Blast from the Past - Haiku

January's a busy time around here at CDS Enterprises (A wholly-owned division of NFG Worldwide, Ltd.)  As such, I don't have the time to rant anew - at least not in print.  Being as we are four months from my cresting (and subsequently being 'over') the hill, it seems only appropriate that I share with you some crotchety posts from the past.

This dates from early 2006, when GERD was the word...

Indigestive Haiku

I

i lie here awake
now my stomach tortures me
churning endlessly


II

i can barely breathe
the acid climbs and won't cease
all i feel is pain


III

why did i eat that
when I know it brings me pain
anger makes it worse


IV

now my brain joins in
overload of stressful thoughts
my goals never met


V

restless endless nights
sleeplessness my constant foe
i think im going mad


VI

pain just grows and grows
im taking purple pills now
they dont seem to help

Random Acts of Thursday - Ready For the Madhouse

Ah, April 1st.  Le jour des imbeciles d'Avril!  Convinced anyone that Coca Cola is going back to classic Classic, complete with coca leaves in the mix?  Planted a thumbtack on your favorite cow-orker's chair?  Get cracking!

In my own little reckless way, completely ignoring convention and putting together a quiz based on famous firsts, or famous fools, I thought I would instead regale you with a happy little story, Mad Lib style, using our current quest to sell old and acquire new housing as a basic theme, and using film titles old and new to fill in the blanks.

The Home Viewing - First Impressions

Today our Realtor took us to the House on Haunted Hill.  We had high hopes for this one, not like that Nightmare on Elm Street.  Did you see the wallpaper in that one?  Walking up to The Doors took forever, this house had The Longest Yard I'd ever seen.  The Realtor handed the Keys to Tulsa, who turned the Lock Up and over to let us in.  Immediately we knew this was the Home of the Brave.  

The Wall in front of us was stories high.  Even though the house only had Four Rooms, we had to climb The 39 Steps just to get to the second floor.  As I walked to the Rear Window, though, I could see the appeal of this home.  It was right On The Waterfront.  And still, there was space for The Shaggy Dog to run around and do his business.

The downside, since there is always a down side.  The Basement and the Kitchen both showed some signs of past water damage, but nothing major.  Certainly I could overlook the Stain on the floor, at least there were no Cracks in the Ceiling.

When the breeze picked up, the metal roof crackled and groaned in the sun. It was almost like there was a _________________________________________________ .  (It was a stretch, I know.  I just can't bring myself to fill it in.)

Think you can do better?  Give it your best shot in the comments.  I'm on the road for the next week, so I may not get to your comments right away, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't leave them.

This is not a lending library

In my brain, I have a happy place. This place is permanently recorded in a 1974 Architectural Digest stored in my personal archive, of a nook filled with overflowing bookshelves, more piles of books on a steamer trunk, a soft silk loveseat, Flocati rug, reading lamp and dappled sunlight. Some day when we settle down, I'll have a nook like this.I love books. I love their heft, the way they feel, the way they smell, the various fonts, the flow of a story, fiction or non. Between Lori and I, we have a small fortune tied up in the literary arts. With as often as we've moved since our wedding, it's tough to keep track of everything we own. However, I still know when I'm missing a book. When I arrange them alphabetically, fiction before non-fiction, I know when something isn't where it should be.More recently, I acquired a Sony Reader, allowing me to carry 100 or more books with me whenever I travel. Since I am a voracious channel-surfer, it should come as no surprise that I also read four or five books concurrently. Doing so when traveling was tiresome when I had to carry them with me, buy another when I finished, and cart them all back home. I don't find the reader a poor substitute for the printed word, since I still have other books I read in their traditional form for the rush that musty pages bring. The reader, in addition to solving the issue of transport, of accessing free and reasonably priced digital editions, and gaining some space in our home, also means I can't lend a book to someone once I've finished my first read.

I never want to be one of those 'Indian givers', if you'll forgive the potentially politically incorrect term, but I get nervous any time I loan a book out, knowing the likelihood that I'll ever see the book again is slim to none. I get just as nervous, knowing friends who have loaned me books that still show up in our collection despite having moved 1300 miles from their rightful owner, knowing that they'll likely never be returned at this point.
Lisa, I'm sorry I still have your hardbound edition of 'The Stand'. I never made it past chapter one. I'm pretty sure you have my 'Skinny Legs and All'. Leah, I'm sorry I have your 'Letters from a Nut', or at least I did. I might have a Shel Silverstein of yours, too, I don't know why you left these at my apartment. Holly, you have my 'Me Talk Pretty One Day'. It's probably still on your old desk in the corner of the office. Sarah, I don't know if I ever gave you back your 'Fish Fries of Wisconsin' book. If not, I'll get it to you. Kathy, you have 'Bone in the Throat', I hope you're enjoying the read, it's a fun story, no? I really don't expect to get it back.

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be", spoke Claudius to Hamlet, in Shakespeare's play about the Danish prince. Sadly, I don't have my own copy of this play, it's one we never read in school. Could I, perchance, borrow yours?

Another Random Act of Thursday - I can read you like a book

When it comes to dead wrestlers, nobody messes with The Crusher, the wrestler that made Milwaukee famous!

As we established last week, I never read 'The Stranger'. I have no shame about this, and don't feel I must make an effort to rectify the matter. Though I might pick up Sartre's 'Nausea'. Because hey, Camus liked it.

One of the guys in my office was reading last week's quiz and offered up that he never read Camus, either. As we discussed taste in authors and genres, he indicated that his wife has set before him a reading list of classics and important works, and the next day he informed me, following discussion of my blog with his wife, the list has now been updated to include both The Stranger and a Vonnegut to be named later. No need to thank me. That's me, ruining people's joy since 1971.

A long time ago (and originally only the day before KV passed away), it occurred to me that I may be an odd reader because:

A) I have books that I have re-read so many times the pages are falling out, books that make me laugh even before I get to the parts that make me laugh, and yet I still enjoy reading them again and again, like old friends.

B) When I got my last library card, I checked out three books from the library to read, even though I was already reading three fiction, one biography, two cookbooks and two non-fiction books already, and I alternate between books without just finishing one before picking up another - think of it as channel-surfing in print form.

I never gave this much thought, but I know this isn't normal, because Lori reads far more than I do, and she reads cover to cover before ever picking up another book. She even reads books she can't stand this way, because not finishing would be wrong. She once struggled through a book (I think it was Crighton) and declared at least twice an hour that it was the worst book she had ever read, but she wouldn't put it down. With rare exception, I don't believe she has ever read the same book twice. We both have a few authors we truly enjoy, few, if any, of them overlap.

So here are my questions, my little turkeynecks:

1) Do you have a favorite book? What is it?

2) How many times have you read your favorite book?

3) How many times would you read a book you enjoyed, if it wasn't your favorite?

4) Do you have a favorite author or authors, or do you pick books at random?

5) Do you read cover-to-cover, or do you jump from book to book (to book...) before you finish the original book you started reading?

6) Do you read for yourself and the joy of it, or because of a task or challenge set forth before you?

I'm an international sensation

Either that, or there’s some sort of multi-cultural whiskey-related internet scavenger hunt going on. Thanks to The Bev’s page, I have aquired some tools to see who’s reading my site. As such, now I know that in the past week, I’ve been tagged again and again by a few dozen Google searchers from Latvia, Norway, Taiwan, Argentina, South Africa, New Zealand, Belgium and Brazil, among many others.

And they’re all getting to my site based on one picture, and one picture only.

Except for one weirdo with a zombie fetish.
Freak.

And as for this week’s contests, there’s still a movie quote to be named, and a movie role to be identified. A hint on the latter, my favorite author has a brief non-speaking cameo in the film in question.
He’s the man. I've no intention of taking up smoking, but I will smoke Pall Malls in tribute to him if I do.
Since we're talking whisk(e)y, a few of his choice quotes on the subject of drinking:

“I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone.” (Our friend Julie has fallen prey to my drunken calls, but she loves it. Want her cell number?)

“I have this theory about why men kill each other and break things. ... Never mind. It's a dumb theory. I was going to say it was all sexual ... but everything is sexual ... but alcohol.”
And while this was not intended to be a tome dedicated to a man I miss horribly though I never met him, thoughts of him make me wistful but happier, saner at the same time.

“Oh, she says, well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is, is we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.”
— on telling his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope

And to me, the best, simplest quote of all, the one that makes my meat cry out ‘O, happy meat!’, that makes my soul cry out ‘O, happy soul’, is even better when perched between the slick hot shoulder blades of a beautiful woman: