion of a true believer in the food pyramid. It wasn't that great. My mother suggested that was due to the banana still being fairly ripe. I grumbled, "I guess..." I think she was bias because the snake monster banana kissed her before I ate it...

Holy crap... I think I need to see a psychiatrist...

Anyway, I do figure I shouldn't give up so quickly. It's not like I've got anything else to do after spending the whole day shifting about the mess of books and clothes and old children's toys.

The Room...

This is my room. It's changed little in the past decade. I will soon be rectifying that.

To home and there and back again.

Well, I've arrived safely back at the home of my youth. I flew into Bishop International Airport, in Flint, MI. It is, apparently, the second fastest growing airport in North America this last decade. Mr. Bush flew into BIA last Friday for his fund raising trip to Clarkston, MI. As per usual, he ignored the obviously problematic issues of living in America/Michigan these days and got down to the important task of raising political donations for a Republican Senate candidate. Oh, he also talked to the Ford heir about the miraculous job Ford the III has done running the car corp. into the ground. The president's mysteriously benign yet infinitely troublesome presence was felt in other ways, but I'll get to that later.

On Wednesday, my family had gotten word that my shipment to Windsor was waiting at the depot and that I had to get it immediately. Well, for us, that meant "sometime on Friday," so my mother and I took out the two bench seats in her minivan and drove down to Detroit/Windsor to pick them up. I got to Detroit in an impressive 1.5 hours. The traffic gods were kind. Now, I love irony. I love it so much, I'd love to kiss the shiney, be-spectacled jowls of the traffic engineer that laid out the Fischer Highway [aka I-75]. As you're entering the first ring of sprawl surrounding the once great city, somewhere around 8/9 Mile Roads, and pass under a warren of overpasses and bridges, you're presented with the humble silhoutte of St. Josaphat Catholic Church. You see it from an angle, it's three bell towers arranged so that its two smaller ones tightly flank the larger central tower. But that's not the irony. The irony is the Renaissance Center, home of General Motors, stands immediately behind it. The scale of it's enormous cock-and-balls styled profile, is muted by the distance to the core and serves as a dark-tinted frame for the little red brick St. Josaphat. If you're ever in town, I'll take you to see it. It's beautiful. And, depending on the traffic, you'll have anywhere between 30 seconds and 30 minutes to appreciate it!

Once in Windsor, after a couple wrong turns, we quickly pulled into one of the Greyhound depot loading bays [which were curiously labled "DO NOT PARK IN LOADING BAYS"]. Quickly, because there's not really much else to do in Windsor besides the strip clubs and casinos. After sauntering into the loading dock office, and presenting my claim tickets, the clerk informed me that they would get the 11 pieces right out for me...

I had sent 16.

After a harried and frustrated 30 minute ordeal of nervously waiting for them to recount and double- and triple-check the delivery slips, it was discovered that there were, in fact, actually 15 pieces.

"Oh wait, soory," says the clerk. "Here's the other one. *chuckle* Soory aboot that." 11 becomes 15 becomes 16. Third time's the charm!

At the U.S. border, with a minivan packed to the brim with large, mysterious boxes and 5 identical hockey bags, all I had to do was walk around and open the doors. I knew I should have sent myself 80 kilos of BC pot... Oh well! Next time! On the way back, however, after a getting gas [which is back down to $2.35 a gallon] and eating lunch at McDonalds [blech!] things got interesting. You remember that Mr. Bush was in Michigan? Well, Clarkston is between Flint and Detroit on I-75. Fortunately, we missed the highway being shut down, but between the gigantic Jesus sign and our exit, there were 3 state troopers, 10 county cops, and a cop on a motorcycle, arrayed under and over the overpasses. My mother and I thought there was some sort of massive sting operation or traffic enforcement going on. We didn't know until later that it was because Mr. Bush was in the area.

Such a bizarrely improbable coincidence...

There have been several instances of extreme clarity in my life. They are rare, and often don't come in moments of extreme anxiety or haste, but this one did, as I was climbing onto the bus, and beginning the long journey home. It made continuing that climb one of the hardest things I've ever done in my entire life. I hope to not get so cryptic, sappy, or elusive with this blog, so I'll leave the discussion of specifics into why and how that was so, at that.


But about 15 minutes into the journey, somewhere around the intersection of Granville St. and 49th Ave., the pressure dragging down upon me was lifted a bit as a Ford Escape pulled up along side the bus.

It had a Michigan liscence plate.

What do you fight for every day?



My sanity.

(From Consumating)

And first... A confession.

Okay, so this is my first foray into the wide, wonderful, weirdly web-tastic world of the Blogsphere. It comes at a time of great upheaval in my life. It shall be, I hope, a contemporary way to maintain my sanity, reach out to my friends from afar, and provide an outlet to certain mediocre frustrations that I'm sure to experience in the coming months.

For the last 4 years, I've been living in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It's been a rather impressive chunk of life that, unfortunately, was in no way cheap or easy. So, for a variety of unaviodable reasons, I'm returning home to America. The Midwest, actually. To the heart of the Great Lakes State of Michigan. To live in the same village, the same home, that I grew up in and left that fateful day in August, over 4 years ago. If you were here besides me, I'd point to a place a little to the right of the middle of my right palm. Because that's what you do if you've ever lived in Michigan. If you were an attractive woman, I might even be so debonaire and dashing as to take your right hand in mine, turn it up gently, and point to that location on your own hand.

But, imagine my consternation when, whilst establishing the foundation for a blog that will become a bastion of hope and light and general non-craziness in my life, something terribly and devilishly tradegic happens...

You see that picture there? That's Melissa Appleton. I know her in no way beyond the image you see posted here, stolen so heartlessly from the Blogger template preview pages. But I know she's a remarkable and beautiful human being. And I'm very much in love with her. Well, not really. And I highly doubt that her real name is Melissa Appleton at all. I'm just being a tad dramatic. Honestly, I've got enough people hang-ups in my life right now to last me to the end of time and back again. [If such a trangression against the physics of space and time were truly possible.] Oddly enough, it's those hang-ups which are the single biggest reason I don't wish to leave. Or, in some cases, wish to be following with considerably more attention and sincerity.

And that, folks, is the precident upon which this blog is set...