man, this craft brew is talking to a whitey.

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I like to give a reading, but I’m glad I don’t have to give another reading for a while.

I couldn’t help but notice the orioles still have baseball’s best record, albeit tied with some other teams.  though it looks like that may change, with the o’s down to the rangers 7-3 in the 9th.  will the o’s again this season have the best record in baseball?  our panel of experts decides.

I ordered arnold a beak tweaker, a cable comfy perch, a rope knot, a 30″ x 20″ x 40″ cage, a hall of mirrors, lion pinata, rope ladder and some food.

the long partyless winter may be drawing to a close.  I won’t check how long it has been until then.  better not to know.

o, to have a party of one’s own, always there, like some pepper.  we mustn’t speak of it any longer.  let us now turn our thoughts to other things.

–

I went over there.  they were having a thing, due to the animal race.  in the late morning I had seen him in the back yard prepping, and he mentioned that I could attend the cookout.  he invited me to the cookout.   I wasn’t around at that time, but later, around 7 or 8 tonight, I bought a 6-pack and went over there.  someone let me in.  I went out back where the people were.  at this point I was in their back yard, which is next to mine.  I had never been in that yard.  I talked to the people.  I talked to her.  at a certain point she said you should go over and talk to him.  that seemed a bit odd.  I was not given a choice..  I went over and talked to him and the people over there.  it was fine.

it was one of those things where I barely went.  I thought of that ogden nash poem, as I often do.  the sins of omission vs the sins of commission.  that’s how I get myself to go to a party.   I was there for long enough that I began to feel like the polite thing was to leave so they could have the party they were going to have without me.  I was there close to 3 hours?  is that right?  2 hours?  I think it was close the 3 hours.  I like the guy, though I wouldn’t guess we have a lot in common, necessarily.  not sure about the vibe I got from the gal.  I thought she might not want me there.  I learned some things, of course.  I learned that the cellar there has a dirt floor and there is no access from inside.  the only way into their cellar is from the outside.  I didn’t go in there.  he says there is often water.  I got the tour of the first and second floor.  the kitchen is nice.  it’s a long kitchen with lots of windows.  the upstairs is dubious.  the use of space is dubious, as he pointed out, and I concur.  I think the architect did a shaky job of dividing up the space.  but, ya know, overall it’s a nice place.   I might have said insensitive things.  yeah, the guy was pretty cool.  oh, I had an epiphany.  I am a “quirky” “artist”.  I am a “bohemian”.  a “creative”.  this is so clear to me now.  though I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.  I may have a totally different impression of myself the next time I meet them.

I think I have a bit more privacy than I realized.  on that side I do.  oh yeah, today, after a scooter trip with some hometown friends, I happened to turn on the tv exactly when the ky derby began.  I assumed I was seeing a replay.  but it was the live derby, and I knew this because I could hear their reaction through the wall.  they were watching it, since they were having a derby party.  I wasn’t over there yet.  and even though they were probably loud, because they had made bets (I later learned) it didn’t sound especially loud.  so it seems we have some privacy.   it turns out the room where I made the 2nd attempt at a sound proof wall is adjacent to a room that is not usable as a bedroom at all, over there.  there is no place in that room, over there, where even a twin bed will fit.

because it was a derby party, the women were wearing print dresses.  some of the guys wore ties, but some wore tee shirts and shorts.

they don’t hear arnold at all.  they’re younger than me.  I meet more and more people who are younger than me.  it seems there’s an influx.

oh, I had another epiphany.  sometimes when people meet me, they think I’m a little strange, maybe a little off somehow..  they don’t recognize that I am actually very, very strange… way off.  hmm, what I’m trying to say is that people who are a little uncomfortable with strangeness tend to underestimate the extent of it, whereas people who do not underestimate the extent of it (as much) tend to be more comfortable with it.  oh, I think often when people find me strange,  it’s just because I’m very human and immediate at times, and strange.  at one point he and she and I were upstairs, doing the tour.  and we were talking about their floor plan vs mine, and he was at times asking me questions about how the two compare.  so it seemed natural to say we can go over and I’ll give them the tour, and I was actually thinking we might go right over here and I would give them a quick tour.  it would take all of 4 or 5 minutes, but she seemed to think I was crazy for suggesting that.  like, what, we’re going to up and leave the party and go over to your place for a tour.  granted they have guests over, but umm, it really wasn’t that outlandish an idea, and would have taken less time than, say, going to the bathroom.   really, it wasn’t that strange of an offer.  but seeing the reaction, I transitioned into… maybe some other time, then.

Will football eventually be illegal.  Probably not.  But the sport will probably be played by very different rules 5 years from now.  Boxing is legal.  Soccer is legal.  Soccer players head the ball thousands of time.  Incidence of brain-injury-related syndromes is higher among former soccer players, but one study found they live longer than the average person.  NFL players live 20 years shorter than the average person.  It’s a wonder that any professional football players are functional after they retire.  It’s a wonder that some live to old age.  Without question they suffer brain injuries routinely.

Even if you widen the field, reduce hard hits, and even limit player size, NFL players are still going to tackle one another and that will shorten their lives in any case.

There are other factors that probably shorten lives besides the brain injuries.  Suicides are in some cases probably partly due to the let down following retirement.  The glory high is gone.  Some of it is probably social.  You have guaranteed friends when you’re on a team, or at least a sense of belonging.  Then you retire and your social structure may be very different.  But most of it has to be brain injury, I would think.

Arnold has some notable new behaviors.  There is a discard dish where I pour out the uneaten food from his dish before I put new food in his dish.  The discard dish is in front of his cage, so when the cage door swings down to let him out, the door forms a platform a few inches above the dish.  About a week ago he found a way to climb down to the underside of the open door so he could access the discard dish, even with plenty of food in his own dish.  He seems to prefer stale food, or maybe just outdoor food.  I’ve seen him under there, eating the stale food a few times in the past week.

Today, I found him standing on the ledge made by the top of the lower window sash.  The kitchen window, nearest the hanging plant where he likes to sit and sometimes eats dirt.  He was pacing back and forth on the ledge, pecking on the upper pane as if he was trying to find a hole in the invisible glass.  He was also trying to get a grip on the two window locks.  It looked very much like he was trying to unlock the window.  I’m sure he has seen me unlock the windows many times before I open them.  It’s probably a bit of a stretch to suggest that he was actually trying to unlock the windows.  Perhaps not impossible though.  He was clearly trying to manipulate the latches in some way, but was unable to get a good enough grip with his beak.  The top of the lower sash is lower than the plant, and he usually doesn’t electively go to a lower place, especially a place that’s narrow and smooth, since he like to have things he can grip.  He definitely was looking for a hole through the glass.  That much is certain.  It was clear from the way he would peck on the window and then move a little further, and test again.

psychically disorganized of a sudden.

sick day.

didn’t sleep at all til 6 a.m.

woke up around 8-9. moment of truth where I had to decide whether to have kit kats for breakfast. I pulled myself back from that brink, and had food.

on the plus side, my kitchen is clean. I threw away all the old crap in my fridge this weekend, and got some groceries. I have the kind of existence that accommodates these events without losing the farm. I began to pre-write some FB statuses:

• I hear ya
• trust me, it’s funny
• have it on my desk by 5. And no, that’s not a proposition. sorry
• sleep failure, meet kit kat breakfast
• don’t worry, no one remembers what you said
• spoiler alert
• judgement is often the first to go, so don’t make judgements

“Bryce is so driven, a lot of times he tries to do too much to get here,” Johnson said. “Sometimes just getting here is kind of relaxing, because this is what he’s been after probably since he was 12 years old, playing in the majors leagues.”

despite the talk of a close race this year, my gut feeling is that obama will savage romney. obama will be up 50-47 going into the debates, and then romney will make a mistake or two and obama will swing and will not miss. it will be a nice easy swing, and the ball will jump off his bat.

the economy thing. the thing about the economy thing… I think we’re in a period where the usual metrics don’t tell the story. even unemployment rate is confusing. I’m sometimes a little skeptical that 8% in the year 2012 means the same thing as 8% would have in the year 2005. something has shifted there. it’s probably fair to say that obama needs there to be decent job market momentum in some state that romney can’t afford to lose, like ohio. can anyone really see a GOPer winning ohio this time around. at the moment ohio has good job market momentum and I think I read the other day that unemployment there is actually lower than the national average. and what are we comparing 8% to when we say it’s a bad number. we’re comparing it to the fake economy years of the clinton administration and early bush II administration. the tech bubble and then housing bubble, when we thought stocks or perpetual home refinancing would make us rich. the GOP’s politically delusional anti-union maneuvers in ohio and wisconsin should guarantee good democrat turnout in those states. homophobia still works in some states but is not a winning proposition overall. more and more anti-gay voters are dying. literally croaking. their kids are now 41 years old and watch ellen, I think. the tea party has done massive damage to the GOP. it’s not irreparable, but romney is not the repair man.

then again, maybe it’s just gas prices. that’s tantamount to saying saudi arabia decides who our president is. and any time something is tantamount to something, things are very serious. we know that much.

by and large americans are not idiots. so why did bush beat gore? he didn’t, but putting that aside, gore was an awful candidate. kerry not so great either. he has that problem with his voice sounding too much like a pompous new englander, and he was dumb enough to put camos on and go hunting on tv. that stuff doesn’t work, unless you have the right voice. bush can put on work gloves and go clearing tumbleweeds off of his ranch because he had the right vocal intonation for that. obama is smart enough to humanize himself by confirming americans’ prejudices (playing basketball) rather than working against americans’ prejudices (riding a harley or a tank).

old people are responsible for spreading 98% of the world’s computer viruses.  I get these emails from my mom where the body of the email is a bunch of >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> signs because things have been forwarded 80 times and then “read this, funny” which I presume is some text written by my mom’s boyfriend’s uncle’s friend’s etc.  And then an attachment like funny_joke.xsbf.  File extensions that do not exist in nature outside of emails sent by old people.

the poignant final party approaches.  this eve.  of course, it’s not really final. I’m concerned that I won’t have any party for the draft, but this will not prompt me to ration, nor to ratiocinate.  I don’t believe in saving.  I believe in spending.  it has gotten me this far.

I feel pretty gainfully employed and my customer has been easy enough to deal with lately.

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but it’s too chilly at times lately!  my body can’t adjust!.  a low of 44 this saturday.  balderdash!

speaking of chilly, the draft is only 49 hours away.  how do I know?  I simply consulted my embedded NFL draft countdown clock.