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August 24, 2005 /

I just said goodbye to Ian. He’s going to work for a month in Utah before heading on to Los Angeles. He beat me to Louisville, and now he’s going to beat me to California. He’s been taller than me for as long as I can remember.

Ian’s got a new used truck and everything he owns is in its bed. He’s let his hair get too long because he thinks it’s rock ‘n’ roll. Last night was the biggest Tuesday Night Basketball I think we’ve ever had–everyone showed for a sendoff to its lynchpin. We ordered so much food and Lisa made a cake. We played games.

Sometimes I wonder how much I damaged Ian, growing up, by expecting him to be my peer and treating him like an inferior. Then I realize I’m assigning myself too much influence. Ian’s his own man, smart and ethical and a past master of all the social skills with which I still grapple; he didn’t need me to teach him about jokes or girls or writing code.

Ian will say his Saint Michaels. He’ll be fine.

August 23, 2005 /

More than anything, really, Sister Act was a disturbing object lesson about the man-worship content of Fifties pop music.

Conflict.

August 23, 2005 /

I hate my crutches like magnetic north hates… other magnetic north. They are a pain and an endless-conversation curse, and I can’t walk ten feet without sweating. I have raw places on my sides from where they rub through three layers of cloth. They’re borrowed from Maria’s mom, so I will return them eventually with a smile and a thank-you; otherwise I’d snap them, burn them, sow their fields with salt yea look ye mighty &c.

But I’ve been using them for less than two weeks and I’ve visibly lost weight and gained muscle mass. Upper-body muscle mass, as much as I’ve had in my entire life.

My uncle Jerome recommended staying on the things for four weeks, absolute minimum two weeks. I really want to get rid of them come Wednesday night. But the huge blood-pool bruise on the side of my foot isn’t gone yet, and I don’t want to screw this up and compound my tendonitis, and I like weighing less and having triceps.

The two things I’m really worried about are my hands, which never stop hurting even after Epsom-salt soaks and hours of rest. The pain when I first pick up the crutches is worse every morning. Working at a keyboard every day occasionally gives me carpal-tunnely twinges; those have become more frequent since I started using the crutches. The fear is obvious.

I know I won’t work out after I start walking normally again. I don’t want my ankle to heal badly. I hate being slow and painful and not being able to carry things. I don’t want carpal tunnel.

Conflict.

Because I don’t post lyrics at the end anymore

August 21, 2005 /

I wish I felt more authentic about liking Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. Basically the whole interweb told me they were good, then Maria told me I’d like them, then Ian played me the CD, and everyone was right. It was like being spoonfed. I wish I’d never heard of them until I heard them. I wish I’d walked in halfway through their set opening for somebody else and they’d started “Me and Mia,” and there’d be sweat spraying off me, pain in my ears, the way I used to dance before I worried about my spine.

Hollywood Drama

August 15, 2005 /

“‘Deuce Bigalow’ is aggressively bad, as if it wants to cause suffering to the audience. The best thing about it is that it runs for only 75 minutes.”

The DB:EG-related spat between Rob Schneider and critic Patrick Goldstein, as summed up in Ebert’s review, is attracting more attention than the movie itself. Thank heaven this thing will be protected by ironclad copyright for the next one hundred and twenty years! We wouldn’t want pirates to steal it and make all that creativity worthless!

Read the review. The smackdown at the end will make your eyes water.