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12/01/97 - I almost wasn't going to write today (I came into work late) but then I remembered I really like doing this. I had a great Thanksgiving weekend filled with events and activities that make me happy. I ran with friends; I hung out with friends; I explored Richmond; I drank coffee and ate chocolate chip scones for breakfast almost every morning; I went to bed early and arose early (by weekend standards). I saw plenty of live music. I doubt I could have manufactured a weekend that came together as well as this one did. Now I'm sitting at work listening to Christmas music. I have to polish a paper's rough draft for my accounting class... I'm look forward to this. I have D-Hall lunch plans... I'm looking forward to these. All I need now is more friends close to me, more time to spend with them and an inexhaustable supply of interesting things to do... while this may be sound impossible it is my new goal. While I may never reach it striving for it will improve my life.
12/02/97 - What's so special about the grocery store? You go there to buy food, right? Right, but so much more is done at the grocery store. Don't tell me your not eyeing those of the opposite sex (or, perhaps, I should have been poltically correct... nah)? Do you feign interest in paper towels just to see if the cute blonde in the dark blue business suit and high heels is married? How does she walk so well in those shoes and do you think she's on to my phony cover? Not that any guy (most of all me) would actually approach this woman. Going to the grocery store is very similar to going to the European Import Autohaus. This stupid male behavior is no revelation, is it? But what about the tabloids in the checkout lines? I look forward to seeing what famous old person is experiencing their "Brave Last Days". How many times have I seen that inane phrase accompanied by some baggy red eyed ancient celebrity? I've been reading the tabloid headlines for 20 years now, at 2 celebritys a year that's 40 times and I bet more than 2 old, famous people die each year. I dig grocery stores.
12/03/97 - I got an email this morning. According to the missive the New Yorker published a formula for determining what your name would be were you a porn star, hmmm... The New Yorker did this? Well, it's fun and somewhat harmless so I'll participate. Were I so inclined to pursue the wholly unsavory career of porn actor my name would be derived from the my first pet's name and the road on which I was raised. For example (and I made this up myself) President Clinton would be (stretching the rules slightly) Socks Pennsylvania... or maybe that's what Chelsea would be. I'd be Captain Winding; I choose not to comment on my thoughts regarding this moniker. Anyway, I had a hermit crab named Captain and was raised on Winding Way. Suddenly a completely random thought popped into my head... How come Capt Pierce was never promoted once during M*A*S*H? Was anyone promoted? Of course I'm ignoring the fact that M*A*SH lasted 3 times longer than the Korean War. Wait, Rizzo (the motor pool/mess tent guy) went from Corporal to Sergeant, didn't he?
12/04/97 - I consider myself an active person. I hurt this morning because I was too active last night. In fact, and I'm not fabricating this, I was so tired, sore and disoriented this morning that I forgot to shave... Not that I like shaving that much anyway. See I met Cindy Crawford and then... yeah, right. I played 2 on 2 soccer with some friends. Fun, fun, fun. My best move was chasing a ball across the field at a full run only have my effort abruptly ended by a big aluminium bench BAM! Down goes Lee; Down goes the bench; On goes the ball. I have a huge welt on my left knee and scrape on my left thigh. I also lack the sturdy ankles I once had... I guess carrying 175 pounds around day after day, month after month, etc wears down the once mighty. This degradation is why the human body usually wears out after 80 years. Somehow, I understand, beating it up like I do makes them slightly more durable... how? I don't know. Well, I'll go back out there next wednesday and do it again. I'll try to find and note bench placement before begining.
12/05/97 - Christmas at Chez Deux Dudes: A study in practiced indifference. Ok, Andy and I have been friends since we were 5. We're both single, unattached and share a propensity for minimizing effort and maximizing effect. Therefore you can tell it's the Christmas season when you walk into our dwelling, but since neither dweller is actively impressing a specific girlfriend, the decorations are decidedly weak. The TV has been accessorized with the 12 inch "tree" my Mom placed on my dresser when I was a kid. There are tiny ornaments, candy canes and ribbons and a little tree rug covering the wooden base. The front door bears a red bow that adorned a gift basket I received last year. The piece de resistance is the Christmas light string strung from the living room running into the hall then bent into the dinning room and finally ending in the kitchen... these lights will probably remain in place until we move. That's it; That's the extent of our decorations. Two, lazy guys celebrating the holidays with minimum effort and (how could I forget this?) special holiday beer 12 packs. Are there sociological conclusions to be drawn? You decide.
12/08/97 - Today's the day of my first exam in 5 years... Yippee. I haven't studied yet... I fell asleep when I tried. Honest, I just relaxed for a second then someone stole my time when my eyes were closed. Today is also fashion faux pas day... I wore a rag wool sweater and khaki pants; I'm a salute to beige. I even wore beige socks and beige shoes. Ok, honestly, you smokers are starting to get on my nerves. I go out to enjoy music and everyone but Jimi HaHa and me is puffing on a cancer stick. My eyes burn, lungs hurt and I have a big zit on my jaw (which I can't, scientifically, link to smoking but I'm sure 2nd hand smoke is the cause). Please stop smoking. Also, you'd probably enjoy things a bit more if you exercised more frequently and stopped drinking... did I say that? Oops, I meant "rid yourself of the vices I don't have"; the vices I have must be alright or I wouldn't have them, right? Good, so stop smoking and exercise more often. Oh, and stop saying bad words, dammit! You make me so sick. Are we all out of that great Merlot? Cool, pass me the whole bottle.
12/09/97 - Lee's Christmas shopping tactics go something like this: Wait. Wait some more. Buy a CD. Make a list with one item; get frustrated; wait some more. Go to Target and get some impulse things. Wait some more. Buy some more stuff. Go out on Christmas Eve buy some more stuff. At about sun set on Christmas Eve I gather everything on my bed and see if I have enough. I scramble for wrapping paper (which usually involves going to CVS and buying Hanukkah paper because all the Christmas paper is gone). I light a candle, blow the candle out and head back out to CVS because I forgot Scotch tape. I return with a few more trinkets and tape. Relight the candle, put on a CD of Christmas music, wrap, get frustrated, wait, wrap some more, poke the scissors into my bed spread, yell, rush to finish, start using tiny pieces of tape because it's obvious I didn't buy enough. Then I finish. I put every thing in grocery bags and head over to Mom and Dad's. It's at this point that everything becomes worthwhile.
12/10/97 - Don't you hate it when you get to the bottom of a soda and still have ice left? Conversly, don't you hate it when you run out of ice before the soda is all gone. As a physics student we calculated heat transfer rates between different substances... why can't there be some general rule (we'll say a rule of thumb), with some scientific meat, advising on the proper amount of ice for a given amount of soda and expected drinking time. Ok, I go to 7-11 for a Mountain Dew Super Big Gulp (is the Gulp super big or is the Big Gulp super?), I expect to consume the beverage in about 30 minutes so should I put, say, 20 ice pieces in the cup? Will this be the correct ice dosage for my drink or will I miss my target completely? And do I need more ice or less to reach that perfect ratio where the soda and the ice are gone from cup in the same, final swallow? I need to do some research and make neat charts like you find in the back of science text books. Do you think this could be a grant getting research topic? Could I write my PhD thesis on this? I've seen some pretty inane topics; I may have a chance.
12/11/97 - On monday night my friend Sam brought a magazine perfume sample to our Accounting exam because it bore a picture of Elizabeth Hurley. Tuesday, Virginia brings in a catalog and the very same sample falls to the floor. "Cool, can I have this Virginia? I want to be just like Sam." "Ok," she says "here, you can have this one, too." So there I was with 2 perfume sample. One bearing the simple, wholesome likeness of Elizabeth Hurley and the other bearing an attractive blonde in a hideous, yellow dress. What do I know about dresses? Very little but I have an opinion as to what's hideous and what's not. Yellow puffy sleeved dresses with large brass buttons are hideous, trust me. Anyway, I'm deviating from my tail. I decided to find out how these perfume samples work. I opened up puffy, yellow (I don't blame the model; I'm sure she didn't choose her outfit) and rubbed it all over my hands. I guess I thought there was a chance only the paper stank and the scent wouldn't transfer to me. I knew I was wrong before I started but the consequences never entered my head. Suddenly I found myself stinking of AMARIGE de Givenchy. Oh Joy. Well, 24 hours have passed and the place still smells of... well, I'll always associate this smell with ugly, puffy yellow dresses.
12/12/97 - What's worth relating? Is every event worth remembering, writing and sharing? I drink lots of hot chocolate. I get it free in the office. I say "free" but I guess I might make $10 more a year if I didn't get this benefit. Anyway, in the morning, if Dee Dee hasn't already done it, I run a pot of water through the coffee maker to get a pot of hot water (flavored slightly by the machine in which it was heated and stored for HOURS before being displaced by the soon to be ruined water I just poured into the machine... I'm not bitter). I then make my day's first hot chocolate. So? Well, it's not filling yet it's caloric. I don't need those calories but I do need the good breakfast I'm forgoing; there, right off the bat I'm doing things I know I shouldn't do. Why do I do things I know I shouldn't do? I guess there's something inside me stronger than my sense of right and wrong. True, the wrong, in this case, is wee; it's about the smallest size in which wrongs are made. But the fact that my judgement is occluded is substantial in that it reveals a flaw. A flaw of which I'm aware but had no idea manifested itself so fully in me until I started writing about a random and insignificant, so I thought, event. I guess every moment is worth exploring.
12/15/97 - Science progresses constantly. I think I made a new discovery this morning. First the background. I was sober driver saturday (for the best concert I've ever seen... Agents of Good Roots but I digress). On the way home I dropped a friend off at her house and waited for her to get inside. Andy (drunk) decided it would be cool to honk the car horn. I said "Andy, don't honk the horn." Of course he didn't listen. Usually my horn sticks when it's honked... strangely it didn't this time. Hmmm, last night I was again driving. Beer run prefaced by a quick trip to the bank. Andy went to the ATM machine. I decided to test the horn again. BEEP. "Dammit, it stuck." But the horn didn't keep sounding; the button just didn't return to its normal position. "Ok, I can live with this... it's not making noise." Jump to 1:34am this morning. I'm awakened by a clamor I'm certain is a fire alarm. "Hmmm, the furnace is going, maybe something is wrong there..." I go to the basement door but the sound is less loud. "You know, it sounds like a car horn. I bet Andy's car is broken in yet another weird way... Wait a minute! That's my horn!" It turns out, I guess, the cold had caused something to shift and make contact in my stuck horn thus loud noise. Now to the science part of this entry: For some undiscovered reason the car horn must have made the ice on my car extra impervious to my scraper. It took me twice the normal time to scrape; It sucked. Any ideas... it had to have been the horn, right?
12/16/97 - Ok, scratch my theory about the ice and my car horn... the ice was just as thick and nasty this morning but I heard no horn last night. As nasty as a car horn at 1:34am are Spice Girls' songs (how was that for a segue?). Anyway and still, I'm somewhat envious of Princes William and Harry who get to take their friends to meet the Spice Girls. I think I'd like to have a party with the Spice Girls (and no producers... heck, with no one else PERIOD). I think I'd like to gather them around in my living room with a couple cases of Bass Ale (they are English, after all), a guitar and a Led Zeppelin song book. Yup, that's my newest fantasy... drinking beer and singing Led Zeppelin songs with the Spice Girls. Do you think Sporty Spice would want to go running first? Wow! Do you think they'd bring the beer? They'd probably drink it warm. I'd just have to put a few in the refrigerator... Did you know there's no "D" in refrigerator? I didn't. I wonder how many of the Spice Girls know how to spell "refrigerator"?
12/17/97 -
Birds, birds, birds, my word
My words are birds rising toward the ceiling
I'm getting sick of the importance of single words. Hypocritically, there's little I like better than a well used word. There's no book I read more frequently than my well worn Webster's. It rests beside me with Houses of the Holy hanging out between pages 88 and 89. How did Led Zeppelin get away with that cover? Anyway, I've been told Users is a bad word and Clients is much better. Oh Joy! Ok, so I admit words are powerful. But baseballs are powerful, too, and Greg Maddux can do more damage with one than I; I guess it's more the speaker than the words. Words are bullets; people are guns. Words don't kill people; people kill people. Be careful how you use words. Be careful. Above all, lighten up... please.
12/18/97 - Ok, management took a field trip yesterday. We partied. Some students wandered onto the hall mid morning and asked me (since I'm young and hip they must have thought I, too, was a student) if I knew of any post exam parties. I said "Sure, we'll have one here; management is gone." We went to CVS got a few kegs (the Spice Girls, still hanging out with me, insisted on Bass Ale). I called the rest of my band told them to call in sick. We set the band in the conference room, the kegs in the kitchen and the people everywhere. We raged. The math, computer science and leadership people were told to buzz off we were partying and didn't care they couldn't concentrate. By the time the campus police busted us it was time to clean up in expectation of management's return. We threw saw dust on the floor to soak up spilled party swill and sucked the gimey mass up in a shop vac we "borrowed" from the theater department. The walls took a bit of cleaning but we managed to occlude the biggest holes with large furniture and wall hangings. A successful party all around... and no one who shouldn't know knows.
12/19/97 - Chris Farley died yesterday. It sucks when the thing I liked best about him is probably what killed him. My favorite Chris Farley character was that kinetic fat guy... what was his name? On to things less funny than Chris. I got a kazoo yesterday. I found there's a limit to how long one can be played; The paper piece gets wet and doesn't vibrate after 15 minutes or so. Also, while it's pretty easy to play without using your hands this is not always the case. Recent Chapstick usage makes hands necessary. Ok, I did some research into possible paper replacements... the paper with which it comes seems to be brittle, thin wax paper. I've prepare this substitution chart:
| Paper Type | Feasibility | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Regular Paper | Ok | From a notebook... not very loud |
| Magazine scrap | Good | From an REI catalog... Good tone |
| Wrapping Paper | Good | It's Xmas; it was here... I question it's durability |
| Label (sticker) backing | Bad | From a sheet of 3UP labels... Just plain doesn't work |
Well, that's the report from my short trip into kazoo research. I also found the kazoo a good instrument to play Norwegian Wood's sitar part (when no sitar can be found).
12/22/97 - Ok, I've taken my uncle's advice and bought no Christmas presents until after the solstice... time to scramble. I went camping this weekend. I hiked up and down mountains in western VA... cool. Camping's worst part is sleeping in a tent. I wake up every 30 minutes, look at my watch and notice how much more time I'll have to fight uncomfortability... it sucks. I have this great dream about my parent's warm house and Super Models then I awake next to Brian and Sam and can't believe I have 3.75 more hours to suffer in the cramped, cold crappiness on the forrest bottom. At least I couldn't hear the bears but what I could hear wasn't much better. So the sun rises. We do the morning campy thing and hit the trail. About 1/2 way up the mountain we find this water slide rock thing... the ambient air temperature is 40 degrees... the water is butt cold. Brian and Sam decide they need to do the water slide. Luckily I caught this festival of brains on film. I missed Brian's expression as his bare body contacted water but his explaination went something like this "So if I don't exit this water in 5 seconds I'll die." The strangest thing is Sam, after seeing this event transpire, decided to plunge himself into the Blue Ridge mountain stream, too... I got his face on film. Perhaps I'll share when the film is developed.
12/23/97 - I spent 3 solid hours shopping last night. I won't tell you how much money I spent. Actually, I survived the foray into suburbia quite happily, I guess. I bought, among other things, beer which is a suitable ending to any venture. I ended up back at my house playing baseball darts with Andy. To say I got my butt kicked is like saying Iraq got its butt kicked in the Gulf War. After 7 innings it was 41 to 9... that was the point at which I quit. Among other beer store items I picked up a couple Dragon Stouts (Jamaica's contribution to the meal beer catagory); I kid you not when I say they taste like a cream stout mixed with rum. I got about 25% through mine before I had to knock it down the drain... blek. Well, what's on the docket for today? Work, more shopping, probably some wrapping and then there are the unfinished beers from last night (none of which are Jamaican stouts). Merry Christmas. I'll be around town but you probably won't find an entry here until the 29th.
12/29/97 - As I promised, it's the 29th and I'm back. Christmas was fine. The biggest downer is no longer maintaining the perfect schedule... it goes something like this: get up, drink coffee, run, do cool stuff all day. Both my uncles have recently taken new jobs because they thought their new work environment would be more fun. I kinda like my job, but, God knows, the environment could be more fun. Today begins my quest to find and accentuate the fun. Awww, G Love just said a bad word. The work-fun paradox goes something like this. I wouldn't do my job were I not paid to do so; it's not always fun. Sustaining a fun life requires money or the ability to fabricate all your needs which, I believe, requires money. Making money requires work which, like I said earlier, isn't always fun. Actually this reminds me more of a calculus equation than a paradox. I have two quantities to maxmize (fun, need meeting stuff) and... oooo, do I want to say this? I guess I don't need to minimize work, I just need to have fun doing it. It's like alchemy except I have work from which I'll make fun... at least this way I don't have to carry around heavy lead.
12/30/97 - Last night I sat on a stool and watched the snow fall between me and the Main Street Station clock tower. The window through which I watched was of big, rough wood placed securely in a stout brick wall. The building sheltering me had once been a tobacco warehouse so it's ironic that I was sitting alone since I didn't want to be around my friends as they smoked. Few things irk me like smoking. I've done it. I even have a picture of me and an expensive cigar in this set of web pages. I think it's the smell I find offensive. Maybe it's the disregard for my lungs people show when they smoke indoors. Maybe it's a chance to be super hypocritical and not be questioned. Maybe it's because smoking is faddy like baggy jeans. I don't know. But because my friends smoke I got to see a beautiful urban snow fall without anyone yapping to me about how bad a day they had at work or how sucky it is to be them. I sound bitter, don't I? I guess I am. Any ideas how to unjade a guy like me?
12/31/97 - I believe the man's name is Tom Stoddard; he's quoted on my calendar saying "Every exit is an entrance to somewhere else". Franz Kafka said "The Meaning of Life is that it ends." Death scares me. It helps little that I believe Tom Stoddard. I'm afraid to admit every action I take effects my life in some way and each action is beyond value in a limited life. My responsibility to myself is huge. New Years makes me face this fears and I'm not happy doing this. I'm not satisfied with much and there's no certain way to relieve this tension. But an attempt must be made. Today is a special day not because it's a year's last day but because it's now and I'm here and that's where possibility lies. While my words may sound sappy they mean something to me and I hope the meaning will fix itself to me and infect me and the disease will change me for the better. Now the old me rears it's head. "Lee, diseases are explicitly destructive." Yes, but sometimes you must break down a weak structure to build a strong one. See, I can out wit myself. Perhaps I can make 1998 an important year for me. I believe I will.