Bundock
Le corbeau (1986)
After twenty-five or thirty years, I’m getting really burned out on 1980s pop sung in English but I seem to be developing a really big soft spot for the French stuff.
I’m sorry, but every time I see one of these vans, I can’t help but think it’s full of people on their way to a giant benefit concert for people with gender identity issues who may also be suffering from famine or the loss of their farms.
More random thoughts for a Thursday “basement night” in Winston-Salem:
- Some really great news at work and I hate that I really shouldn’t talk about it publicly until next week. I would be quite happy to brag privately to anyone who cares, though.
- In case you were wondering, Trader Joe’s Punjab Eggplant over rice makes for a surprisingly satisfying dinner. This is part of my new meal strategy, which basically is “cook lots of rice on Sunday night and keep pouring different stuff over it all week.”
- Have I mentioned yet how much happier I was back when my dad used to hate using the phone as much as I do?
- I was reminded this morning (fortunately with ten days to prepare) that I have multiple speaking engagements this month. I’m not sure why anyone particularly wants to hear me do it, but I’m sure glad public speaking was never quite as frightening to me as it is to most people.
- Three new used books from Amazon this week: histories of A&P, Loblaws, and Steinbergs. I sense a theme here. Maybe two.
- I am really, really impressed by what the ex is doing this week. God knows I couldn’t do it. If you asked nicely, I imagine he would still accept donations. Just sayin’.
Back to Capitale Rock and writing my luncheon speech now.
It’s hard not to love a bookstore with a “history of technology” section.
More random stuff for a Saturday morning, all of which would probably be more appropriate to some closed-system social networking platform, but fuck that:
- This might explain so may aspects of my life, from my career choice to why my
marriagestate-unsanctioned relationship failed. And why I always crave cookies but often don’t find them satisfying. Or it might not. (Thanks, Dan C.) - Much true, this. And it’s somehow related to the fact that I find knowing lots of stupid Excel tricks has helped me more as a librarian than any other tech skills.
- I don’t shop at Penney’s (I mean “JCP“) as much as I used to, but I could start again, especially if it would piss off these morons.
A week or so back I mentioned some good work news. Since the announcement was officially made yesterday, I guess I can brag about it here now so…
I got my grant. The one I was working on back in January and February. You know: the $200K grant with the 106-page application (a real page-turner, it was). As a result, my group will be digitizing many thousands of documents, photos, and other materials related to local history around the turn-of-the-century. We’re the lead institution, collaborating with four other libraries and a museum, which frankly was no small thing to organize.
I’m really excited about it. This is pretty much the specific reason I pursued the career path I did. And…well…it sort of makes me look good career-wise, too. A nice thing to have in the old tenure package, after all.
I may have ice cream to celebrate. Come to think if it, I may have ice cream just for the hell of it…
How amused am I that Gmail marked a message from Google Analytics as spam?
Friday night. More than anything else I’m excited that I’ve finally determined how I will archive and organize all my digitized and born-digital home video and that I’m finally making some good progress with that project again after a long lull. Keep in mind that this is essentially the same thing I do as a large part of my day job.
Does that make me pathetic?
And do I care?
Not particularly. Putting the world in order is what I do. When I have the time and energy, that is.
Even if I can’t make sense out of my own life, I want it to be damned easy for someone else to write the finding aid after I die.
I don’t generally ask for content opinions since I’ve always stressed that I am the primary audience for this website.
But…
I’m thinking of celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of the famed Planet SOMA US Tour of 1997 by posting the actual video footage from that trip. Is there any interest? You’d see a much younger me carrying Mark’s Powerbook around the country, visiting random strangers, touring Route 66, and generally having fun with what was really one of the very early online road trips back in the semi-virginal days of the internet (when this site, strangely enough, actually had a much bigger audience).
I ask for this opinion because this really would be an audience-driven thing. I can watch this shit whenever I want to. I don’t particularly want to go to all the effort if no one else cares.
Opinions are solicited.
I’m managing to feel kind of guilty and rotten on three or four different fronts right now even though I probably don’t really deserve to–or at least maybe just on one or two of them.
I fear I’d make a good Catholic.
I still think I’m a relatively good son, friend, and boss, even if not a perfect one.
In addition to recognizing how great my own dad is this year on Father’s Day, I’m feeling kind of inspired to recognize how very important someone else’s father came to be in my life.
Back in 2003, one of my oldest and closest friends lost his father to an illness that I assumed was either caused or exacerbated by smoking. I’d never met this man. Wouldn’t have known him from Adam if I’d seen him walking down the street. But the day he died, I decided that I would be one less person that my friend would lose to smoking. And I decided that very day that I was going to quit after almost twenty-five years as an addict. I set the date for about a week later and on 3 November 2003, I had my last cigarette. I never once looked back after that day and haven’t touched one of those disgusting things since.
So in a certain way, this dad that I’d never met saved my life–or at least significantly enhanced and lengthened it. I don’t think I’ve ever told his son this story and I probably should have before now, because the son obviously played a pretty big role in my decision too.
Father’s Day just seemed like a good time to mention it. So thanks to father and son…