Sabbatical

...and with that, year two draws to a close. 

What does this mean? 

Look at those two sentences. They're barely strung together. Every time the year rolls around, I look at where I am and evaluate. Not in the 'Oh God make a resolution and stick with it' sort way. More in the 'Where did I start and how did I get here and where am I going' kind of way. 

So. 

It's been another year. I've switched formats. Less daily writing, more reflective and personal. Less focused, more free wheeling. The reasoning behind it was fairly logical, if not practical. I couldn't keep up the established pace and I wanted to branch out into more personal subject matter. I examined my life a bit. I exorcised some anxieties. I confessed some things. I gushed about others. I bought a house with the love of my life. I learned about mowing the lawn and becoming a suburbanite. 

So where do we go from here? 

Another shift. I'm not certain how to execute this one as gracefully, though. Please allow me to explain. Establishing the blog was a means to work on my writing while spinning my wheels on a book I was writing while simultaneously sharing awesome things with the world. The tone and style shift came as a result of life's increasing demands and an exhaustible amount of enthusiasm. I was running low, frankly. 

Now, another year later, I'm taking a sabbatical. The scant free time I have to write these days is spent on the blog, where I would prefer to get back to the book. Pretentious  I know. But bear with me. Writing this blog has been a great pleasure but at the same time it becomes an obligation if I don't have something sufficiently noteworthy in mind. I don't want to waste your time and I want to make the most of mine. I want to get back to a larger project from which I've strayed, leaving it unfinished. It gnaws at me.

So here's what I'm doing. I'm taking some time away from the blog. I'm not going to post for a while and get back to the story I have yet to finish. When I feel the need, I'll come running back here. I promise. I love the feeling of doing this and I am always amazed anyone ever bothers to read it. I'm sure I won't be able to stay away. Just know that if you don't see a new post for a while, everything is still cool. I'll let you know what prevails, but I'm sure we'll have much to talk about. 

To explain the combination of pride and chagrin at taking a sabbatical (prigrin? charide?), here's a picture of me standing triumphant after a game of Charades last Christmas, ribbons and bows in my hair:

Know that I am grateful. Know that I appreciate you reading. I'll be back soon. If for no other reason than to remove that picture.

Cheers.

Something Coming

It was just one of those things.

I never knew about it until almost the end. In hindsight I should have seen it coming. I was told about it, then it happened. Not so close as to wallop me over the head with obviousness, but still a close enough cause and effect I should have been able to together.

My grandmother passed away earlier this month. She lived a long life, but that never makes it easier for those left to live with the loss. She was my mom's tether to her childhood. My grandfather Hugh had passed away when my mom was a little girl and my mom was an only child. In many ways they were each other's connection to the world they once shared. Now my mom has her own family for support, but her sense of history has been thrown off balance. 

It was just old age, really. It wasn't cancer or heart disease or diabetes. She had grown old and her kidneys had completely shut down. When one essential thing goes, the rest of them start to fail. That's it. She was in surprisingly good health until the last week or so. I got to say goodbye when she was still her normal self, still sitting and eating lunch, waving me off because she wanted to get back to her routine. She didn't know, and I didn't want her to know, that I was saying goodbye. I had known her kidneys had failed and what it meant for her not to opt for dialysis, but she hadn't seemed to see the gravity of the situation.

Towards the end, my mom told me something that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. It's the kind of thing I would think about and dismiss as an over active imagination or seeking a pattern in the randomness of life, but here I am writing about it. There was a song that would serve as a harbinger. Not like a curse, but a sign of impending change or bad happenstance. Like an omen that arrives as a musical motif, several times over the course of her life.

I don't recall the specifics but I can't keep pestering my mom about it until more time has passed. Here's the long and short of it: when my grandmother had suffered a fall back in mid to late November, my mom had taken her to the doctor to make sure everything was okay. They had returned to her room at the home, with no bad news but no improvement on her health. As my mom helped her mom get out of the car a snippet of music drifted out of the window of another residents room at the assisted living facility. My mom said that her mom told her whenever she heard that song 'It Was Just One of Those Things' something bad would happen. It was never an immediate reaction, like a spring loaded trap. It had been more of a sign of impending change. She would hear the song in an incidental manner (someone's party, a passing car, an open window) and within a few days or a week something would happen. A serious illness. Losing a job. A bad accident. However she made the connection, she held it in her mind for decades. She recognized the song and off handedly explained it to my mom as though it was this harmless old superstition.

My mom had made note of it, and hoped it wasn't the sign it turned out to be.

I've thought about it constantly since my mom told me about it. The first connection I made was to 'Make Your Own Kind of Music' on LOST - an incidental motif that served as a larger sign of connection, a peppy number that clashes with the unpleasant thing it accompanies. I've been racking my brain to see if anything in my life has happened like that. I've been on a constant vigilance to see if anything happens like it. I know our brains seek to create a pattern out of random occurrences  similar to how we are hard wired to see faces even where there are none. Maybe that's what happened to her. I don't know. 

Almost every night, now, I've been having conversations with my grandmother in my dreams. Maybe it's just me processing things I haven't dealt with yet. Maybe I'm looking for answers I never got to ask about. She's never able to answer hard questions before I wake up, though. If I can, I'll see if I can remember to ask her about this in my dreams. It's just one of those things.

Hinter Lands

You guys! 

Addendum! 

You see, I secretly left out the time bomb in that post about winter storms. I wrote about how there was an ice storm and a blizzard and I went to see Monsters and blah blah blah. All about where my life was two years ago, a little love letter to living in Uptown. The fact is, before the movie started there was a trailer that was so straight up bonkers that it stayed with me all this time, a time capsule of crazy that finally cracked open this past weekend. A Xmas extravaganza of gonzo proportions. 

Rare Exports. 

You know what? I'll save the gushing preamble and just link right to the trailer here. 

Look at it. Is it any wonder, with such a dark, mythological take on Santa that it would stick in my head so firmly over the last two years? Especially when you consider one of my favorite traditions is reading Last Christmas just for the spectacle? Amazing. It is so over the top and audacious there's no way it could be decent, right? Wrong. It is awesome. 

There is so much going on in this movie that could have quickly driven it off the rails. All of these potential problems end up working in its favor, though. Set in remote parts of Finland? Could be dreary and boring, instead becomes beautifully isolated and an authentic and logical setting. Mostly subtitled? Never a problem for me and I liked knowing the cast was using their native language. Grim and gory take on the essence of innocence and hope? It becomes an ominous, delightfully macabre story about our forgotten myths and shared history. Oh, and Santa being a malevolent force of doom? All. Kinds. of Awesome. 

This movie is so unique and fresh and absolutely appropriate for this holiday season. If you've had your fill of the usual holiday fare, look no further. If you want to scare yourself into your childhood sense of wonder at a world you don't understand, look no further. For real. It's not even an out and out horror movie. It's one of those bizarre hybrid movies that's somehow bigger than its parts. The soundtrack is also worth noting, because it has the excellent little motif that mixes music box levity with deep, foreboding bass. 

Do yourself a favor this Xmas. Check out Rare Exports. It stuck with me as a "oh yeah, I need to see that" kind of memory for two whole years and it totally paid off. Happy hunting.

Iced Out

So Xmas is coming, even if winter is barely here. 

There's no snow whatsoever. It's straight up a bummer for the holiday season. The situation used to be that I loathed winter and couldn't stand the omnipresence of snow. It was dark and miserable and painfully cold, but hey - that's life in the Middle West, huh? 

It still is, just not as severe these days. Last winter we hardly had any snow at all. Here we are on the 5th of December with nothing to show for it, save for the dead lawns and bare trees filled with lights. I guess the fact that it gets so dark at 4:30 in the afternoon tends to cover that up a bit but it's still a bummer when Xmas is on the way. It's hard to believe just two years ago we had a blizzard so severe the Metrodome straight up collapsed in on itself. That was an amazing storm. My (then) fiance and I spent the day cooking and baking and watching the world slowly succumb to the snow. At about one in the afternoon we saw all of the city buses line up on the street below our condo. We were confused as to why all the people were streaming off the buses until we saw the signs on the front of each one change from the route to 'Not in Service'. The city had given up. They knew when to pull in and close up shop, even if that meant stranding everyone at the Rainbow Foods in Uptown. 

Not even a month earlier an even crazier weather event happened. While my better half had gone out with her friends for a girls' night out, my younger brother and a friend of mine came over for a drink before seeing a movie at the Lagoon Theater two blocks away. On the short walk there we noted the steady drizzle and the dropping temp. I remember the three of us exchanging mutual concern over what was going to happen. We went inside and promptly forgot about all of that while we watched Monsters, an awesome yet underrated movie. Two hours later we left our seats, took one step outside and simultaneously grabbed each other for support as we slid down the curb on half an inch of glare ice. We were equal parts terrified of falling (and really hurting ourselves, as we were juuuuuusssst old enough to see the danger in icy walkways) and hysterics as we navigated the treacherous path back to the condo. I know I slipped at least twice, the slow, steady breakdown where you start standing and go down in stages, so by the time your feet fly out from under you you're really only a few inches high anyway. My brother tried to stop before hitting the crosswalk (and potentially being rundown by an out of control car or bus) only to slide into the street and almost to the other side, like a statue of a figure skater. 

When we got inside my building I made them promise they wouldn't try to leave. We all biffed it on the two block walk - no one was going to get anywhere without breaking a bone. So what to do? We sat at the windows and drank, five floors up and surrounded by a vantage point from which we could watch the chaos unfold. People were either boldly braving the roads or foolishly ignoring the conditions, staying out until bar close. Seeing the drunks stumble out onto the ice and skid around on shaky legs like a newborn deer had us all doubling over in laughter. That is, until we saw one guy go down hard and not get up. Our laughter quickly died down. "Oh. Oh, no. Alright, coats guys. Let's go help." Before we could leave, though, he made it to his feet and, with great trepidation, made it over to his friends. They hadn't even noticed he went missing. The joys of living somewhere the weather can kill you! 

So we stayed up all night watching the slowest, gentlest car crashes in the world. Blizzards that ruin buildings. Ice conditions that force us to hunker down indoors. I somehow fell in love with bolting the doors and watching the world turn white. Xmas is on the way, but there's nary a flake on the horizon. 

I hope that changes. It's not the same without the white stuff.

Faker

Everyone's faking.

That may sound like a broad stroke, but hear me out.

I was feeling frustrated today, after limping home from my run (knee is acting up again) and not feeling like I had accomplished much with the day. At the height of my frustration I was hunched over a tray loaded with paint, staring at the brush I continually fail to properly wash when done painting. As a distraction I was playing the latest episode of the podcast Harmontown, in which Dan Harmon (famously fired by NBC for running the thoroughly fantastic show Community in a manner they saw fit) invited two members onto stage. Dan and cohost/comptroller of Harmontown Jeff Davis talked to the two guests about why they were both feeling terrible. After chasing the varying issues around in their heads for a few minutes, Harmon and Davis realized that everyone on stage at that point was grappling with the idea that they had somehow either made the wrong choice, arrived at their current place by default or failed to act in the best manner. In a sense, they concluded, they all felt like failures and frauds. 

It was incredibly affirming to hear the notion articulated. 

In recent years I've talked with my better half and our mutual friends about a similar idea. We all feel, when sufficiently pressed to reveal it, that we are frauds or that we are somehow faking our way through the day. I read someone's explanation (in a book I can't seem to recall...) that they would get through the day and their head would hit the pillow and they'd think something along the lines of "I'm so glad no one found me out, today!" as though they had pulled some great con over on the world.

That is so much more common than we realize. I felt that reality sink in, in the house I bought with my wife, while painting a room in my free time. I am married. I am a home owner. I choose to work on home improvement projects in my free time. I have a strong 401(k). I was upset that I exercised so much that my knee was failing again. Despite all of these stupid, simple realities I was taking for granted, I still was feeling as though I was slacking or faking my way along. I joke about it with my wife when we come home from somewhere together or when we (guh) have to make yet another run to Home Depot on the weekend (instead of say, going to concerts or bars like when we lived in Uptown) - "Can you beleive some people think we're adults? Why do they trust us with all this? Who said we could buy a house?" 

It's absurd, but there it is - you're an adult. I may not have kids or gray hair or a PhD, but people trust me and think I know what I'm doing. That was what they were affirming in the podcast. You never feel like you're making the right move. You always feel like you're just improvising and constantly averting disaster. That's apparently what life is. You just get older and get more responsibility and if you don't make many mistakes you find yourself accumulating trust. 

Weird how that works.

You never realize it until you step back and look at it. It makes me feel better to have other people come to that same understanding through their own logic. I know I've certainly told it to my better half to calm her down during a crisis. Sometimes you just need to hear it from other people.

We're all fakers, but no one's faking anything.

Proto Man

So I finally saw Prometheus last night.

It was heavily buzzed last spring. I had as high of hopes as anyone else - probably even higher, to be honest. While my initial reaction to the announcement had been low expectations at best, that changed the more I saw. The trailer looked crazy and there was honest to goodness potential in Ridley Scott going back to the well for more of the once-great franchise. They even had Lost-alum (the admittedly divisive) Damon Lindelof on board to re-write the script and build the world a bit more. There was a great cast in line. Everything was lining up to be pretty damn stellar. 

Then the movie came out and the world of nerds on the internet collectively soiled themselves in anger. 

Once the negative feedback started online, I decided not to see it in the theater as I had originally planned. Instead, I waited to consume it in the same fashion I had any other entry in the fading Alien franchise: at home with some junk food and no expectations. So how was it?

Not bad.

While Prometheus was certainly not on the level with the original Alien or other staples of the genre like Blade Runner, it wasn't the cinematic abortion people were claiming it to be. In fact, despite a flawed story with arbitrary motivation and some contrived coincidences, I found it to be a grand and profound science fiction movie the likes of which rarely get made these days. Far from perfect but still enjoyable, there were plenty of moments where the soul of previous success would bleed through. Ridley Scott has had hits and misses, but when he gets on a good streak in a movie it can really build some momentum. Sure, it can be dashed on the rocks of characters who quickly become shouting morons, but there were more than enough entertaining moments to warrant its production.

Additionally, in a bid to stop typing altogether I dictated my thoughts into my phone as I sat in the dark, eating Whoppers and nursing a beer. Below is a full list of my notes, along with the clearer insight of having slept on what I saw in parentheses:


- Even the opening logo is that weird blue tint to it. (Must we do the orange/blue color shift every time?)

- The opening panoramas actually have that the Scott feel. (Pretty grand vistas and sweeping, heavy shots.)

- So is the intro of the movie the crux of the whole plot in a bad way? (Like, was that it? From what I had avoiding spoiling for myself in advance, seeing the first scene made me think 'Yeah, that's probably it, I should turn it off and save myself a couple hours. I was sort of wrong?)

- Even for science-fiction this dream reading business seems bogus. (Immediately forgetting Inception and, you know, space monsters and robots.)

- It's got a good look but the problem is that even the retro looking things clearly are more advanced than what was in Alien. (It's that balancing act of a PREQUEL being made 30 years later. Tech we hadn't thought of could be explained away as better funding by the Weyland Corp. Also, in Alien they were just a mining ship.)

- God awful accent. (Rafe Spall. Seriously.)

- Old make up still looks fake. (No matter how artfully applied and blended with CGI, my first thought was 'OMIGAD YOUNG PERSON IN MAKEUP. Why have Guy Pearce do that? Why not, say, hire an elderly actor?)

- I want the white sweatshirt. (Alright Rafe - I'll forgive the accent if I can have your weird hoodie.)

- There better funded that's what they have better tech. (My hand-waiving the jarring juxtaposition of this movie and Alien. See above.)

- That is one stupid scientist. (Dude. Even I know - DO. NOT. TOUCH. This was apparently establishing a running theme?)

- The geologist is clearly from a lesser film. (Sorry man, but your over the top acting was not due to script problems.)

- The engineer head coming back to my life momentarily is genuinely freaky. (No joke. A disturbing moment. Also? Totally animatronic, I found out.)

- Ask God why do we need robots? (A real BSOD moment for me. Never stopped to think 'Wait, why ARE we making robots in the first place? Simply to serve man? That's a cop out. Still chewing on this.)

- Apple TV remote visible on Shaw's couch. (Nice future tech, you thing I have on my coffee table.)

- That just went from bad to worse. (Blugh, that snake-thing snapping an arm and melting the helmet? That escalated quickly.)

- In the map room the difference between practical effects and CGI is still stark although it's good to see more Geiger. (It's hard to blend them, even all these years after Phantom Menace. Geiger's art is still so distinct and creepy, when used sparingly.)

- That is a slow non-guaranteed way to die and Charlize Theron didn't want to do it. (Seriously, setting him on fire? Probably would suffer for hours from complicated burns. You have guns. Shoot him.)

- I'm obviously not the first person to think Prometheus take place in the same world as Inception. (Cue the linking of that movie's universe, which makes the combined fictional universes Inception, Alien, Blade Runner and Predator.)

- Body horror in the medical pod a glimpse of things to come. (That abortion scene was one of the most disturbing things I've seen on film in a while. The opened cavity? Awful. A horrible look at the wonderful, sterile, male-driven world of medicine yet to come.)

- Arbitrary monster...(...is arbitrary. Shoe horned in for a scare/action scene? Waste of screen time.)

- Idris Elba is the best part of this and maybe David. (Okay, clearly David is the best thing about this movie, but Idris was pretty damn solid.)

- I would've believed it if they killed everybody. (A psych-out that I was willing to accept. If any movie had the stones to go bleak and kill 'em all, this would have been it. But alas, no.)

- Final alien was gratuitous, redundant and poorly designed. (Sorry, just didn't dig it. Even after all the build up. Show, don't tell. It was clearly the same Engineers and world of Alien, do we need to be hit over the head with it?)

So there you have it. Despite the high snark level of some of those comments, I really did enjoy Prometheus and will defend it to fellow nerds. It aspired to be more than it could, but despite a strong pedigree could not overcome some complex script problems.  If you're curious, I highly recommend it.

Still worth waiting to see after all the publicity.

Big Chill

We have got to chill out.

No, I mean for real.

There was a point raised to me by someone I trust and respect in the last year. This point, once it had been planted in my brain, germinated and sprouted. In the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro this idea has grown like a weed. It was, in a way, a spoiler, something that cracks your perspective. Now I find my worldview forever tainted by this simple idea. It's cultivating the urge inside me to just level us out. To play it cool.

Simply put, we need to mellow out on ourselves in Minnesota.

Please, forgive my violation of the Midwestern norms and allow me to explain my offense.

The thing is...we are trying way too hard to run with the big kids. The pervasive "me too!" attitude in the metro area (and I suppose the upper Midwest in general) is becoming grating. If it's this intolerable to a resident who is still quite happy to live here, how unbearable must it be to the rest of the country? We must sound like the youngest kid in your culdesac who tags along and tries to act even tougher than the toughest kid. Sorry, rest of the country.

This must come across as negative and disdainful, but I have to say that it seems to be a frequent occurrence to open the paper or go to the City Pages blog and see another gushing, "aren't we wonderful?" article written on how we're the 'best place to live' or in the top 10 for biking or the best to be young or single or have a band or oh dear lord, can't we just be a city? We're not even that big of one. Again, insufferable humblebragging. I know. But you have to know that other cities don't do this. They don't have to assert their wonderful qualities at a steady, relentless pace. We have to chill out and let our strengths speak for themselves.

Here's what really helped me understand it. The person who broke the concept for me watched a lot of true crime and Cold Case style shows. Typical episodes would start by setting the scene in a short exposition. "New Orleans, city on the the edge" or "New York, the city that never sleeps..." What happened in the Minneapolis episode? We had a pretentious pontificator exposing on how "Minneapolis is a burgeoning city, with a vibrant art scene, a sprawling business district, fabulous restaurants .." and it went on and on. Never had we heard another long winded speech asserting a city's good qualities. It was like a parent espousing the black sheep's fabulous social life or athletic prowess despite going nowhere in life. 

I know, I know. This is pooh-ing where you live, dumping on those that share your space. But we have to mellow out. If it's so wonderful, let's let the wonders speak for themselves. The great secrets may stay a little more secret and the citizens of Chicago may think of us as their hick cousins but you know what? That's okay. That's who we are. No amount of "me too me too! We're great too!" is going to change the fact that we're not Portland or Jo-burg. 

Let's love this place, warts and all. Even with miserly miscreants like myself calling it home. 

Deal?

Map Lines

End of the world, again. 

No, not anything political. Like me, I'm sure you are sick to death of anything even tangentially related to the election. 

Since I've moved into my new home with my better half we've both noticed a strange thing happening in our minds. We drive home from where ever we have been, almost always taking the same way. The other option is less traveled but no less familiar. This more frequent route sees us taking a stretch of highway unworthy of note. It is a number and that is all. There is nothing remarkable beyond it. There are no major cities beyond our exit, no developing suburbs. We come to our exit, take the off ramp and turn down our street into our neighborhood, never looking over the horizon at what is beyond. My better half hit the nail on the head when she explained it to me as "like the edge of a map in a video game."

What lies past that last exit? 

Seemingly, nothing. Not in the sense of goon docks and tall grass. I mean in the sense that we have no preconception of where that highway goes. Think about that - don't you usually have an idea of where a road goes, even if you don't take it? There's a makeshift grid in your mind, an adaptive map that adjusts to where you are, where you've been and where you're going. Rarely do we contemplate the road less traveled. 

So we're left with a highway that stretches off into the ether - overly dramatic, sure, but my mind can't construct what is out there. Eventually one of the Dakota's I suppose...but what's in the vast stretch of mid-west nothing in between? It's just developed enough around the area to suggest small towns or the gradual emergence of another suburb, but I have no frame of reference for it. 

To rectify this we did what we always do - we turned to tech. 

Google Earth, duh. There it was, our highway. Stretching out over the screen, leading to a series of small burgs dotting the western half of the state. Nothing of particular note, just what you'd expect when picking a random point on a map in the flyover states. It didn't really help, though. Maybe not enough frame of reference? 

I found it to be more fun and revelatory when looking at my childhood haunts on Google Earth. Forests that bordered parks spilled out on the other side. Shortcuts were instantly justified. All the odd things about where I grew up fell into an easy to understand and digestible world of North, South, East and West. Yeah, yeah, I had maps as a kid. But never like this. Now I can zip instantly to where I remember things and twist the orientation and see things in real time. Provided the data is fresh enough and the screen is detailed enough, it's like being there. 

It's super dorky, I know, but I love this kind of memory tinkering. This weird, video-game inspired world of mine slowly gives up its secrets with every technological development. Fewer boundaries every day. The world ends somewhere, just not where we think it does.

Bad Mojo

How could I forget?

I struggled a bit with what to post on Halloween proper. I was afraid the magic was fading a bit. It's been hectic around here, there have been all sorts of obligations and things at the office and early colds/bugs...I wasn't really feeling it.

I know, I know.

Comparing the volumes of words last year to the scant posts this year, it's clear my head wasn't in the Halloween game. It felt like the intangible special air of the season hadn't appeared. But then I got home to my better half's chili and the giant bowl of candy to hand out. Suddenly it clicked. It was last minute but it was there. Spooky tunes on Pandora. Treehouse of Horror. Trick or treaters are coming for the first time! We've waited so long for this (and no more huge lines at bars and paying a cover and getting a cab and all the other adult Halloween misery)!

So I got jazzed here at the last minute.

To celebrate, I'll impart something I had forgotten (thankfully). In a recent post I mentioned how I don't believe in this mumbo jumbo about ghosts and things that go bump in the night. Supporting my steadfast adherence to science is the fact that nothing...paranormal...has ever happened to me.

Until I was house shopping.

My better half and I had looked at probably 30 houses and were growing frustrated. One day while out with our realtors we stopped at a bit of a fixer upper in the west metro area. Decent, but not great neighborhood. The house was in fine shape from the outside. Inside, though, it was...off? I don't know. It's still hard to put a finger on what did it. It had this funny salmon color all over, and I think it had been foreclosed on? Or maybe the owners were renting it out and the people that were there weren't taking care of it. Whatever it was, they weren't taking proper care of it on the inside and everything was kind of slap-dash and in disarray. Seemed like a guy and a little girl, from the toys strewn about. 

As soon as the door had closed behind us something was happening to me. As far as I can recall, no one else felt it. I sure did, though. It felt terrible, like I was drowning, or there was a gas leak and only I was getting the fumes. My head was heavy and throbbing. My eyes hurt and I wanted to lie down and die. My chest felt like it was being crushed. I took maybe five minutes to get my bearings in the house, all the while my better half is imperviously seeing promise. She and the realtors are walking around admiring the kitchen and I practically vomit the phrase "I'm leaving. Now. We're not interested." They were totally perplexed by my sudden change in demeanor, but since I had never exhibited any kind of displeasure on this level, they shrugged and went with it. 

By the time we were in the car and driving away, my head cleared out and I explained what happened. They were a bit surprised but they accepted my reaction with aplomb. My better half was a bit bummed to miss out on what she saw as a great kitchen, even if I felt so horrible. We moved on, they were all cool with it. I'm sure the realtors had seen weirder and worse in their time.

It was so strange. I've never had such a bad feeling, this sense of malevolence or foreboding space. It was as if the house had the strongest bad vibes I'd ever felt. I don't know what to chalk it up to. My religious childhood and paranormal pop culture obsession wants to knee-jerk to call it spirits. My logical mind wants to call it undetected electromagnetics and low-level sub-audible humming. Hey, maybe it was low blood sugar and high stress. I just know there was no way I was going to spend more than five minutes there, let alone buy the place. It gives me the creeps to think about it, so I was glad to put it behind me. Dredging it out for you guys is kind of therapeutic. 

So, there it is. My only spooky deal. Not fun. Like I said, I don't beleive in any of it, which when considering how it felt, is just fine with me. I'll stick with cartoon skeletons and candy and the Monster Mash. Werewolf Barmitzvahs and all that. No real haunts, just real thrills. 

Inn & Out

Oh, right.

Crum.

It's been October all month, hasn't it? It has. Where have I been? I don't know. Stuff gets busy, I guess. I was looking back at last October's posts and I was not only reliable but down right prolific. It was super fun, if I recall, but also super busy. I don't know how I got all that done. Must not have owned a house at the time. Yeah, that's gotta be it. I'm out raking and running when I have daylight now, instead of bumming around the city. This time last year I was looking eagerly, if optimistically to the idea of eventually having trick or treaters. That is a thing that looks to definitely be happening this year. I am, in a word, jazzed. Like, drum solo jazzed. 

But I digress.

I was looking back on what I was posting and what I wanted to get to and realized what I wanted to put out there this year. I don't have some crazy gimmick or overlooked gem from the past. Nah, I'm switching it up this time around. What I'm saying is there is a great flick that came out this last year that deserves all the love it can get. Something modern? How novel! So take a look at The Innkeepers...

Released in 2011, The Innkeepers is a low budget slow-burn of a creeper from up and coming horror director Ti West. Starring Sara Paxton and Pat Healy as titular innkeepers Claire and Luke, the flick shows a surprising amount of heart for a modern day haunting tale. Claire and Luke are the last remaining employees in a sleepy little inn that's set to close in a few days. While the last guest check in, they decide to step up their paranormal investigations of what they are sure must be a haunted locale. Needless to say, something goes bump in the night. 

Having only heard good things about this movie on Doug Loves Movies (from host Doug Benson and multiple guests), I have to say I really enjoyed it. It has more heart and character than so many movies that are touted as horror or suspense tales these days. It doesn't wallop you with gore or unrelenting terror. It's a slow, suspenseful build that will often have you wondering if anything is going to happen. Oddly enough, that comes to be a positive rather than a boring flaw. When things come to a boil they really jolt you. The quiet moments allow for personality to foster. You get a better sense of identity from the characters. In a way the visual aesthetic combined with the jaunty soundtrack brought to mind fond recollections of Ghostbusters. I'm sure it was intentional but it was a great way to call back on something that's rarely touched upon by so many imitators.

Halloween is almost here. Don't get stupid with gore, get scared with a modest charmer. It's really a strong movie that comes in a small package. Think outside the box and check out this under-the-radar thriller. It's still on Netflix, to boot. Do it. Do it do it do it.

Night Moves

So this'll be an experiment.

I don't know how this is going to work, but I'm going to try dictating a post to see how handy Siri actually is. I'm on the drive home from the office and Halloween is approaching so I thought I would impart something freaky that happened about eight years ago. 

Nothing paranormal has ever happened to me but there was one particular time where my veins ran cold. I was living with my sophomore year roommate in college. While we shared an apartment and before we moved in we knew each other well, you only really get to know somebody until you start to live with them. He was a very nice guy and my closest friend but I had no idea until we signed the lease that he suffered from night terrors. He kind of played it off and made seem like it wouldn't be a problem and that it was fairly rare. I had no background in sleep disorders so it all seemed fairly innocuous. I figured it couldn't be any worse than what I dealt with in the dorms. However he told me that sometimes he would wake up and not know where he was, and that if it happened I should keep my distance and CAREFULLY try to wake him up. No approaching, no touching and a wide berth.

We shared a room.

It was a one bedroom apartment with a sheet running down the middle of the room, Odd Couple style. It wasn't optimal for a couple of college dudes, but we made it work in our own weird way. It made us like brothers, in a sense. Goofing off on those carefree nights he introduced me to Bill Hicks and we streamed Nova specials and tripped out over String Theory. It was pretty rad.

One, night, though, it was not rad.

It was early in the fall semester and we had only shared the apartment for a few months. I had been out carousing and celebrating the arrival of the new scholastic year, which happened to take the form of a drinking contest. A sober and reliable friend dropped me back off at the apartment. My roommate had a part time job which required he be up early on Sunday. Knowing this, I attempted to make a stealth entrance to our shared abode and began to contentedly munch on some leftovers. I was out of the dorms and living the college dream!

This dream shattered when I was mid-forkful of lo mein noodles. Dead calm in the apartment, I was jolted out of my stupor by the roomie screaming "Hello? Hello?" There was a rustling of bedsheets and feet shuffling in the bedroom. Hearing his panicked voice made my blood turn to ice. It was silence, then screaming.

Thankfully, I could still remember his instructions. I called his name, carefully woke him up. I talked him down, explained where he was, why he was lost in his own home. He got his sense and then his bearings. We shared a shaky laugh. It was a kind of bonding moment. It freaked my business right out, but I was able to sleep. Hey, beer. 

Not much of a pre-Halloween story, but it's something. Right? Right. I'll keep digging. There has to be something spooky in here somewhere.

Hairpile

Haircuts, man.

I just never get comfortable with them.

I've had a full head of hair my whole life. Providence providing, I'll continue to have one for years. As grateful as I am for a full head of hair, I continue to be exacerbated by it. No matter how I get it cut, or how often, it continues to grow and demands attention. I just want something that stays. As in "You - stay. Don't move. Don't go anywhere. No funny business." Instead, I find myself constantly in damage-control. I have to react and adapt and ugh I just don't wanna. Look, the deal is this - I've never really had a haircut I've liked. It's always been just finding one that works for the time and going for it. Every single time I go in for a cut there is NO PLAN whatsoever. It's always as if I surprise myself. "Oh, haircut? Uhhh...try...this? I don't know..." Sure, I've like some more than others, but mostly they've always been terrible and I look back and cringe. Let's look back at my poor choices, shall we?

Baby - doesn't count.

Toddler - here's where the trouble starts. Big side-swept thing that would set the stage for all future mistakes.

Childhood - epic side part that earned the moniker 'schoolie', a word that never looks properly spelled.

Adolescent - adopted a modified Duff. Parted down the middle and shaved(!) underneath the eaves. Gets worse.

Teen Alpha - long duff, down to shoulders. Tons of homophobic insults and ANGST. Loads of ANGST. Awful.

Teen Beta - crew cut. Copious amounts of gel and uptight micromanagement. A marked improvement.

Teen Gamma - emotional crisis results in razor-blade shearing. My head was smoooooth. Looked crazy, oddly good.

Teen Delta - no cut. grew everything out at once. Referred to by friends as a head cut.

College (Initial) - no more hair cuts, for a year. Super easy to deal with: wash, rinse, hat. Done. Awesome.

College (Variable) - series of long/buzz cuts. Blond dyes. Nothing looks right, due to exacerbating obesity.

Post College - pseudo crew. Becomes standard young man's cut. Evolves from fauxhawk into duckbutt/Philip Fry.

Current - greaser. Better half shakes head and calls me hipster. Look like maternal grandfather. Never met him.

You see? 

No matter what I do, it's a reactionary thing. I just wish it could be like a cartoon and I could wake up every day and it would stay the same. Alas, it grows and changes and betrays me. I feel like no other guy obsesses and worries about this like do, but then they're probably not as neurotic as me. 

I can look at this two ways:

One - it's never gonna be solved, and it's never gonna look great. Just deal with it and constantly perform triage. 

Two - lean into the spin. It'll be a fascinating look at back at my narcissism and self-modulation in the 21st century.

Of these two grim options, I'm splitting the difference. I'm going to try to find some illusive, as-of-yet unseen haircut that will arise from trial and error and finally say "Aha! Do this the rest of my life!"

Or until I lose my hair.

Hicksville

This took me back.

This took me aback.

Last post I wrote about how I've (somehow) started enjoying the process of mowing my lawn. Yes, yes - domestication and all that. I don't care. I like me. Moving on. In that piece I mentioned how I no longer listen to music when I do any kind of chores by myself. When it's my better half tackling something with me, we're all about some odd-ball jams. When I'm operating as el lobo solo, though, I'm almost always listening to podcasts or comedy albums. I like the idea of POTENTIALLY bettering myself, either through some sort of instructed or guided dawning moment of insight. Otherwise, to quote Anthony Jeselnik "Life is full of horrible things that will eventually get you and everything you care about. Laughter is a universal way to lift your head up and say 'Not today, you bastards.'"

So.

I made my way through most of my comedy albums over the summer. By the end I had made my way to something I had been putting off. Someone who is known in smaller circles, one of those comedians who gets a lot of praise but never popped like others of his era. Bill Hicks.

My roommate in college did me a life changing favor in introducing me to Bill Hicks. I had never heard such acerbic  intelligent breakdowns on the subtle miseries of life. We bonded over the absurd bits on hooligans in light of American gangs, the heady stuff about LSD on the nightly news and nodded along about the never-ending threat of the world ending. It was a complete game changer for how we interpolated the world around us. We consumed all of Hicks we could and moved on with our lives. Like most things you're enamored with, though, you obsess over it for a while and then just carry it with you. 

I hadn't listened to much of anything by Hicks in the last eight years. So on one of my recent days spent doing yard work I listened to a couple of his seminal works. I weeded, picked up compost, mowed and trimmed, my head cocked the whole time as I digested what I was hearing with a fresh set of ears.

It was...not...as awesome as I had remembered.

Maybe I've softened in the last decade or so. Maybe I'm (somehow, despite what I say) less cynical. Maybe I just bottle it up more. Whatever changed in me, I was struck by how it didn't hold up and how little I enjoyed it. To clarify, I certainly enjoyed choice bits, but more for the wit and less for the bite now. 'Changing the world' seems flatly impossible now. To listen to some grand proclamations to which I used to nod feverishly, I winced and shook my head. It was grating. It was dismissive and vitriolic. A surprising amount of it was straight up homophobic, which was really surprising. 

Listening to Bill Hicks after being introduced to it almost a decade ago, I was struck mostly at how I had changed, as well as how his material ages in light of his reputation. Was a genius? No. But he was insightful and incredibly ahead of the curve. He cut a (very premature) path in the world for others to slip into. But the murmurs you hear about his reputation being better than his material are not entirely unfounded. Kind of a bummer, of course, but also enlightening as to how I've grown and changed in this short span of time.

I'm not saying you should never listen to his material. I'm saying I heard it for the first time in the right place and mindset. You should absolutely hear some of it. There are some real gems in it. Just dig in for yourself and remember it's just a ride. 

Lawnmower Man

So Fall is here. 

Mixed emotions! 

I say mixed because I absolutely adore Fall. There are way too many reasons to list - the crisp, clear air. The cool, sunny days. Leaves crunching under foot. Making chili and cooking hot meals to warm up. Sleeping with the windows open. Look, I could go on and on. 

There's also a downside, though - it's the end of any measurable light in Minnesota. From now until April it's pretty much dark all the time. I can make peace with that, but there is definitely a physical toll on the body. The cold, unrelenting winter. It's the price we pay for having three amazing (truncated) seasons. 

There's a new reason in the mix this year.

When I was 14 you could not have paid me enough money to mow the lawn. Actually I did not get paid for my own lawn. My dad knew better. Neighbors, though. They paid. Not as much as I wanted, but some. And I loathed it. Owning my own home, now I look for excuses to get outside and tinker with my lawn. What has become of me? Who is typing this? Who is this young man wandering around, picking weed, laughing to himself while listening to oddball podcasts?

There's a certain zen aspect to it, though.

A friend of mine said if she has to mow her lawn, she's having a couple of beers to ease the process along. I heartily agree. Yard work becomes a calming, manageable thing when you nurse a beer or two on a warm Summer afternoon. Now it's a cool Fall afternoon and it's not the same thing. Mowing the lawn has a hypnotic effect, though. You get outside of your head as you follow these little grooves in the lawn. There's the white noise of the mower. After the two-thirds point I can start to feel when the blade hits the grass, with a zing in my hands. It's soothing and eases anxiety the way doodling while on a phone call or putting together a puzzle while having a conversation takes you mind off matters - you distract your conscious mind just enough to let thoughts rise to the surface, free from constraint. What comes to mind is free and accepted. It's not unlike having a brilliant idea while taking a shower or vacuuming - you're free from thinking about thinking.

The joy of mowing a lawn. Man, that's some malarkey. When did I become this suburban stereotype? Did I watch that much King of the Hill? Am I going to be obsessed with my lawn? Give me two years and I'll be out there with a ruler and some kitchen shears, micromanaging like a true neurotic.

It also doesn't hurt that it's a thing that I can put a pin in and call 'done'. I can point to my yard and say "It's not perfect, but I don't have to deal with it for another week." Such a tangible, concrete task in my ADD, screen-filled life is a relief, to be perfectly frank. It's exercise with a definite benefit. 

It's not the end of the world that Fall is coming. I have next Spring to gear up for the whole process. I'll have a driveway to shovel (woof). Also, I'm getting way ahead of myself - after all, the leaves haven't all hit the ground, yet. I need to rake pretty soon.

Now there's some home-owning torture, right?

Old Vinyl

I just sent my mom a bummer of an email.

When I was in high school I entertained these notions of what life would be like when I got older. I'd be this hep cat, cooler than my high school self-conscious brain would allow. I'd read all these books about big ideas, man, and then write some. You know? Simple, undefined ideas of an unrealized self that never has been realized.

Some things did come to pass, although in a different manner than I would have expected. I did live in the Big City for a spell. A couple, actually. I played in bands. I rapped. I wrote a lot of bad free-verse. I started this blog. Acted in an indie flick. I fell in love. We moved into a happy home and learned to cook fantastic food together. Bought a house together, learned the joys of simple things together. Life is great.

But.

There's always a but. This time it was me responding to an email I received regarding what was to be done with my old record collection. A pause. A moment of recollection and head tilts. Right. Those things. I barely have time to listen to music at all, any more. If I didn't block out white noise at the office with podcasts and dubstep, I'd never listen to much beyond the car. Actually, that's not entirely true. The better half and I tend to push each other on to new tunes. 

The thing is...this idealized self that would eventually have a real bitchin' Hi-Fi with a rad old record collection no longer exists. Instead I find myself excited about listening to new episodes of podcasts as I mow the lawn. I want to listen to comedy albums while I cook. I zone out to techno while I run. Who am I? When did my dad's copies of Who's Next no longer become relevant? When did I give up on his copy of Beggar's Banquet? 

I'm more than a bit disappointed in myself. It's not the end of the world though. There's always some new, unanticipated adventure just around the bend. Better than anything else I could have predicted is that I have my best friend and better half to go with on these adventures. Forget what I wanted to be. I'll be whatever happens to us next.

Besides, vinyl pops and clicks anyway.

Irrational Fear

I'm an idiot. 

Not all of the time. 

Just some of the time. 

You see, last night before I went to sleep I was reading an article on the game Slender. It's a free-to-download PC game that has the player running around a park at night collecting pages of a book, avoiding the titular Slender Man, a meme that plays on our fear of the unknown and undefined. You look at him too much and you die. That's it. Sounds simple, right? It sure does, but according to almost all who have played it, it is supposed to be pants-fillingly terrifying. Something about the premise, setting and execution have made a simple yet disturbing game. Needless to say I'm stoked for it. It's sitting on my desktop but I'm waiting for Halloween. Or at the least, the month of October. My terror induced diarrhea must be timely. 

That's not why I'm an idiot, though. At least, not this time. 

No, the thing was that in the article was a link to this video from a series of YouTube clips about...something. I don't even know, really. However, that short clip was so effective in its use of framing timing that I was unnerved to the point of continuing anxiety. I had to put it out of my mind to sleep last night, and all during my run (in the dark, natch) this morning I would get these bolts of memory that would jar me and I honestly found myself looking back over my shoulder just...because...you know? 

Look, I'm no scientist. But! I majored in Logic and Philosophy in college. I spend most of my brain power working out the rules and systems of the world around me. When given a game to play, I love looking for ways to break the system, to test the boundaries of a pre-established world. That we, as a species, have worked out the cosmos from the multiverse down to subatomic particles astounds me and makes me marvel at being alive. But I don't believe in the supernatural. I know a few people reading this will be disheartened to hear that as much as I love Mysterious Universe, I don't think of it as a journalistic endeavor - it's more a source of entertainment. Much of my ability to deal with the horrors of the world and the cruelty of fate stems from the cold, hard logic of science and how cause and effect operate, coupled with a good ol' dose of Chaos Theory. There's a lot of math I don't understand, but even cats can use an iPad even if they'll never build one. 

The point is - I know this stuff is pure, Grade A baloney. Noises in my house are the house settling or creaking in the wind or my cat being a little unhinged. No one chases me during my run except my thoughts and the local rabbits. Despite knowing these things...I still get the creeps. The willies. That little tingle up the spine that lingers from an evolutionary holdover in which was originally supposed to warn of large animals watching from the bushes. 

I'm not saying there's not danger in the world. Of course there is. Cancer. Car accidents. Random acts of violence. Super volcanoes. But I only control my own self and how I react to things. So why can't I control getting creeped out by stuff like that video late at night? Why do I love to torture myself, especially non-stop in October? Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment. Or maybe I like to pretend there's more out there. See how the other half lives. Who knows. 

I'll just glance over my shoulder every now and then to be sure.