WonderBlog

So yesterday I posted about dumb stuff.

But it was kinda fun. I am full of thoughts about all kinds of things, and why not just dump a few on my website? It's not the LOUVRE, for goodness sakes!

it's supposed to rain hard today. Maybe later, it hasn't yet. I wore a good coat, though. Today, for the first time this year, I rode the bus.

My new car has been fun to drive, but I really shouldn't commute to work if it is possible to ride the bus. The bus is morally superior, and superior in other ways.

But the bus requires taking the air. The air is nippy, and it might be wet. Therefore: coat.

My coat of choice is not a fashionable one. I wore it yesterday too, even though I was not bussing it. It's an air force desert camoflage coat, with excellent pockets.

I like camoflage. I grew up with camoflage everywhere. All the boys wore camoflage. In fact, since the school started during moose hunting season, the school pretty much started with all the boys wearing as much camo as they owned. It was a badge of honor, to have all camo. It was a great advantage when we played capture the flag in the woods. it's hard to capture what you can't see.

Eventually, the school banned it, because it was too casual. We were not allowed to wear jeans either.

Anyway, when I grew up and could buy my own clothes, I liked to have some camo in my closet for certain types of tasks. It's very durable and comfortable, especially the really old worn stuff.

When I went out to visit Telissa, whose husband was in the air force, I tried to find some camo in the thrift stores aroudn the base. In california, i hadn' t found any good camo. It was everywhere in alaska, but not so much here. We couldn't find any.

But later, her considerate husband gifted me with this nice coat. Awesome!

and I use it. It's good for dog walking and bus stop waiting, and other warmth-requiring outdoor activities.

HOWEVER, people have opinions about it.

The react to the militariness of it.

how odd. It's just a practical coat. but people ask me "Have you been in the military?"

And I explain how the coat was a gift from a thoughtful airforce friend.

But they assume things.

huh

And I realize that the only camo i see around here is ON people on active duty. Or little faux camo t-shirts or minis on size zero teenage girls. how weird.

I've long thought that clothing was a form of communication. Pairing harley davidson combat boots with a pale pink lace&cotton prom dress is a wardrobe pun, really.

But there are apparently regional dialects of wardrobe. The camo means one thing to me, and another to the soft and civilized californians.

I wear that coat and I am saying "Warm practical coat."
The see me wear the coat and hear "Paramilitary nut job."

Not the same language.

I am planning a trip to alaska. Chris needs to see it. I think I'm willing to go there for a QUICK trip to show him.

And i wonder....I remember camo being everywhere. But that was about 20 years ago. have things changed? Thank you, Walmart, clothing is plentiful and good quality. Maybe the era of using whatever is at hand is over, and specialization is upon us. Even in Alaska.

I hope not.

Northern Exposure was on TV on new years, and I made Chris watch some of it. I remember it was on TV, maybe reruns, when I first moved to California. That was what people knew as Alaska.

I thought Alaska was just life. I didn't know. I watched the show a couple times to find out what people thought I was. I remember thinking it was pretty close, but somehow not quite.

So Chris and I watched the reruns, I with my more finely tuned perceptions.

OKAY, the fictional town was WAY too cute. It is obvious that the indoor scenes were not filmed in alaska. BECAUSE all the little house furnishings, the window handles and cupboards were too old.

They are similar to the hardware in my 50s house. And I remember the then I used to be, and how hungry I was for anything old. Something from the fifties was impossibly old.

There just wasn't anything that old. If there was something from then...maybe a log cabin? Maybe a sled dog run? But those would not have had all the nice fixtures. or built-in cupboards of the ranch-style.

things were so new. and things were just so damn hard to get. I guess the military was really good at sending supplies, so it was easier for the poor folks (such as my family) to get the cast offs.

the richer folk literally FLEW TO SEATTLE TO GET HAIR CUTS. Unbelievable.

I think that my background is part of why I take the bus. I consider the bus a luxury. That view is not shared by most other Angelinos. But my town didn't have a bus. I really wished i had a bus.

I wonder if they have a bus now. I know my street, Bull Moose Drive, is paved now, a development I am still surprised by.

I'm gonna take Chris to see it. And the lake, renamed Memory Lake. How ironic! Memories of what? Mosquitoes past? The place was virgin forest before they threw up a housing subdivision and named all the streets in two-word animal names--Bull Moose--Red Fox. The lake was called Swamp lake before the developers got there. But I spent many hours on the lake, swimming in the cold summers and iceskating in the freezing winters.

There are a lot of things I need to show Chris, and probably a lot of things I need to see again for myself.

Anyway. I thought I would post a little something.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:08 AM | Permalink

It's 2008

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:30 AM | Permalink

I haven't posted in a long time.

I have thoughts to share.

I just don't have the time.

So, I had a very nice Christmas, I hope you did too.

I am wearing a lovely cable-knit hoodie sweater I recieved from my mother-in-law. MONUMENTALLY, I finally had a conversation with Chris's brother, my new brother-in-law. Somehow, in the previous 8 years, we never quite launched a conversation. I kept hoping it would happen, thinkingn that somewhere in there was an interesting thought.

And I WAS RIGHT! My faith is justified, and that actually brings new light to all kinds of possibilities that I have been losing hope on. So that's good.

We got a new car, while not hearing from the insurance yet about old car. Eh, I like me new car, so that's okay.

We have also misplaced the card reader for the camera, so i can't share a digital picture. sorry.

and I'm sorry to be so boring. I appreciate your patience, and I note that the blogs I follow are singularly boring just now, so I am giving myself slack for being unoriginal.

Peace and love to all.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:51 PM | Permalink

It is, it is!

The longest nights of the year are now. Today is the shortest day.

So, find a reason to stay in bed. Cuddle and enjoy warm covers.

Tomorrow will be brighter. It's a fact.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:45 AM | Permalink

So on monday another person forgot to hit their brakes.

They hit me and my car is done.

the crumple zones crumpled.

I am okay. My neck is a bit stiff, but I think that will be over by the end of the week.

I did see the doctor and I asked him if I needed to rest..He said "Let your pain be your guide."

okay.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:17 AM | Permalink

I have been working on a book for four years...and I can't find half of it.

It must be somewhere.

You know those ads for "PC anywhere"? they say "Do you need to access your desktop computer at work from home? Get PC anywhere!"

I need to access my stupid home computer...but

that whitespace is for all the caps i want to use and big profanities. The thing is, our network has been befoogled by the new office. THe office that chris is in. and it's a little far for my laptops' wireless to reliably get to...and YES, we put in cabling back to the house...but I must have punched it down wrong...

and it's because...

and I can't

But it can't happen until

it is all about shaving the yak

which makes be want to curse in caps

and I could if I wanted to...i don't object to cursing or caps when appropriate...

BUT NONE OF THIS IS APROPRIATE

^&*(%
(*()(&*^&%^&!!

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:06 AM | Permalink

One of the things I always knew when I was growing up was how special my church was. It was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Most other places were not filled with the Holy Spirit. In fact, other churches were so far away from God that they were even suspicious of people who were filled with the Holy Spirit. We knew that was silly, because the Bible talks about being filled with the Holy Spirit, right there in the beginning of Acts.

How could a Christian call themself a Christian and be suspicious of what was right there in the BIble?

I wanted to know how it had gotten lost. I was told that the Bible was written, and then the Church got all corrupted because of the sinfulness of the Catholic Church. It was amazing that there was a church at all, but it trucked along by the mercy of--the Holy Spirit!--until Martin Luther could hang his 95 theses on the wall and everyone could be Christians again.

But that didn't answer my question about how Christians had lost the Holy Spirit. What had happened?

It was kinda the same thing. Just like Christianity itself had bumped along in the dark until Martin Luther cast off the evil catholics, the Holy Spirit had been ghosting around like a fog in the dark, just waiting to come back. He waited, until a lady in Los Angeles was suddenly filled with the Holy Spirit, started talking in tongues, and then everyone got filled with the Holy Spirit again.

A lady in Los Angeles? That means it couldn't have been that long ago.

No, it was right before the great depression.They called it the Azusa street revival and that's how our church got started. A lot of churches got started throught that movement.

----------------------

I remember hearing about the Asuza street revival. What I didn't know what how HUGE it was, and that the lady who was filled with the Holy Spirit was a world-wide phenomena knows as Sister Aimee Semple-McPherson.

I didn't even know that my bus passed that very Asuza street church, known as Temple Angelus, every day when I used to work downtown.

She was a huge force, and magnetically powerful woman who had passed into obscure legend, a no-name entity, by the time my folks had jumped on the caboose of the train that had started out as her bandwagon.

She started in the midwest, and her first husband was a preacher. They went to China as missionaries, and he died. She miraculously made it backto america and eventually became an evangelist.

And how! She had a radio show during the heyday of radio. In fact, she was the one who came up with the "Place your hands on the radio to be healed" idea...

I also find it interesting that her phrases (as I have heard them in documentaries) are the accent and tones that I heard imitated by itinerant preachers that came. I aways wondered why people would get that prophesying tone.

Oh Lord-ah...we prayyy for sturength-uh

I wondered about that as a kid...People who spoke normally in conversation would start talking all funny..

IT WAS HER! she talked like that.

And I never knew. I never knew that such an incredible strong woman got baptized in the man-centered church of my youth..baptized SO HARD she never came up for air.

and I had to learn about her through a PBS documentary.

...yet another example of how anonymous is a woman...

There was no end to the references of the Asuza street revival. But heavens, I never knew what it was.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:06 PM | Permalink

problems with my itunes has me reloading the music that's on my computer back into the player.

That is a treacherous path down memory lane. I have an odd assortment of music on the computer.

Gin Blossoms. WOW, that's memory lane. it's under the genre heading Alternative & Punk.

Alternative. I remember asking what that was supposed to mean.

"It's like Heavy metal, but about how your life sucks..."

Does anyone else remember the Flannel shirt days of seattle music like me? I haven't met anyone who does in a long time. But the GBs were from that time, and I am there again.

Nirvana can follow Cobain to wherever he went, they were never my anthems. But the Gin Blossoms, a million weird college bands never to be heard from again...They Might be Giants, Linda Perry' screaming "WHAT"S GOING ON?" and the doc marten shod cranberries..."Do you have to...do you have to...?"

"Step out the front door like a ghost into a fog
where no on notices the contrast of white on white"

That slammed me in the gut..the struggle for selfhood and to be noticed in the big wide world of other people's importance...

I remember beign grateful that huge clothing and torn jeans were in, because the homeless look was just about all I could afford at the time. I was POOR.

way poor

and then in '95 I moved to California, and that' about when I met Alanis. SHE let me know just how pissed off I was.

"I dont' mean to pick you apart you see
but I can't help it...
..all I really want is some patience..
a way to calm the angry voice...
and all i really want is deliverance"

Those were the days.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:31 AM | Permalink

I went ice skating this weekend. It is part of a girl's night my fabulous socially organizing-type friend is doing.

There are a lot of girls that could be part of the girls' night. But this is the second girls night, and we are capping out at four. They are not all the same girls. It's a rotating cast of people that can manage to come.

At our dinner afterwards, Kim (the organizer) brought something up. She has a roommate, a mostly employed actor, and he asked her what she was doing.

"Girls night"

"Oh, I'm having a dinner party, I was gonna tell you to come."

This dinner party was organized about 2 days prior. They expected about 40 people to show.

OUR girls night had been organized MONTHS ago, but only four people (and only two for the whole time) came.

I suggested that maybe roommate's JOB is to draw an audience, and that is why all these people come. He pulls a crowd, and that is what makes him employed as an actor.

Someone else suggested that maybe it's because all his unemployed actor buddies are quite up for anything at the drop of a hat. He KNOWS a bunch of people with free time.

We girls were not full of free time.

So, It makes me think. How do people end up being friends with people these days? Myspace and Facebook are not really full of friends. Not the sort of friends you see and hang out with.

It's tough, once you get successful and responsible, to maintain the friends. That's why I admire Kim greatly for helping. I know it takes time for her to organize our girls nights.

Somehow I think we forget to give ourselves and fun times a priority. It gets pushed back, lower down on the list. FIRST we have to get to work and FIRST we have to go take the class and FIRST we have to...

but we can't seem to find a second.

I know that once people have kids, they seem to grow a social life again. I've seen elaborate birthday parties for three year olds that have more adults than kids.

I guess if you hang out with poeple who are full of free time, then you can have friends. Like the employed actor. but those of us who are more than mostly employed...well...we like hanging out with other ambitious people. And people like that take 2..3...4...10 tries before you can actually spend the time.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:35 AM | Permalink

(I didn't write this, it was a random spam like list I found)

1. Losers think everything is too good to be true, while the successful think that getting a job sounds too bad to be true (think entrepenuer).

2. Losers give up when things don't go their way; a few disappointments and they are onto something else, saying things like "it wasn't for me." The successful work harder and become more determined when things go bad, and understand that you have to take the bad with the good to make it.

3. Losers always have an excuse. Successful people say "my fault" and refuse to make excuses.

4. Losers think that not getting what they want is OK. Successful people are disgusted at the thought of not getting what they want and will do whatever it takes.

5. Losers always have to talk it over with their broke friends to make sure no one will make fun of them if they make a decision. Successful people think for themselves and could care less what their broke friends think.

6. Losers are never coachable and teachable. Successful people are always learning, even when the money starts coming in, they never stop learning from those who were there first.

7. Losers are scared of others. Successful people trust in others and know that other people are crucial for their success.

8. Losers are always procrastinating; they would rather talk about it, read about it, think about it, but never seem to do anything. Successful people hate doing anything but getting it done.

9. Losers are glad when the day is over. Successful people love when the day begins.

10. Losers think successful people are lucky. Successful people put themselves into a position to be "lucky," and then work hard to make the "luck" show up.

11. Losers work by the hour. Successful people work by the month. Losers want to know that after 1 hour of work they have something to show for it. Successful people find Losers who think like that and make them their employees.

12. Losers get excited they just got hired. Successful people think it is funny that someone could be fooled that easily; they are just making the successful person more successful.

13. Losers complain a lot. Successful people are thankful that no one shot at them today, they didn't have to fight in a war, and that they don't have a job.

14. Losers are too concerned about what other people are doing. Successful people are only concerned about what they can be doing to get more done. Losers think that if no one is doing something, it must suck. Successful people think that if no one is doing something, it means more money for them. Losers think that if everyone (all 200 people at the meeting in a city of 1 million) is doing something, it must be saturated. Successful people think that Losers aren't too bright.

15. Losers think it is OK for other people to live where they want to live, drive what they want to drive, and do what they want to do. Losers are OK with the fact that they can't do these things. Successful people get sick just thinking about being average. Losers think that other people's opinions are worth more than their dreams. Successful people know that their dreams are worth more than other people's opinions.
"To be successful, you must learn from Losers and do not do what they do nor think how they think."

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:30 PM | Permalink

I get to renew my driver's license today. Also, i am changing my name, so it's a good time for this to happen.

There are a lot of places where my name must be changed.

It's funny too. It's such a light thing, a name. It's air.

But the levels of beauracracy involved in changing it is staggering. Appointments, signatures, forms, copies of forms, approvals and waiting periods are involved.

I would like to have all of the name changing done before the end of the year. But I doubt that will happen.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:54 AM | Permalink

So, it's the 4th week of not driving to work.

I take my car only when I have to...Like this thursday I have to, because I have an appointment at the DMV to change my license.

but it's been going great. My bus system the Foothill transit is a very civilized bus system. They have new buses, called the Silver Streak, which I admire greatly but do not ride. The Silver Streak only goes downtown, and I need to go to Pasadena.

See? Those are the west end of the foothills I am transiting. That's a view of North Pasadena. And the end of my bus ride there and the start of my bus ride back. The very last stop before heading back home is in front of that Shell gas station. And in the bottom right corner is the stop before it.

The price of gas has greatly impacted my bus ride. To be honest, I didn't think that would happen. BUT it is now to be expected that there are not enough seats on the bus. It's getting kinda crazy! Almost every ride there are two people without a seat.

What do they think this is? Manhattan? this is LA and we need more or bigger busses or both.

I would like Foothill transit to give us a Silver Steak bus. In addition to their innate coolness, what with having a bendy middle and NAMES like ships ("Spirit of South El Monte", etc.), the Silver Streak has free wi-fi.

it would be very good to get the silver streak coming to my bus stops.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:37 AM | Permalink

So it came up in a book I'm reading right now. Of course, it was a teenage angst book. Crying in the bathroom. How many seeds of sorrow have been sown in public toilets all across America?

I can't be the only one. I'm sure there are a million stories that could be collected.

There is a website about crying while eating.

But the crying in the bathroom needs some of it's own attention.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:28 AM | Permalink

it's getting dark out

I forget sometimes...because it gets warm and dark in teh summer...It gets dark a lot earlier in the winter.

This is thanksgiving week. It will be pretty quiet except for the holiday party.

I plan on enjoying it

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:42 PM | Permalink

So I'm working on the book again. I'm re-writing the beginning (AGAIN)

I was going to leave that for last, but I can't stand it. I have to re-write it so that the thing seems like it's one piece.

If it's one piece, then I can tell better what parts don't fit.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:08 PM | Permalink

And I'm not even talking off white and arctic white, or seabreeze white or all the other versions of beige that martha stewart might call white.

I mean white white.

I have just finished caulking the new bathroom. I grouted it with white grout, and the white grout went around white tile.

THe caulk went around a white shower base and a white toilet.

The white toilet has a white toilet seat. It is the conjunction of the white toilet and the whilte toilet seat that made me realize that all whites are not created equal.

Because to me, they are glaringly different shades of white.

And once you start noticing the different shades of white, it is an avalance. All those above items: grout, tile, toilet, shower base and caulk are different shades of white.

I guess I just have to be open minded about it--not b so black and white.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:45 PM | Permalink

Today, Chris and I met at Capp's Pizza on Castro street in downtown Mountian View.

I did not expect that we would get married.

But life is full of surprises.

Tonight, we will celebrate that we met by making enchiladas together.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:25 AM | Permalink

There are a lot of things to talk about. I have had a full brain of thoughts.

But I have had a full schedule too.

umm...The leaves are falling. Dog is good, cat is good, I am okay.

Chris is okay.

The dollar is falling against the Euro, which is not okay, but we will deal with it.

not so many shopping days until christmas.

be good to one another.

More to come.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:58 PM | Permalink

I discovered a large praying mantis on my curtains last night.

I called Chris over to take care of this 6-inch insect. This seemed like a husband responsibility.

He is kind to mantises. He found a box and scooped the mantis in. then he released the mantis on the rose bushes.

This morning Chris checkec, and the mantis was still among the roses. It was alive.

It is good to find a man who is kind to mantises.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:49 PM | Permalink

Glow worm Lyrics

Shine little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer
Shine little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer
Lead us lest too far we wander
Love's sweet voice is callin' yonder
Shine little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer
Hey, there don't get dimmer, dimmer
Light the path below, above
And lead us on to love

Glow little glow-worm, fly of fire
Glow like an incandescent wire
Glow for the female of the species
Turn on the AC and the DC
This night could use a little brightnin'
Light up you little ol' bug of lightnin'
When you gotta glow, you gotta glow
Glow little glow-worm, glow

Glow little glow-worm, glow and glimmer
Swim through the sea of night, little swimmer
Thou aeronautical boll weevil
Illuminate yon woods primeval
See how the shadows deep and darken
You and your chick should get to sparkin'
I got a gal that I love so
Glow little glow-worm, glow

Glow little glow-worm, turn the key on
You are equipped with taillight neon
You got a cute vest-pocket *Mazda*
Which you can make both slow and faster
I don't know who you took the shine to
Or who you're out to make a sign to
I got a gal that I love so
Glow little glow-worm, glow
Glow little glow-worm, glow
Glow little glow-worm, glow
Glow little glow-worm, glow

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:23 AM | Permalink

Today Claremont has The Village Venture. Sounds a bit like the townsfolks all going for a hike...Pitchforks and torches optional.

But no, it's kind of equivalent to the art and wine festivals up there in Northern Cal. It's a big crafty kind of fair. One day only, a bunch of people get out and sell their wares. There are also politicians and community organizatiosn distributing pamphlets(hmm...maybe that's a selling of wares too).

It takes place on the last Saturday in October, and the close down the streets. It's mostly an outdoor affair, so there are a lot of dogs in halloween costumes.

It's fun, and with all the lovely little things for sale you kinda are looking for an excuse to buy them. Christmas is the universal excuse to buy lovely little things.

So we consider the Village Venture to be the official opening of the Christmas Shopping season.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:53 AM | Permalink

I finished deliberating in my first jury duty experience. Guilty.

The guy pushed his pregnant wife, holding their two year old, over a freeway bridge.

Pushed her once, she screamed, and he pushed her agian to finish the job. 34 feet down onto big rocks that surrounded the train tracks.

The unborn baby died. The mom and two year old survived.

Horrifically, the mother testified that the man did not mean to do it.

I was the foreperson for the jury. The ONE thing I had determined I would not do, and then I did become foreperson.

We deliberated for about a day, making 9 different decisions on 4 counts.

It was hard.

But the bad guy is going to jail-for attempting to murder his wife, for attempting to murder his two-year old, for murdering his unborn baby, and particularly because this was domestic violence and child-abuse.

I've been in this case since wednesday. I'm happy that we are done, and now I can sleep.

Last night, I woke up thinking of the dark walk up the cold overpass.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:58 PM | Permalink

In some ways, it's good to know that things can be repaired. Some things get broken, and some things get raggy.

There was a spot along the front of my house that was getting raggy. The paint was peeling off, and even some ants were columning in and out.

So, I peeled off the paint the rest of the way. I cleaned it, and I sanded it. THen I cleaned it again. There were a lot of layers of paint. I figured i"d better put quite a few layers of primer on it. KILZ 2...Four layers.

Here is what it looked like:

The perspective is a little hard to see. That patch of white paint is about 8 feet long. Four layers still left a ridge, but it did seal off the wood and the inside of the house from the invasion of ants.

I let it dry, and then I put the color on it.

This is what it looked like when I was done:

A woman builds her house with her own hands, the proverbs says. And maybe she keeps it from falling down with her own hands too.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:47 PM | Permalink

It's been a while since I've posted.

I'm serving jury duty for the very first time. It's incredibly sobering, and it's occupying a lot of my thoughts.

I am ORDERED not to talk about it.

Which makes it a little hard to do this blog. I am sorry readers. I hate to leave you hanging.

I'm not sure what to say.
...how bout these fires? Apparently,Southern California, including San Diego, is having a worse-than-usual fire season. Every year we have fires. but usual they dont' happen all at once.

Chris, being a fan of both weather and the news, is glued to the TV.

I have a headache. Maybe it's the hot, maybe it's the smoke...Maybe i'm getting dehydrated from the lack of humidity.

What I'd like is a little escapist television. Since I can't talk about what is on my mind...Let me get out of my head and relax.

I found some DVDs I bought on sale and hadn't watched yet. Johnny Depp's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

MASSIVE DISAPOINTMENT

I rewatched The Music Man. Always a delight.

Last night I asked Chris to watch with me (Step AWAY from the computer!) with the promise that he could pick any movie he liked.

Drums Along the Mohawk--IN TECHNICOLOR

that was pretty good. Although I did not find the main hero believable...Or Claudette Colbert believable. I did wonder though, if she was related to Stephen Colbert.

Well...That's about all I can say for now. Maybe by the end of the week you can hear what all the fuss has been about. Maybe we'll get to have a verdict then.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:07 PM | Permalink

What with celebrating Grandma Ruth's 90th birthday

and with facing my own weakness and frailty last week...

I've been thinking about the Iliad, and most specifically Achilles

I confess, I have not completed read the Iliad. I want to...I've read part of it. I did get an excellent grade in my college class on the classics.

So, what I remember of this story is how Achilles was human. He was the son of an immortal goddess and a human king. And Achilles was going to die.

In fact, that was pretty much the dividing line between what was a god and what was human. Humans die.

Achilles railed against that dark night of death. He did not want to die, and he was resentful about it. The struggle that he had with this problem, as put forth in the poem the Iliad, pretty much set the tone for almost everyone that heard it.

What does it mean to be finite?

You can easily imagine that Achilles' friend told him that as a mortal, he would have to see that glorious actions were the mortals path to immortality...the STORIES of his life would live forever, even if he did not.

So. Achilles struggled with his impending death and what he would be remembered for.

I know that Grandma Ruth has been considering her death and what will be left behind ever since her husband died. He died quite a long time ago.

And me...well...I'm not 90, but death has come up in my mind. As a child, we were taught to be ready to die for Jesus and a moment's notice. You'd better be ready!

But this is grim. Who wants to think about it? It's not a matter to discuss in polite conversation.

Except that Homer blew the subject wide open, with Achilles and his poem. Thank you Homer! and it wasn't even a hand-wringing wussy sort of poem either. It's full of brave men and the spurting blood of battle.

I don't want to be grim, but this is part of humanity. It's as mundane as doing the dishes.

Speaking of mundane, for the first time in my life, I have been called for jury duty. How have I managed to achieve this level of adulthood without experiencing this american civic call to duty?

I've never lived in one place that long. I am now more than two years at a single address. This is the longest I have lived in one place since I was a teenager.

And the job that I have, which seems to be the job I will keep into the far-distant future...is almost the longest I have ever worked in one place.

My life is narrowing. I can't help but feel slightly nervous about it.

It's a good thing. I tell myself that the narrowing is but a honing, a sharpening of a tool to a purpose.

Which is true. To accomplish, one must buckle down and focus on something. To have a thing, you must give up the possibility of other things.

These are the thoughts running through my head. and I really should start and finish the Iliad. I would probably be glad I did, once I finished.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:18 AM | Permalink

Well, I'm getting ready to go back to work. It was a hellish week, with the head being taken over by very mean demons.

I couldn't lift my head. Which means I was very debilitated. I spent a portion of the week contemplating that debilitation could be forever, and what would it be like if I were in pain and incapacitated for the rest of my life.

There are some sorts of sickness that do that to you. Not a cold...I think most people feel confident that a cold will pass. Vomiting, flu symptoms--I usually feel like I can hunker down and just wait and it will be gone.

But this time, I kinda wondered. What kind of person I would have to be to live with this kind of disability? What kind of people would I have to rely on if it were more permanent?

Scary.

But it passed and I was eventually able to get up and do the dishes.

Chris's grandmother celebrated her 90th birthday this weekend.

She is perfectly healthy, with the exception of her hearing. But she drives her Nissan maxima to bingo and watches the interest rates carefully.

But when you are 90, a lot of your friends might not be so lucky. She told me a lot of stories about friends who had trouble with their health and had died. Betty, one of her oldest friends, is losing her sight and is moving North to be near her daughter.

"Her granddaughter comes every day and cooks for her, so she can just microwave what she needs. But her granddaughter had several kids of her own, and it's not good to rely on a granddaughter. It's better to be near her daughter. That's closer."

Grandmother Ruth has a keen eye for merits and potential weaknesses for the caretakers of her friends. It is precarious to be so dependent. But this granddaughter comes every day to take care of Betty.

"She must be a very nice lady, for her granddaughter to come every day."

Ruth's face softened. "She is. She's a very nice lady. I've known her since 72...or maybe 73..."

When I told Chris about this later, he said, "I would go every day to take care of my grandmother." He was defending the honor of grandchildren everywhere.

And I know he would. Grandmother Ruth is also a very nice lady. She shuffles a mean deck of cards.

But as Grandmother had finished her story of how all the people she used to know in the trailer park were mostly dead, and was on about one of them in particular who had cared for her blind husband for 25 or 35 years...

"She did everything for him. Toward the end she had to get a man to come in and help him in the bath and things like that...But he died...a long time ago...and then she died too"

I was caught on the idea of a wife caring for her husband, doing everything for him for that long. I would not want to be like that husband, to be so dependent. The story was so stark, dramatic and tragic.

But then I thought, many their love was strong and sweet. Maybe they were peaceful and happy, even with that trouble. And maybe she was bereft without him, even though he was a burden.

Grandma Ruth is 90. She has a lot to think about, with all her friends and her own life. Heavy stuff. Everyone else was gone in the kitchen--I don't think they would want her to go on about these sad things. Maybe that's why she talks to me about it.

I interrupted her. . "You know, life--even though it can be hard, with health problems and losing sight and loved ones--life is good. It is sweet. People hang on and make it through all those hard times, and life is good."

She answered very quickly, "Yes, life is good."

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:01 PM | Permalink

This week I had a headache SO BAD the outside of my head hurt.

I didn't know that could happen.

But my head was in so much pain, when I touched my scalp, it hurt so much at the touch of my fingers that I felt like checking for blood. You know how sometimes you might hit your head on an open cupboard door and it hurts so much at first you can't tell if you are bleeding?

I was not bleeding, but wow. What a headache--and for a week! It has subsided to a dull roar.

And I am experiencing the euphoria of health after not-health.

I so hate being immobile. that when I am at last restored to health I get very busy and am super happy to get things DONE.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:05 AM | Permalink

Lots of photos from friends are trickling in.

We asked a certain sometimes altar boy to help us out with the ceremony.

I didn't think of him as an altar boy at the time. I thought of him as a bright, artistic-type kid who might be kinda bored and might like to have something to do during the wedding, which he might consider boring

Here is a photo of Luke, taken by someone else:

He's the kid in black, holding the camera.
I thought that was a great shot of him, even before I saw the photos he took. He's totally alert, has his trigger finger poised on the camera.

His photos are GREAT! and I didnt even realize it, but him being an altar boy gave him a major advantage. He felt totally at home behind the altar, and he got photo angles that no one else would have.

Here's one:

and he even got some cool arty shots:

Wow.

You can check all of them out, and others, here.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:34 PM | Permalink

There was the wedding. I guess today makes it a full week that I've been a wife.

But there have been a couple other things vying for my attention.

So it's been a full week.

I want to get started on changing my name:

Murphy Daley

We went to the county office about 2 months ago and got the license. Father Andrew was very good about having it filled out and signed on Saturday.

But it's not official until we mail in the signed form. Or we could take it in personally.

So check this out...I had an idea for a good plot twist. Imagine a mystery book.

The happy couple gets married...let's say they elope in a fit of romance.

So they are married by strangers, and witnessed by people they dont know. THey are deliriously happy, and the next day one of them goes out to take their license and make it official.

But then disappears. Leaving the other one married, but with no way to prove it

I could see this being the start of a very interesting story.

It is a weird feeling, being slightly in limbo.I guess I'm too much of an engineer...I want full legal connectivity before I start switching all the connections.

And at the same time I am eager to be the new me.

So I've just been calling myself Murphy

Posted by Murphy Horner at 05:37 PM | Permalink

So, married life is upon us.

We did not go anywhere for a honeymoon; we just wanted to be at home.

Sunday was still a lot of wrapping up, goodbyes, and getting people to the airport. Monday I woke up earlier than Chris and puttered around.

I went to wake him up later.

I crawled in bed next to him and he blinked at me. "Did you have any dreams?"

"No, I slept really well."

"I had some dreams."

"You did? Tell me"

"I dreamed that some hussy was all over me.."

"A hussy!"

"Yes, but I was flashing my ring at her to show I was married and she should stay away."

"I don't think that in real life a hussy would pay attention to your marital status."

"Well, it was a dream. And then I had another dream with you in it."

"With me?"

"Yeah, there was a man trying to put his hands all over you. I rushed in to protect you and beat him up. 'Leave my wife alone!' I said."

"You were defending me? wow."

He's wonderful.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:55 AM | Permalink

So, tomorrow I marry Chris.

This will be the culmination of a long courtship (isn't that an archaic word?) and also the culmination of a lot of preparations.

He's been working really really hard to make our house nice for the reception.

I've been working really hard on all the trappings that weddings need..food, music, wardrobe.

We've been a great team.

I'm exhausted.

But I'm really looking forward to the party.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:19 PM | Permalink

The pressure is getting higher.

Every day, every hour it seems, I am seeing more and more of the wonderfulness of Chris. I feel so priviledged to have the chance to love a man of this caliber. As I anticipate spending the rest of my life with him, words fail at the shining prospect.

I have a feeling I'll need to keep kleenex handy for the next 10 days.

Yesterday, we got the rings:

The wedding rings are still being sized, but the engagement ring fit perfect. it is perfect.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:20 AM | Permalink

It's about the wedding dance.

My FAMILY and friends are coming to my house, to celebrate my wedding.

And I get to decide what songs to play for the dancing portion of party.

OH MAN!
OH MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

i get to inflict music of my choice on everyone.

I think I'm looking forward to this more than the actual wedding.

...

and now right away I feel guilty.

As much as I would enjoy having a huge crowd of people just be my personal audience as I dance my huge happiness in my own house, it's not very hositable of me to choose only music that _I_ like.

It would probably be good to pick songs that would be appealing to a broad spectrum of people.

Now, there are certain rules of thumb when trying to be hospitable to a broad spectrum of people. Here is one: Make sure that there is a vegetarian selection on the menu

Which I thought about, when choosing the spaghetti THere was a choice--meatsauce or marinara sauce. I considered that I should get the marinara sauce for the vegetarians.

I thought, hey, it's the same price. Shame to pay equal for the no-meat marinara. But, I should be a good hostess and provide for my vegetarian guests. Be thoughtful.

So then I thought...I know all the people that are coming. None of them are vegetarian. To be real, I am getting the spaghetti for little kids who decide they don't want lasagna, just to have an alternate for the poor parents who want to feed teh kids SOMETHING. if for some reason one of our guests has become vegetarian in the last year there wi be salad.

I mean really. I know these people. THey are the nearest and dearest, right?

which brings us back to my Van Halen CD.

I've never DJed before, but I've suffered under DJs. I want to do it right. I don't want to do tired songs. No Hoiday from Madonna. No Macarena. Low cheese content. The cheese is in the lasagna, not on the speakers.

So what would the people want to hear?

...
...
Should I break out the Petra? Beat the System isn't bad..

NO...No...I can't. I respect them...The men from Petra were like the rock'n'roll life support of my teenage years. They kept me breathing...They kept the blood on the inside of my wrists.

But I'm out of intensive care and BREATHING FRESH AIR BABY!

I think my CD collection will get me pretty far before I even have to hit up the iTUnes. I've never hit up the 'Tunes yet..

And there is also the beauty of the great media that is now a part of my life. When Chris moved in, and i helped unpack his CDs
SUPER AUDIO CDs
and the VINYL

Such great media wealth that has enriched my life.

okay, so I get to dip my bucket deep in into the wealth well of all this gorgeous music.

Hooooohhhhhhhhh

okay...so I'm going to leave aside those of us who remember the days of This Means War and To Hell with the Devil

Cause, like holly golightly said, anything that happened before the age of 14 just doesn't count

alright, what can I do to give maximum pleasure to me and my guests?

and that brings it back to that tired topic...Music sucks these days! No wonder the music industry sales are down. FERGIE?! please G.L.A.M.O.R.O.U.S?

just keep your london bridge up..no one who is anyone wants to cross over

Alright, so who've we got?

Bryan and Karen always say that i am those guys at "night at the Roxbury"
BABY DON"T HURT ME

I admit that my beloved electrionica, techno, high-energy club music isn't everyone's cup of tea.

Okay...I am adaptable. I can head bang...I can rock n Roll...

But i can't seem to find my Van Halen CD

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:33 PM | Permalink

Chris and I get around and take a lot of photos. He took lots of photos while I watched, but then he bought me a pretty nice used camera that will fit some of his fancy lenses. So now we both take photos.

We like nature and nature's critters, so we take a lot of animal photos. During our pursuit of a good hummingbird shot, Chris said, "Maybe I should have a special collection of photos dedicated to animal tongues."

That's not an easy picture to take you know. He has more tongue shots than I do, but I decided to organize what I've got.

Prize for the best pose of tongue goes to my house cat, Skellig:

Kitty likes to lick apples.

Prize for the best over all tongue belongs to the Okapi:

Yes, that really is blue

If you would like to see the rest of the animal tongue collection, click here

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:28 PM | Permalink

In the summer between 5th and 6th grades, I had no clothes.

We'd just moved from Humboldt county California back to Alaska. I wasn't naked, but I had one box for all my things. ALL my things, including clothes. You can imagine how that worked out.

But school had to start. I had niether enough clothes to last a week at school, nor any means to purchase them. So I hit up the give-n-take at church. That glorious closet of hand-me-downs served me well.

My goal was to own 5 pairs of pants. The clothing that I had been wearing during the summer was simply done as far as I was concerned. I never wanted to see them again, and anyway, they were past being wearable. To my delight and relief, I found four pairs of what appeared to be BRAND NEW pants in the give-n-take.

They were identical cotton polyester pants with an elastic waist band, the right size, but in four different colors:
pink
yellow
purple
green

"Look mom! I can wear a dress on chapel day, and have enough pants so I can wear different ones for each day." They did sort of remind me of the kind of clothes a grandmother would wear, the kind that are advertised in the pages of Parade magazine in the sunday paper. But what I feared most, being teased for not owning enough pants, would certainly be averted by these glaringly different slacks.

I guess neither of us really anticipated that the kids in the Alaskan Christian School would be bigger clothes snobs than the kids from Humboldt county. It took until about the 3rd day of school for me to figure it out.

I found ways to earn money for pants as fast as I could. Three months went by before I had the 20 bucks to buy a non-shaming pair of pants. In the meantime, I found that skirts were my friend.

The pink pants were the most onerous. Kids from lower grades teased me about them, even after I had stopped wearing them (for good, believe me. I felt like burning those hated pants).

"Pink pants Pink pants!!"

I didn't wear pink even once the rest of the year.

My class was made up of three grades, fifth, sixth, and seventh. I remember once, talking with a likable fifth grader about boys. Beginning with my strategy of avoiding the color pink, I had formed a theory about attracted boys which I shared with her:

"You have to be a tomboy. If you act like a boy, they will feel comfortable around you and then..maybe...even like you."

Such sage advice from a 12 year old--I don't know what made me think I had something to say about attracting boys. Certainly none of the boys in our class were interested in me. Maybe I was just hoping that my natural exuberance--which wasn't ladylike--would get me what I was hoping for.

I do consider myself feminine. I have reclaimed my beloved color pink. But I am not ladylike. I don't wait to be asked, because I simply don't believe that will ever happen. It's up to me to get things started.

Ask the question if you don't know. Ask for what you need, or even what you want.

What makes that unladylike, I'd like to know? why not?

And yet, I can't help but notice the reaction.

I was in a training class recently, and sat in the middle. When I had a question I raised my hand and asked it. But on the break, I walked up to the front to take a look at some technology there.

The teacher (male) said "Uh Oh, I'm in trouble now."

I wanted to smack him. How insecure is this guy to be scared of me asking a question? Or was it just me? unladylike me?

Man, it's hard enough with all the other things that can detract and derail. I believe that women must be assertive..yes pushy..to take care of the things that are most important.

When it comes to the people we women care about, we women have to push to get them what the need. From the local school principal to the President of the United states, we have to be willing to push.

And that includes pushing for ourselves.

But you know, if people think I'm pushy, it really reflect back on themselves. I wouldn't have to push if I could just get the answer/resources/materials that I need when I ask nicely the first time

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:05 PM | Permalink

There will be lasagna, spaghetti, salad and bread

Eddie's Pizzeria will be providing the lasanga and spaghetti.
...why is Pizza spelled with an 'a' and Pizzeria with an 'e'...?

I will be purchasing the salad and bread elsewhere, though. Because salad and bread should simply NOT cost that much. As my Russian friend Lena said, "It's a sin to pay that much for tea." I'll take that for bread and salad too.

But that means that I will have to find something to put the salad into. Once again, my favorite boutique, salvation army, has provided interesting cut glass bowls (they match! Imagine!) and a big punch bowl which shall serve as the gigantic salad container.

Bread will be okay in the little paper bag it comes in.

it takes some thought to feed 80 people.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 03:59 PM | Permalink

So there are 24 days until the wedding.

Last weekend, I went to check out what sort of flowers I want to have. Karen, the priest's wife from church. took me to a place that had wholesale flowers.

See, I don't think I need a florist. I love arranging flowers.

But I was overwhelmed at the huge amount of flowers. In the end I bought a bunch of different things, and figured I would make some kind of arrangement from them.

Here is what I made. I'm pretty happy with it.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:22 AM | Permalink

I heard that kids these days want to be famous.

It's hard to miss, this celebrity culture. What are the famous people doing? Everyone wants to know!

If you are famous, people notice you. People want to know how you are and what you are doing. They think you are special.

All of which could actually be accomplished more effectively by an attentive grandmother, don't you think?

There is a lot of distance between people now. Separate vehicles carry us, pod-like, to where we need to go. Don't get too excited

But if americans are so happy to keep our distance, keep our fences tall, why are so many people ready to invade the privacy of celebrities? And why are kids wanted to be famous like that?

It's just another way of getting love. Why can't we all take turns being famous? Let's all stop and appreciate one another frequently. Let' s take any opportunity we find to notice and applaud each other.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:56 PM | Permalink

I was wondering when it would get dark on my wedding day.

I found out.

It will be dark at 7:30.

I also found out that there would be a crescent moon.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:30 AM | Permalink

The construction is progressing now. We have a concrete block and some framed walls. I think we might get a roof soon.

the piles of dirt have been pushed back into the holes they came from. At least in the front yard...And that leaves big smooth stretches of bare dirt.

And a lawn that was unwaterable for the hottest months of this year, and has given up the ghost.

My beautiful plants!

I couldn't stand it. I couldn't STAND it. A dead lawn, and naked dirt. I felt like I was grocery shopping in a ratty bathrobe. I was ashamed.

So I found some blue sage on sale, and planted it around the edge of the bare dirt. I thought at least that I could look like I was planning on doing something there, but it just wasn't happening yet.

it looks kinda nice.

Soon, I will shop for a peach tree.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:50 AM | Permalink

So, the Wall Street Journal was bought by Rupert Murdoch.

I was against it, mostly because I did not want the paper to change, and it was a change.

Newspapers right now are having trouble. The publishers don't know what to do about the internet, and all the other sources of news. So, they are losing audience and money.

In my town, we have a local paper. The Claremont Courier comes out twice a week and it really does focus on my city.

In Los Angeles, we also have the LA times. When I first moved here, I really liked the times. But it became unbearably smug and full of opinions instead of reporting. Phoo!

and I"m not the only one that is fed up with the LA times

It's like LA wants to be New York. LA is it's own self, and doesn't need to imitate. If they would focus on our own area, and let other people cover the world, I bet that they might win back readers.

As a matter of fact, there is a local paper that is doing it the way I think the LA times should: The daily bulletin for the inland empire.

I got a copy yesterday, for something to read while eating lunch out. On the first page, they had a story about a rescued puppy. They have a food reviewer that reviews drive=thru food...Now, THAT"S where I live.

Nothing in the LA times seems to have anything to do with me. Oh, except maybe the movie schedule. But I can get that online.

And that's part of the problem.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:04 AM | Permalink

So the Wall Street Journal did a fashion article about the spike heel.

Flats are this year's much-hyped shoe trend, with sales of comfy shoes shooting skyward, according to retailers such as Nordstrom and Zappos.com. But those friendly flats tend to disappear at key moments -- the biggest meetings, confrontations and transactions.

Yes...I noticed that. Flats are the new trend precisely because the Stiletto heel is really the new trend. Women who try to wear the spike heels are required the next day--maybe the next week-- to take it easy with the flats. Sprained ankles and swollen fore-feet require a recovery period.

I won't say I don't love the stiletto. I admire the women who can wear them. I would...I would stomp around in 5 1/2 inch heels that could draw blood samples.

I just can't. I don't know if it is the lack of self-hatred or the lack of self-esteem that keeps me from working the righteous leather pumps until my feet can carry them effortlessly.

I will admire--out loud--the women I encounter with the heel mojo. "I love your shoes..I'm not enough of a women to dare wear things like that."

They will give advice. Find the right fit, the right designer...

It's quite possible that my problem is that I can't seem to spend more than 25 bucks on shoes. I shouldn't be surprised that they don't feel like Nikes.

But the WSJ is talking about how high-powered women keep a pair of high-powered shoes around for when they need them:

"High heels indicate power," says Stuart Weitzman, designer of many a power heel. "For some reason, it's a natural instinct for human beings."

This is partly a factor of height. At 5'9½ in bare feet, a pair of heels leaves Kristin Bentz, who runs a fashion-investment blog, towering over many men in a room. "I totally use the shoes for the intimidation factor -- for women and for men," she says.

Yet, as much as I'd like to argue that this is all about the added height, I'm afraid it's not. High heels are sexy. They offer an inherent contradiction: They make us more fragile, but conquering them to stride alongside men in their sensible flats creates mystique.

MMm....all the things I would like to be. Sexy, Powerful, Intimidating...Don't mess with me!

But it hurts to wear those shoes.

maybe that's part of it. When a tall women walks into a room in her dangerous stilettos, maybe that's what she's saying:

"I eat you for breakfast. You think you scare me? I can take what you've got and feed the leftovers to my dog. You think you can hurt me? Look at these shoes. You talking to me? There's nobody else here but me. You don't know the meaning of pain."

Yeah, that would be pretty intimidating.

They've figured out how to do botox to numb the face into smoothness.

When are they going to let us inject novocaine into our feet?

THAT'S when I'll wear the heels.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:52 PM | Permalink

I live in a desert.

Asphalt and chapparal cover the earth that is my chosen homeland.

The chapparal will always win, but the asphalt is gaining territory.

It is getting vertical, too.

Layered like a cake, or like strata in archeology.

Or stacked like firewood.

VERY stacked:

I'm counting six layers of lanes in that intersection. Six seems to be the limit. I've never seen seven.

I live in a desert, so these overpasses are over earth.

But it shook me pretty badly when a bridge collapsed yesterday.

I couldn't stop watching the news. My first thought was whether one of my favorite writers, James Lileks, was okay.

Lileks blogs the way I wish I did. He talks about his wife and a LOT about his daughter. I was very worried for him, and for his family. I imagined what sort of sadness it would be if one of them had been killed in this horrible tragedy.

For me, he was the personal face of Minnesota during this time. I couldn't turn off the TV until he posted online and I knew he was okay.

The sad part is, there are other families that are not okay.

Trying to whistle in the dark, I said to Chris, "At least I don't have to cross any bridges when I am driving around."

'Yes you do!" he said.

"Well, not over water."

right. But if I fell through onto asphalt or chaparral, it would be even less forgiving than the Mississippi river.

I've admired the beautiful freeways and overpasses I travel for a long time now. But what are they hiding beneath their swooping exteriors?

I can look down, when I am traveling on the higher of the six layers, and think about what holds me up.

Or what keeps me safe as I travel under:

How safe am I?

My heart is with the Minnesota people. I hope the best for them.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:02 AM | Permalink

...and I love the slightly leering look on his face...Chris made one for me and for himself...But I thought we needed to be together in the picture. That took photoshopping.

you can make your own, if the server isn't too busy

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:57 AM | Permalink

well, I've had lots of great thoughts that I wanted to put up on this blog over this last week and weekend.

But I've been working REALLY REALLY hard. And not getting much sleep.

"what has murphy been working on?"

well you might ask. You might ask. You didn't, but I will tell you anyway.

There is a mighty website going to launch today. My nerd quotient had increased exponentially--LITERALLY EXPONENTIALLY--as i learned what i needed to learn to make it work.

ugh.

it will be up by the end of the day, if I have to pull the last few to-do items out of the mud on my own back.

but it will be up.

YAY!

you can check it here
www.1250ships.com

yes, okay. So that is what I've been doing instead of posting. Or sleeping. Or even bathing as frequently as is my custom.

phew.

But today, since I'm pretty much done with the herculean site raising, and since I've not quite gotten enough sleep, and also since my big curly brain is throbbing, I kinda feel like I'm in a stream of subconcious.

you know that feeling inbetween snooze button clicks? when you are likely to board any train of thought that passes by?

it's all fine and good until I open my mouth. The censor is not at the gate, and inhibitions are down.

woo hoo! I 'm happy!

...but still...perhaps i should stay in my cube and work on solitary projects today...

*giggle*

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:16 AM | Permalink

It's good to be home. But there seems to be a lot to do.

The days are full of light right now.

I like the light, but it is too hot to enjoy it. I have to wait until it is dark, or almost dark to walk the dog

At least work is air-conditioned really well. It is too hot at home.

(okay that's really a picture of the Joshua Tree Desert. But you get the idea. It's hot)

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:27 PM | Permalink

Morning comes very early when you have to travel 9 time zones.

At least we knew we could sleep on the plane. But we had to stagger around through the maze of duty free shops until then.

What is the deal with spending hundred of dollars on hundreds of perfume? And alcohol? These are completely consumable.

I think it is much better to get jewelry. Even costume jewelry will have some value in ten years. Sterling silver is super cheap now.

How long to you think the Brittany Spears scent of the summer will last? And ALCOHOL? please.

We just wanted to get on the plane, and get under a cozy first class blanket. Fortunately, it wasn't long.

Chris fell asleep almost immediately. But this was my chance to play with the toys.

They had a big selection of movies. Not just one! You know, every time I see a movie on a plane, it makes me cry. What is up with that? Why do they pick these sappy movies that pull me in and start the tears flowing?

I ended up watching the Pursuit of Happyness. Sniffled my way through it.

Chris slept the whole way. He had no interest in the stupid airplane movies. I got a some good hours of sleep too

New York arrived eventually. We went through customs, which was basically a forality.We returned to the admirals club, took a shower and killed more time. It was exciting to be around the news in English. As usual, not much happened during our absence.

It was also good to be back in a place where we could use a few dollars to buy cheap food.

We exited LAX at about midnight. I drove home, since Chris was weak. There was no traffic, of course.

The cat was very very glad to see us.

We were greeted by a new backyard, since the construction on our new addition had begun.

We wandered around in the dark to see what could be seen.

It was good to be home.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 03:41 PM | Permalink

Chris was possibly even worse the next morning.

Bloodshot, drenched in sweat. Sick.

Naturally, he did not want breakfast.

I went down to the breakfast buffet at 7:30 to find Car Deal guy. He was not there yet, but I saw Shipcollector. Shipcollector was going to head off in another direction by train, so the fellowship of the car rental was breaking up.

He and I shared breakfast, and chatted over coffee. He is a very charming man, and I always enjoy talking with him.

But we were finished eating, and still no Car Deal guy. Shipcollector went off to check out, and get ready to meet his train.

I was trying to decide whether to call in to Car Deal guy's room.

More ship people came by, though. There was greetings, a little more coffee drinking.

I asked people if they had seen Car Deal guy. No one had, and I just couldn't tell if it would be appropriate to call his room.

Finally, at 10:00, I called.

He was asleep! but he thanked me for waking him before they cleared away breakfast, and rushed down to get some food.

I had a few more bites, and more coffee. We discussed ship things, and I told him Chris was still sick.

Here's the thing. Our plane flew out at 8:30 PM that evening. Car Deal guy flew out the next morning, so he had a hotel room near the airport.

We had a day to kill. BEFORE the illness, the plan was to do a little sightseeing together. But now, that seemed out of the question. Car Deal guy was very sympathetic, and even offered to let Chris sleep in his hotel room until we had to leave for the airport. What a guy!

In the end, we asked the hotel there in Kassel if we could check out late, and Chris was able to sleep a couple more hours. He was much recovered, and we took off at 1.

It's sort of amazing to me. Chris and I are special to each other. I suppose it's the same with many husbands and wives (which we are preparing to be). Spouses can be less guarded with each other.

So, while Chris was limp and tired and pathetic while lying in bed in our hotel room, somehow he got some starch in him for the trip to Frankfurt. They way he'd been, i thought he might just prop himself against the side and semi-snooze.

But he sat up, consulted the map and discussed ships and directions the whole way. Miraculous. By the time we got to Car Deal guy's hotel (one that Chris and I had stayed in when we were there last), he didn't need to lay down.

What he DID need was food. No breakfast and no dinner the night before meant he needed some fuel. So we sat in the hotel lobby cafe and talked. We didn't leave for the airport until 6:30.

Our flight was to Copenhagen. We were going to stay the night at the hilton hotel there, and then take off in the morning. Tomorrow's flight would be back to Helsinki, then on to New York, and finally to Los Angeles.

But today, we merely needed to check in, get on the flight, and walk to our hotel.

Unfortunately, Chris deflated somewhat when we were alone again. I propped him up in a cushy chair with a ginger ale and went off to find some internet. It was the journey back, and that is when the pull of all the home things starts. What's in my email now?

We made the flight no problem, quick trip to Copenhagen. It was about 10 when we got to Copenhagen. We only needed to find the hotel and crawl into bed.

But Chris was hungry. We passed all the usual airport food on on the way to the hotel. Chris thought we could do better. "Airport food is too expensive.We might as well get room service"

The hotel was beautiful. We settled put all our bags down and consulted room service. Room Service hours ended at 10:30.

NOW Chris was starving. We walked back to the airport, remembering a Burger King there.

Burger King was closed.

Everything was closed.

This is a reason to always always always pack a big supply of cliff bars for any journey.

I had eaten on the plane, and was not so hungry. But Chris's brain was short-circuited.

I tried to come up with alternatives:
"Baby, we can just order the room service. It's not THAT expensive."

"They close at 10:30. It's too late."

"I bet they will have something."

He couldn't believe that nothing in the airport was open, and that there was nothing nearby. It was as if he knew it was true while at the same time thinking it COULDN"T be true.

I made him go back to the hotel room.

"You rest here. I'm done with you."

"I'm sorry."

"You just stay here. I'll handle it."

I went down to the bar in the lobby, hoping I could talk them into giving us some room service. In the end, they gave me a hamburger with all the sides (a meal in itself!) to take up to the room.

I came back with a big plate of burger. Chris ate at last.

"You came back so fast, I thought you were going to say you couldnt' get anything."

"No, I'm taking care of you. You needed food."

So we split the plate and then watched some TV to unwind after our day.

"Too bad we can't enjoy this room very much. It's really nice."

"I know!"

"Good night, baby. Get good sleeps."

"Good night....You got the wake-up call?"

"Yes, don't worry."

"thank you. Good night."

"Good night."

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:11 AM | Permalink

We drove into town to attend the big deal once-every-two-years 1250 Ship model show in KASSEL.

Everyone was excited. They were stacking up outside the door.

People were not let in before the appointed time. Only the ones selling things were inside. There were a lot of people selling things. Car Deal guy and Shipcollector were peering into the room excitedly, but Chris was motioned in by Norbert the German hippie. He would help Norbert sell, so he got a pass.

Usually, Chris would like to have a big selection of ship models to sell. But this year, he had some bad luck with the production of the models and didn't really have enough to make reserving a sale table worthwhile. Norbert had kindly offered him space on the tables he'd reserved

I stood out with the rest of the collectors and watched in amazement as the hall filled up. Lots of people had gotten there early.

Then, the ticket sellers let us through. The collectors swooped in and began to buy ships.

It's difficult to convey the atmostphere at this show. It was a lot of quiet concentrated peering:

many people peering:

It seemed to be bigger than the other time I'd been. In addition to the first big room, four other rooms were filled with model ships and model paraphenalia.

Sellers had devised many different methods of displaying these tiny delicate models:

This is a recreation of a harbor, one that loaded containers (best known as those trailers that semi trucks drag behind them) onto container ships:

As you can see, the typical ship collector is
1. Male
2. over a certain age

This homogeneity was broken up when I saw these two:

Twins, I think.

they were very cute.

I was sitting at the table with Chris, prepared to sell some of the ships he had brought. I felt pretty ignorant though. I could take money and give change, but as for answering questions about the merchandise, I had to defer to Chris

He was pretty busy answering questions.

Of course, he did have to slip away and try to talk with manufacturers and other people who could be useful to our business.

Those dicussions looked like this:

It was all about the models, friends.

Someone tried to take a survey of the attendees:

it was somewhat incomplete. But it was an idea of how far different folks had travelled to get there.

I got to meet some of the people behind the manufacturing lines I had gotten to know. That was pretty exciting.

There was a little snack bar where we got some food to get us through, but at the end of the day we were wiped slick.

We packed up and got ready to go. It was kind of hard to stop talking and saying goodbye to all these people. Everyone had stories or ship facts to share.

But we made it back to the hotel.

Chris had turned into a deflated balloon. His eyes were bloodshot and he had no energy. My man was sick.

"I used up all my energy reserves today," he said. "I need to lay down."

He crawled into bed and slept.

I went off to explore the hotel's sauna.

They had the hottest sauna I had ever been in. There was a sort of cartoon on teh wall explaining how it worked. You were supposed to hose off, get into the sauna, then get into the freezing cold "hot tub"(was it supposed to be freezing?), hose off again, rinse and repeat.

it looked complicated, so I just went into the sauna. wow, it was hot.

There were two. One normal, and one that said it was at 90 degrees celsius. That's 194 degrees! it was so hot, I almost felt like I should have a lifegaurd there to drag me out if I fainted.

But it felt good.

I went back upstairs to check on Chris. He looked worse.

So I showered, and read and hung around until dinner.

He was worse.

So I went to dinner alone and had a time with a bunch of ship people. Car Deal guy was there, and some new people I hadn't met. It was a good time, but I was worried about Chris.

Car Deal guy and I talked it over. We realized we didn't have much planned for the next day but to make it back to Frankfurt in the evening to meet our flight. I recommended we take it easy, and he could mosey into breakfast whenever and we'd find each other there.

I went back to the room. Poor Chris.

"Hey baby," he said weakly.

"Poor thing."

"I'm sorry I couldn't go to dinner with you."

"It's okay baby, you are sick. You can't help it."

"I'm sick"

"I know. Get some sleep. We dont' have to get up in the morning anytime. You can just rest."

"You're nice."

"Good night.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:42 AM | Permalink

I just finished registering for our wedding.

Chris is very good at this; he always distributes a wishlist to everyone for christmas. He knows to be considerate and ask for a variety of things, in reasonable price ranges.

He knows that people want to give gifts, but it is not easy to guess what people will like.

But...I just feel wrong about this. almost like some kind of begging.

I feel like I should give a disclaimer or apoligy..."I'm sorry...I dont' really mean it...never mind"

I guess i can do that here...Please, no one is obligated to give me anything. Fond wishes are plenty.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:09 PM | Permalink

So, this was the day we go to Germany. This very night is the night of the ship collectors' dinner-before-the-show. We must be there to converse and create good feelings and maybe even new alliances.

we CANNOT miss the flight. Or the train to the airport. Or the wake up call.

These were the things Chris was concerned with the night before.

We did not miss the flight, or all it's predecessors. We arrived in Frankfurt on time.

NOW, the plan was to meet a fellow American ship collector. He got a great deal on a rental car (because of his employer) and invited us to save even more money by sharing the bill and riding together. At the end, there was car-deal guy, another ship-collector friend, and Chris and I.

All in Frankfurt airport, to meet on the same day.

Car deal guy was going to arrive the earliest, so he was waiting around (according to the plan) before we got there. Shipcollector was arriving at about the same time as we were, but from America and therefore required to go through customs. We were all supposed to meet at the car rental counter and sally forth.

But Frankfurt is a big airport. We found a map, went off to the rental counter. No Car Deal guy.

Maybe he is coming.

But were is Shipcollector?

Are we in the right place?

Being the Murphy that I am, I asked the question. Rental counter said Car Deal guy had left a message that he was at a different rental counter.

OH!

So we ran off to find the OTHER rental counter. We saw Shipcollector from far away, and Car Deal guy was right there too. Oh good.

...should I be frustrated at the lack of question-asking gumption of those around me? Should I just feel superior and enlightened? It is unlikely that anything I do will cause a change in the behaviour of others...so maybe I should just feel smugly superior, since that is a slightly happier feeling than frustration...

Although, to be honest, it was my asking for directions that led us to that (wrong) rental counter in the first place...

Okay, so we are settled in a nice rental...Ford...? Tooling along the autobahn in a ford station wagon, everyone had print outs of the directions, but Chris actually got us there.

It was a pleasant ride. I do enjoy the conversation with the ship collectors. They are smart people, and almost uniformly polite and gentlemanly. There is an on-going discourse about "the Wives" feelings concerning the hobby of ship-collecting. Many wives feel a bit of resentment towards it.

I feel a bit of resentment at the phrase "the wives" (what a horrible stereotype of a phrase!)

But then again, as the wife-to-be of Chris, I see the ships as an inflow of capital. The other "wives" see it truly as a drain on the family budget.

So, I am free to enjoy the company and conversation of these nice men without resenting their peer pressure to spend wads of dough. It is a little odd, though, when at ship event I am shoved towards "the wives" as if our shared gender will mean LOTS of THINGS to DISCUSS. These ladies are all very nice, but I seldom find much to really talk about.

I'd rather go hang out with the men. I guess this is what comes of being the youngest with three brothers.."Whatcha doing? Can I see? What's that? What are you talking about? ...cool..."

This will be Chris's 3rd Kassel meeting. Shipcollector had been once before, and Car Deal guy had never been. I'd been once before (and met Shipcollector for the first time then). After our traipsing through Scandinavia, Germany felt like home.

The hotel was cozy, and they gave us free coffee in the lobby. We quickly packed our bags into the room (hey, we got a free upgrade! Look at this suite!) and came back down to begin early schmoozing. There was beer served in the patio and garden, and a generous show of empty glasses. The party was on!

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:42 AM | Permalink

I was pretty psyched to see the pantomime.

The curtain dropped:

The story unfolded.

Some French looking guy in a white clown suit (possibly the illegitimate son of the Pillsbury dough boy) was involved:

There was a halequin and a girl:

Of course, a magic sword appeared in short order:

But, in an unexpected twist, a dancing bear arrived:

In the end, even though I was rooting for the bear, the harlequin got the girl AND...

...the blessing of the Greek pantheon.

Chris commented "Maybe it made more sense in Danish."

We were STARVING at that point. It was tough to decide on a place to eat.
There were a lot of places to eat. But they were
*expensive
*cold
*smokey

I was just about ready to cry with how tired and hungry I was.

This is where we ate.

It was really nice and yummy. And we were in the non-smoking section.

TIvoli was really beautiful at night:

Tired and beat, we made it back to the hotel.

Tomorrow, Kassel Germany. The real reason for our trip was to get to the ship show.

"We can't be late. This is really important"

"Don't worry baby. Good night."

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:54 PM | Permalink

When we entered Tivoli, I saw this little guy holding up the handrail on the stairs:

We walked down the stairs.

A little ways down the path, I saw this theater:

"Oh yeah!" I told Chris. "We are going to want to see their performances..They have pantomimes!"

We determined to check out when they would be showing.

But first we took a tour.

Here is one of their signature rides:

and another:

See the question was, do we buy the bracelet that let us ride on all the rides for one price? This required some looking around.

They had bumper cars:

There was a roller coaster thingy:

The ODIN EXPRESS

how cool is that?

Well, after we walked all around, we decided to go for the bracelets.

But we also noticed the gardens:

Pretty benches too, with very tame looking gryphon monster:

Also a tame Lion:

I've already said, I like my monsters fierce.

This was a ticket booth:

We got the bracelets, but then I wanted an ice cream:

They also had a lot of carny-type games. This was the view of that alley:

There were also a lot of restaurants:

This ride I called Mohammed's hammer:

we chose not to ride it. Didn't want to be hammered.

THey had a pirate ship:

It was a restaurant.

We rode on this one ride:

It was called the traveling suitcase. It was full of fairytale references.

This was the fairytale of the swineherd:

Here is the evil snow queen:

and everyone's favorite that needs no introduction:

Look, Ma! No seashells!

We rode the ferris wheel too, and had a nice view:

The gardens really were pretty:

It was getting time to see the pantomime. We made our way back. On the way, we saw this band:

They were playing Pomp and Circumstance

"There is no way a band could play that in America and not be ironic." Chris was sure of this.

Their little stage reminded me of the old hollywood bowl.

But then we made our way to the theatre:

I didn't see that peacock last time.

We got a good seat.

MORE TO COME

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:19 PM | Permalink

We'd been looking forward to Tivoli since before we left California. I remember Chris telling me about it:

"Did you know that Copenhagen has an amusement park that is even older than Disneyland?"
"Wow, really? We will have to check that out."
"I think so."

Tivoli was created in 1844, with rides and shows and restaurants. Thing is, Europeans are not as impressed with castles as we Americans. So...if you can't have a castle in the middle like Disney, what do you do? What's exotic and romantic to you? Arabian nights! So, they have a bit of an arabian theme. Oh, and Chinese too.

So Chis and I had been really waiting to see this old school European disneyland...But one thing we did want to see what Tivoli with all the lights on. Which means we certainly couldn't go there first thing. So, we had to kill some time in the morning.

We hung out in the hotel room and relaxed for a while. This was the view from the hotel:

Chris thought we should go to the national library. But maybe we would just wander around the city a bit first:

We walked past a famous museum, but didn't go in.

I liked the mural they had on the side:


There was a pretty little garden along the way:

But we made our way to the library. I love libraries! And plus, they had a book store.

See, when I go to a foreign country, I like to see if I can find an illustrated book of fairy tales. It seems to me that a people's sense of themselves and their taste gets expressed in the fairy tales. To me, it makes a very good souvenir.

Of course, Denmark loves it's Hans Christian Andersen, so I figured I would have a good chance of getting a good book.

You know, all the best libraries have lions:

TO BE CONTINUED

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:24 PM | Permalink

Morning in Denmark, breakfast without danishes and then

WE ARE OFF

...we've been riding on the railroad---all the week-long day... Yes, another train ride. This time North and not over any water. We were going to see HAMLET. Or at least the place that Hamlet was supposed to have lived. This makes me very very very excited. Love the shakespeare.

We made our way through the town, seeing the sites.
The danes like domes:

This fountain looked puckish:

Helsingor is a cute little town, but the sky looks ominous.

The again, this is Hamlet's home town. It really should be ominous, shouldn't it?
We made our way toward the castle:

Don't those towers look sharp? They remind me of fangs...It's sort of gothic. Some cities I've been to (like, Edinburgh) have so many of these steeple fangs that it reminds me of the rows and rows of teeth in a dragon-dinosaur mouth. It looks like they should hurt.

But still, it was Shakespeare, so I had to get in front of it:

That spiky fortress is Kronborg, the castle in Elsinore.

Mr. Swan watched us come up to the castle:

We walked through this to reach it:

We noticed Mama Swan in the corner on her eggs:

She didn't seem too choosy about the material for her nest...All kinds of crap in there.

The other side of the entrance was even better:

Chris had to admire the towelled crabby man. I can understand why he is crabby; any man that had to depilitate all of his body hair might have that expression on his face.

As you might imagine, the danes are justifiably fond of this place. There was all sorts of information about it, and four tours which you could go on for a special price.

I learned a lot about Helsingor.

As it turns out, Hamlet and his dad would not have lived there. The thing was, Kronborg was not the kind of castle that a King lived in. It was a bully kind of castle. They put it up there to stop ships from going by without paying some fees.

They were serious.

Check all those cannons waiting to shoot you if you didn't pull over and cough up the money.

Look, There's a ship going by right NOW!

*cshk* PULL OVER, buddy.

They had a tour of the cellars of the castle.
Man on man...They were dark and scary. I had to hold Chris's hand.

"Baby, the walls are cold and damp."

He said "Do you think that when a king is ordering up his castle, he might say 'Look, we need a little more dankness in the cellar. It's not as dank as I would like it to be.'"

They wound around, thick square pillars with vaulted arches that didn't quite vault enough to stand up straight.

But right around the first corner we found this:

HOLGER DANSKE!!!

"I knew you would like him," Chris said, "He is a ancient Danish hero buried under this castle. He is supposed to come back to life in the time of the country's need."

WHOA! forget whinging Hamlet! This guy is awesome!

...It's a nice thing for a country to have in their back pocket. Just ask the Brits about Arthur

The Danes like him. Here's another statue of Ol' H.D.:

But then we pressed forward in the cellar caves:

Forget his hand, i was holding Chris's entire right side. And then he started making spooky noises that echoed down the hall.

i was quite happy to get back above ground:

Enough spooky ghosts! Let's go into the chapel:

No Chris, you can't swing from that:

Each pew had a different character carved on the top, as well as a different face lower down:

What a lot of artistry to do all that. Here's a closer look of one with a moustache:

Another ghoulish carving above the doorway leading out:

We had lunch right by the wall; cliff bars that we'd brought with.

It was windy, so we stayed ducked low to stay out of it.

Some guys were there with a pole, the one trying to teach the other to fly fish standing on the rocks. They were having a great time.

NOW, on to the Chambers!

Lots of Kings visited this castle. But the C4 above the door stands for Christian the fourth, I think:

It strikes me as sort of hip and modern to use the arabic numeral '4' instead of the roman 'iv'.
Daring in a monarch.

There was a lot of art happening in those chambers. Art through the ages.

I really liked this Rhino:

That was done when Rhinos were not such a common sight. Rhinos often look like they are wearing armor, because their skin folds that way. But this tapestry-maker had the rhino in the coolest spiky armor.

Yet another entry in the gallery of the grotesque which I find so delightful.

Okay, here is a funny thing. The chambers were full of art of the ages, as I might expect from royalty.

But let me tell you something about the Danes. They are into 'design.' They think very highly of their own art, in particular their furniture.

It reminds me of how America tells itself that we don't do manufacturering anymore, that we do "knowledge" work. Danes want to have their design be their big export. I guess it's working for them.

Anyway, art is a very high form of design, and they cherish art. So, in the middle of all this respected canonical art they had some contemporary artists on display as well.

I found it sort of jarring. But before I said anything, Chris commented, "It's kind of cool how they have let artists display here. They are supporting art."

Then I felt ashamed. Okay, so it was not pinky-up-teacup art. It was rougher and more experimental. But they were letting artists be seen. And I agree with that.

Oh no. They had a MARITIME MUSEUM.
You could see how Chris was quite thrilled with this trip. Everywhere you turn, more ship things. Look, a Prow:

"I stab at thee!"

But what are these stairs?

"They go to the roof. Do you want to see?'

Of course! But they went on in a lot of circles. Round and Round and Round. But we found the top:

It's kind of windy.

Look! A ship!

If I stood on my tiptoes and leaned over I could see the bottom of the castle square.

Chris saw me. "BABY! Dont' do that."
Then he pointed. "I was hoping I have a chance to say it. 'Get thee to a nunnery!' "

oh...real nuns walking by. You can't even ask for that.

Okay, back down the spiral staircase...and we have to stop at the gift shop!

Look. A Holger Danske doll..a Holger Dollske?

That's one sexy little figurine.

Alas, they did sell Skulls.

And the Precious Moments Hamlet and Ophelia:

...makes me wonder if they read the end of the story...

They also had a poster showing the Danish monarchic line. It begame with Gorm the Old, whose son was Harald Bluetooth.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up! I LOVE IT!

After the roof and gift shop, it was time to go.

We wandered back into town, discussing what we might do about dinner. The way we figured, a town like this might have a grocery store in it. The 7-11 was the closest we could find in Copenhagen.

But if we found a grocery store, they probably would want cash. Krona, that is.

We looked around and discovered this place:

YAY! at LAST a full on grocery store. We asked, and they took credit cards, but only if you had a PIN.

Back to the Currency Exchange, one of which seemed to be at every train station, and then to fill my backpack with lovely foods. Cheese and bread and coke and cookie snacks, and also little focaccias with Pepporoni for dinner. How nice not to feel swindled as we bought our food.

It was at this shop that I found the one and only thing in Denmark that cost less than one US Dollar: Pretzel Sticks. They were 75 cents, just about.

Now back to the train. What a long day. Fabulous.

The hotel picnic with pizzas and bread and cookies was great.

"I can't believe I didn't know about Holger Danske. Where are we going tomorrow?"

"Well in the morning, I'd like to check out the library. But in the evening..."

"I know! Tivoli!"

"That's right."

Posted by Murphy Horner at 03:30 PM | Permalink

For breakfast, they served rolls with butter and jam, or cold cuts. There was yogurt and muesli, coffee cake, and cheese.

You know, in Denmark, they don't eat Danish for breakfast. Kind of disappointing.

But the food was good and hearty. We, like the seasons travelers we are, filled our bellies on the complimentary breakfast and hoped that we would only need a light lunch later.

Off to Sweden!

As you see, we need to cross some water to get to Malmo.

Thing is, Malmo is a nice place to live. Just a little cheaper than Copenhagen, we're told. A lot of people live in Malmo and work in Copenhagen. And they do it by train. There is a giant bridge that makes this possible.

Back to the train, and about an hour later, we stepped on Swedish soil.

They seem to use bikes just as much as Denmark.

This sort of amazed me:

A woman in a formal dress with hose, pushing a bike. Toto, this isn't L.A.

To be honest, Malmo, Sweden seemed softer than Denmark:

Isn't that a cute bridge?

Chris said, "Remember, Copenhagen is a capital. Maybe that's why it seems like a rougher city."

I was still recovering from the sunburn I'd gotten in Suomenlinna. I really thought it would be a good idea to get some sunscreen.

Chris pointed this out:

"They talked about that in the guidebook. It's a very old drug store."

I have to say, it was the fanciest place I have ever purchased sunscreen.

Sweden was full of cheery vistas:

They seemed to really enjoy flowers. Chris found some kind of city garden:

There were even baby ducks:

"Are you thinking of Kinkade now?" Chris asked

"Well, there are plenty of bushes to pee in around here..." I said.

"How do you like that bridge?"

Chris found me a cafe in the garden, which was very nice.

Apparently, it had been some kind of officers' mess in a previous life.

Old is not hard to find in Europe.

This is the military installation the officers were associated with:

I guess Sweden missed the fashion for fairy tale castles. These are working castles.

But I have to say, I love their fierce national beast:

The american eagle is looking pretty tame and polite now. Maybe he needs a make-over to be more fierce.
But I guess there are those who say the symbol of america is quite fierce enough...

Chris snuck in a maritime museum as well. More Ships! Actually, I was quite glad to see the museum, since I was getting a case of traver's tummy and needed to be near the bathroom.

This place had another submarine. This one was a lot bigger than the Vessiko:

It's name is right there: U 3
It's amazing to me that such a large ship is moved by two small propellers:

Now, this maritime museum had a massive collection of small ships. Not as small as Chris's ships, but much more detailed because they are made as prototype models by the people who actually make the real ships. No expense spared, these manufacturer models are gorgeous.

Naturally, Chris took a million photos of them. I didn't.

Maybe after he downloads his pictures I'll post some.

But we spent a long time looking at those models. Sweden is also a seafaring country.

We mosied back to the train station. On the way, we stopped to see another Lutheran church:

Pretty on the outside.
White on the inside:

Sweden was very pretty, I thought:

flowers!

On the train station going out, we did find Swedish fish:

Chris enjoys Swedish fish. Apparently in sweden, they come in more colors than red.

But the train had finally arrived:

One thing I liked about the trains--they were very quiet. Electric. It made waiting at the station much more pleasant.

hoo...that was a long day. We ate McDonald's for dinner and collapsed into bed.

"Tomorrow, we'll go to Elsinore."

"THAT will be very very cool."

Good night.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:39 AM | Permalink

Denmark. Our flight let us off and we took the train to Copenhagen Central Station.

It's a beautiful thing that some airports do--to have a train station right in the airport. We had our backpacks and rolly bags right with us and got off at the central train station. The danes are seafaring people. Even though this was a train station, something about it looked like the inside of ship:

We were concerned that the hotel was too far away to walk, and we were thinking about taking a taxi. But in the end we walked.

It looked a lot different from Helsinki:

EVERYONE rode bikes--and the bikes are all very serviceable. There were not status bikes. In fact, they weren't even locked up. People rode them to get to where they needed to go, and most of them had baskets on the front.

This hotel was not the lap of luxury that Hotel Kamp had been. It was serviceable, and they promised that their breakfasts were complimentary.We dropped off our bags and went to explore.

It was a capital city with a LOT of statues and ornate buildings:

But...It was a more densely populated area. I guess the majesty of beautiful fountains wears thin...at least for graffitti artists:

The city was extremely ornate:

And it seemed like there was a statue of a guy on a horse at the end of every block:

I guess that is one of the benefits of a monarchy.

I thought the opera house looked great.

Check out these arches:

It was funny, they were putting on Porgy and Bess.

I mentioned the danes were into ships, right?

We were just walking around, looking at the streets.

We wanted to find the palace. Or something cool to see.

"Hey baby, look! This one has chain mail on."

Chris is very good with maps, and we found the palace. By that time, I was really tired. I sat down on the curb so I could take it all it:

Those were some particularly good gargoyle-type statues on that one.

The square was large and quiet. I hadn't been sitting very long before a loud STOMP and Danish commanding SHOUT rang out.

See the guy in the big hat? He had yelled at me. Apparently sitting on the curb in the palace square is a reprimandable offense.

I got yelled at by the royal guard.

The royal palace is built right next to the royal church. I guess it's convenient for baptisms and coronations:

And you can't miss the church's dome:

Here's the funny thing. We arrived on a Monday, a holiday, It was Whitsun. Talk about a medieval sounding holiday!

But it's a church holiday. Pentecost. And it's a real holiday, as in the stores are closed.

The churches were closed too. I guess Denmark is stuck in the age of Irony.

My church has a few calendars to choose from, not even counting the calendar that said it was pentecost in denmark.

Which I was reminded of because we walked just a little further down the street to check out THESE domes:

Can you smell the onion?

THOSE looked like orthodox onions! I had to check it out!

But it's the shape of the cross that gives it away:

Except that cross was kind of ambiguous. I had to decipher the danish sign. It was an Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

But, it too was closed. No going inside churches for us.

So I took my achey feet a little further along to see what else we could see on Pentecost monday.

Don't forget, Denmark is the home of Hans Christian Andersen.

Which reminds me...just for a second...I saw no split pea soup anywhere...

but back to Hans.

This is apparently where Hans hung out:

As you see, it is now a place where tourists hang out. I'm a big fan of fairy tales, but I was surprised to find a different literary refernce. Tattoo Ole's shop, as big as life. I've written about Until I Find You here before. How amazing that one of the characters in the book was real.

It was closed too, though. I couldn't go inside. Too bad.

We ate a belgian waffle at Andersen's tourist row. It was better than belgian waffle in America, and not as good as belgian waffle in Belgium.

But it was getting late. We found some dinner and ate in the hotel room.

"What do you want to do tomorrow?"

"Let's take the train to Sweden." Chris had it all figured out

"Wow. Three countries, just like that."

I had to get some sleep My feet were killing me.

"Hey baby...Do you think they will have danishes for breakfast?"

"we'll see."

Posted by Murphy Horner at 05:44 PM | Permalink

We landed in Helsinki in the early morning. I guess it was sometime between 6 AM and 9 AM Helsinki time. It had been an 8 hour flight, and I really wanted to play with the first class media toys they give you, but I was sleepy. I pretty much slept the whole way.

So we landed and checked into our hotel. It was GORGEOUS:

Hotel KAMP had all kinds of history. It was the location for lots of artistic and revolutionary talk. I envision the intelligentsia talking over Frazer chocolates and coffee, pounding the table about ideas to improve the world.

Utter delight. And it was so beautiful. Let us all have beautiful revolutions, friends!

All right, so we did not linger in the hotel room. We had to see the sites.

Chris said, "It's raining."

"How long are we here for?" I asked.

"Today, tomorrow, and we leave the next morning."

"Well, it may be a rainy day, but it's the only day we've got. We must get out and see the city."

So we did.

Alright. So there was a lovely park that ran down the main street in front of the hotel.

And there were gorgeous buildings all around. The town didn't become the capital until 1812, so all the achitecture is from the 1800's. see?

See that big domed building there? Presiding over the city like...Like a god? Well, that's the Lutheran church. I did not expect the church to have domes, because I thought that was an Eastern thing. But Helsinki rides the line of East and West.

THIS is the Eastern Orthodox Church (look in the back right corner):

It's kind of steepley, which is what I would have expected of Luther. There is a teeny little gold onion at the top as a concession, like a maraschino cherry.

We walked through the town to see the sites. Like this cafe:

And we heard a military band:

We made our way to the Orthodox church. It was beautiful. Here's what you see when you look up:

And the iconostasis in the front:

The whole interior was elaborately painted. Here a piece of the vaulted ceiling and a pillar:

Yes, I enjoyed that church. I bought some postcards there, and sent them to a few of you, my readers. Thing was, Helsinki charged RIDICULOUS amount for a postcard. I figured, the church should at least get my money if I was going to be robbed. A whole euro for one post card!

The next day, we did visit the Lutheran church. It was startlingly plain.
White
White
Basically, the best you were going to get was the view from the outside. I really hate to take that metaphor too far.

Chris said, "We have to go to this one store, Stockmann's."

"What is it?"

"Apparently, it's this great department store that was really popular with Russians during the soviet period. They came over to Helsinki to go to Stockmann's. It was so common that a lot of Russians thought that the name of the city was Stockmann's."

"Let's go!"

We kept looking for that IKEA look. You know? It was everywhere in Stockmann's. All the sheets and curtains and kitchen utensils had that look. It was totally IKEA in everything but the price. Wow! No 2-dollar measuring cups there. More like 15 dollars.

I bought an illustrated version of the Kalevala in finnish. Do I read finnish? No. But...well...it's a national epic poem that was never written or read, only spoken, for century upon century. I think that if I sat and read it out loud, even not understanding it, I will get more of the beauty of the phrasing...

Plus it was a paperback and therefore cheaper that way.

We went to the Stockmann's grocery section and bought food for a room picnic. We were tired, and it was time for eating and sleeping.

Back to our gorgeous hotel.

We decided to check out a nearby fortress island tomorrow: Suomenlinna. We'll have to take a ferry. Should be exciting.

"Good night, baby."

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:39 AM | Permalink

So, I'm back.

And Chris is still kinda sick, but I am NOT. I am full of energy and health.

I have so many impressions of my trip. It's hard to know where to begin. Maybe I should begin at the beginning.

Okay, so we flew out of LAX. And we flew Business/First class. I have the '/' in there because it was business inside the US, but First class from New York to Finland.

Higher class flying is extraordinarily comfortable. AND I didn't know that if you are flying high class, you get to hang out in this VIP place that feeds you snacks and free booze.

Sometimes they even let you take a shower. Let me tell you, that is a nice thing, to have a shower after a long flight. NO ONE smells nice after a couple hours in a plane.

I had no idea that these sorts of luxuries came along with the high class travelers.

Interestingly, the lounges are also stratified. Each airline has a couple of them in their airports. And there are some that are more accessible than others. Levels of exclusivity exist everwhere.

Okay, so we checked out the American Airlines Admirals Club in LA, and in JFK. LA was better, because their snacks were more substantial than pretzel nuggets and baby carrots with dip (which is what JFK has). LA had some open sandwiches. They also seemed to have a better view, of the planes.

But I enjoyed the JFK site very much, because after our 5 hour flight, we took a shower and then jumped the subway to Central park. Chris wanted to see the dinosaurs.

The dinosaurs live in a place called the American Museum of Natural History.

I never saw anything so unnatural in my entire life. This is how they show you animals:

That is an extreme example. Most of the dead, stuffed creatures where arranged in a life-like taxidermy pose in front of a painting of their natural surroundings. They were very old, I think. The zebra has faded to a medium brown and white striped critter.

"Well, Chris," I said. "Did you notice how everything in the surrounding, oh MILLION mile-area is completely paved over? This is as close to nature as these east coast jokers get? Makes you appreciate California for actual wildlife."

The east coast is very densely populated. Chris found this sign in a hallway:

That's a lot of people for a hallway.

But the East Coasters tend to think that they are advanced for this:

I don' t know. It was a really different way of looking at life, that museum. maybe it's a museum of natural history because all of nature in Manhattan is history.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:24 PM | Permalink

Home at last!

And it's 10 am in Copenhagen. So that makes it a thirty-four hour day.

My pillow beckons.

Boy, kitty is glad to see us.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:15 AM | Permalink

here is my million dollar idea.

Someone needs to take advantage of this particular moment in history and make a sturdy and decorative quart-size see through bag.

There was much rejoicing at Zip-lock the day that those stupid terrorists used liquids to make mischief. Don't you think their sales went up a bit after all that?

My gallon-bag for toiletries is worn out. I would appreciate a more permanent solution for my travel needs. And it's not fair that ziplock gets all the profit.

There you go. Someone--go forth and get rich. I ask nothing more than that it be available for me to purchase.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:29 PM | Permalink

...or at least the last stop before we get home.

JFK and customs are behind us. I am typing this on a keyboard which has all the keys were I am used to finding them.

Chris is not dead yet, although the slowness has increased.

In slightly less than three hours our final flight takes off.

On the way here, while we were taking off our shos and displaying our little baggies of toiletries (Nothing more than 2.5 oz.!), a white dog of poodle heritage was in line in front of us. He (she?) was a good doggie. Very patient. But then he was placed in a big box and he objected. Barks and whinings commenced.

Poor doggie. He didn't know why he could not go on with the rest of his family. I'm sure PETA would demand he get equal treatment on flights.

But it reminded me of our doggie. She would bark in the same situation.

Tomorrow, we will see her. I'm sure she has grown.

Two and half hours till take off. It's 11:30 PM Germany time.

My pillow will feel good.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:15 PM | Permalink

It began yesterday, that little SAS flight we tacked on at the last minute since we thought the train would take too long.

So, YESTERDAY, we flew from Frankfurt, Germany to Copenhagen, Denmark. We spent the night in the airport hotel and flew from Copenhagen to Helsinki this morning.

Here is the breakdown for today: Copenhagen to Helsinki. Helsinki to JFK New York. We will endure the customs degradation procedure in New York, then fly to Los Angeles. Los Angeles airport holds Chris's car, so I will drive the car to our home.

We are crossing a lot of time zones, and landing in LAX just the left side of midnight. We begin the flight and end the flights the same day. But the day will be longer than 24 hours.

Which leaves me a lot of time to figure out exactly how long it is. I will not do so now, since that would leave me without entertainment for later.

I am right now in the airport in Helsinki. I love Helsinki.

I just love it.

Oh but I forgot to mention. Chris is sick. Right after the ship show in Kassel, he came down with a slow bug. It is slowly making all the parts of him ill. And it makes him slow.

Which means that in Copenhagen, the land of the 6 dollar coke, was too much for him yesterday. He finally felt well enough to eat after we landed there, but not well enough to endure the infamy of the food prices in Denmark. After walking (slowly) all around, I had to put him in the hotel room and bring him back something just so he didn't have to know how much it cost.

Which is also why I will be driving home when the end of the day reaches us at the Pacific ocean. He is sick, poor thing. I think it would be a minor sick, one that would only require a nap if only we were at home. But since we are not at home, and are forced to travel all over and be kind of uncomfortable, he is extra unhappy.

But this trip has been really really full of ships. So many ships. I think I know a little more about ships than I did. All the collectors are so very excited about the ships. We had a good time. But it'll be really nice to get home.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:10 AM | Permalink

Well, I learned a lot about Hamlet yesterday on my visit to Helsingførs.

I might have thought that Shakespeare made it up, but it turns out that whole story has a long history. Some Danish king felt inadequate and had a scribe write up a history of his ancestors, mostly to prove he had some, and that they had claim to kingships.

It was the Danish Chronicle.

A NEW CHRONICLE TO READ!

it turns out there was this character Amledgh who did just about all the things that Hamlet did.

very good stuff.

But my feet hurt.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:51 PM | Permalink

Copenhagen is a more uban city than Helsinki. Translation: tons more graphitti

Helsinki had a little graphitti, but in the neighborhood near my hotel, the graphitti is really all over. Even on the big statues. You would think that they would have more respect.

Then again, there are statues and carvings EVERYWHERE. All the buildings seem to have carved windows and swoops and faces and greek gods and what-not. I guess the graphitti artists have to use what material is available.

I listened in on part of a tour in English. We heard the guide from a distance. I said to Chris, "Hurry! We will hear."

"He´s not speaking english." Chris wouldn´t run to hear.

But he was speaking english, just with a huge accent that made it sound like a different language. He said "The direct translation for Copnehagen is the bay of merchants."

This explained why this city felt a bit like Brussels to me. Merchants, huh? So it was all about the salesman's flash and social mobility. Maybe that´s why they ornamented everything they could reach.

And also the incredible amount of chain stores.

We counted McDonald's, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken and 7Eleven all on one block. With another 7Eleven at the end of the block.

Unfortunately, jetlag is a contant companion. We haven't been too unpleasant to each other, thought. Just a bit snippy when we've been walking too long. We are taking turns being completely brain dead, so that one of us is always available to steer the other towards whatever we need to do next. That is usually eat or sleep.

We have three things to do during our stay in COpenhagen. One, we want to visit Tivoli. Two, we want to see Malmø. And three, we want to go see Helsingførs, known to english-speakers as ELSINORE! Yes, Hamlet's palace.

We have three days to do those three things. I think it will work out.

more to come

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:10 AM | Permalink

It's a very beautiful city, a small town kind of capital. Only a hundred people there.

It never got above 70 degrees, but still I managed to get sunburned.

Now we are about to go to Copenhagen.

I think Denmark will be warmer, and more populated.

more later

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:50 PM | Permalink

At least that's what we figured out on the subway back.

We left LAX, and we will not land at our final destination in Helsinki until 29 hours later.

So today we enjoyed the museum of Natural History in Central Park. Since it's humid and about 90, my plan to hang out in the foliage of the park was jettisoned.

We wandered around, amazed at what east coast city folk think of as 'nature'. No wonder this country's environmental efforts are so screwed up.

But we also just tried to stay awake. We are tired. We told ourselves that this will help with the jetlag once we get to Finland. It IS a 10 hour time difference after all.

Now we are back at JFK, and the plane to Finland boards in 5 minutes. It's 8 hours, and maybe we will sleep the whole way.

Wish us comfort and quiet neighbors.

more to come

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:53 PM | Permalink

So I am at last about to embark on a trip to manhattan with Chris. I have love dreamed of this. He has been to more places than I, but _I_ have been to Manhattan. And he has not.We will have about 3 hours in central park. Perfect!

We haven't left JFK yet. Everywhere there are adds for Office 2007.

There are huge video screens showing all the peaceful people using Office 2007. These screens follow the length of the movable sidewalks. Both of them. The whole way.

"Oh yeah," I told Chris, remembering the huge video ads on time square. "That's another thing about New York. They constantly bitch slap you with advertising."

"Like that doesn't happen in LA?"

I smiled. "Here, it's different."

More later....

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:07 AM | Permalink

I am going ON THE ROAD

Well, the airways and the subways and the sidewalks.

Which means I may not have access to blogging.

There might be radio silence for a while.

But I'll take notes and get back to you all with my impressions.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:40 AM | Permalink

It was one of those courtroom shows, and the girl was convicted of murder or something. She hadn't done it, but she had used her prettiness to manipulate some hapless young man into doing it for her.

And the line was "Pretty is currency for when you are young."

Yeah. It's tradeable on the open market. Out there on the trading floor, "I have pretty. What will you trade for it?"

There is the obvious that goes without saying. But the experienced merchant of pretty...yes, I mean the smart girls, or at least the street smart ones...the wise ones know that it's better to give it out in drops.

What will a smile get you? At the very least some cooperation, don' t you think?

It's interesting to see what pretty does. Like baking soda and vinegar. It has an effect. It's a factor in the project plan, like the direction of the wind.

I have had some experience with the effect of pretty. As a woman, I am not the least or the greatest in the pretty department. But my store of the Pretty element, that mysterious substance, is enough to experiment and observe.

It is not such an easy thing. There have been times when it was a decided pain in the ass.

Even in the times when it's supposed to be useful, say in romantic relationships, it is a highly suspicious thing. If I admit that I desire to be pretty, and that pretty is only in the eye of the beholder...
Then I must place myself in a position to be beheld to fulfill my desire for prettiness.

Which means that someone else has power over me. And what does that mean on the open market? I trade what to get back my own prettiness? What will it cost me to be pretty?

I went back on the dating scene again aware that the desire to be pretty in someone else's opinion was a huge trap. It occurred to me that if someone tells me "You look beautiful", I am disarmed. And for that particular type of encounter [dating, romance] I would need every weapon I had, and every possible form of armor.

I had to look very long in the mirror, yeah just like that. I had to be very very sure that I knew no one could give me or take away from me what I already had.

You have to be so cold. Which is a shame. I would like to have the ability to look down and blush if someone gave me a compliment. Now I only wonder what they are trying to steal from me.

It's my currency, my treasure.

Then again, there are times when the pretty exchange is closed, or at least is supposed to be. There are times when pretty is not the point, and I just forget about it and think that other people probably forget too.

Like at work. Work is supposed to be about hard work and smarts.

At my last job, I was so busy I was losing my mind. Our cubes were short, so people could walk in the cubicle corridor, and lean over the wall to ask me a question. I never wanted to be interrupted. But I knew that being crabby would not improve anything.

I chose to pause for a millisecond after I realized someone wanted my attention. I would take that moment to paste a big old smile on my face before I turned to them. It was just to hide my inner turmoil, really.

The men (was it always men? It seems so in my memory, but surely a female had a question for me once in a while)--the men had the strangest reaction. ALWAYS, they forgot what they were going to say. They were struck dumb, and just stood there for a few seconds. They finally said "what a smile!" and then fumbled out whatever it was they had originally wanted to talk to me about.

I found this odd. The same men might have several questions in one day, and ALWAYS they would turn blithering idiot.

But I had to face the facts. I may have thought I had closed the pretty trading for the work day, but it went on without me.

Sometimes I wish I could unzip my outside and step out slick and smooth as a little green alien. No gender, no complication. Just a big huge head.

But it doesn't work like that. And just like I had to learn not to let compliments disarm me, I also had to learn that even when I wasn't paying attention the pretty element was out there catalyzing things. To ignore it was to leave a hole in my defenses.

So...what is this pretty thing worth? What kind of trade should I be working on for it?

I know that some females get 'free' dinner and even presents out of their measure of pretty. The princesses, as they delight to be called, seem to make a cheap trade to me.

I don't want to be that kind of doll house female. I'm made out of tougher stuff.

You would have to go way back to find the sort of woman I shall be. I will be a shield-maiden. Eowyn showed that life.

If this world were a more beautiful place, then pretty could grow unashamed and free. Until that time, only the smart ones know how to handle it.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:28 PM | Permalink

So Chris's basketball league is back in season. They had their first game yesterday.

John, who grew up next door to Chris, had organized the team. It's just a bunch of guys who like to play, and aren't super-duper competitive. They do their best and have a good time.

This is the second season Chris has been a part of. John worked hard to get a bunch of guys together, enough to have at least 5 guys show up for every game. Which means that most of the guys don't really know each other, and so the practicing happens when the game happens.

But last sunday, they were getting to know each other and working on plays and what to expect from each other. There were 7 guys. When one guy was pulled in from the bench, he and the guy coming out of the game would give a low slap of hands as they pass.

I was a bit jolted with this. THIS was the famous touchy-feely teammate behavior exhibited by sports players. Haven't you seen it when the ball players will smack each other on the ass, or do a hand-holding kind of thing?

See, when it with your TEAM, it's not gay.

It's NOT.

Female athletes do this sort of thing as well. But the thing is, females IN GENERAL do this sort of thing. We just do.

We hug, we touch, we get physical with one another in a way that American men do not get with one another. At least not outside of a sports game.

I asked Chris about it after the game.

"Yeah, it's important to let each other know that they did a good job. Or that it's okay if they made a mistake, that we can just keep on playing."

Well, I agree. I completely agree.

But I wonder why they need a game to do that? Why not by more physical with each other in daily life? Don't we all need to know that we did a good job, or that it'll be okay that we made a mistake?

The thing is, I am not trying to tell men to change how they are. They are what they are. Men feel comfortable giving one another physical affection (YES, I said it) when they are playing together as a team.

I listened to the Glenn and Helen Podcast, interviewing Conn Iggulden about his latest :
A Dangerous Book for Boys

Conn talks about how it's important to let boys be boys--that boys and girls are just different and that's okay.

Well, I'm a fan of men. I love men. So, it's interesting to see a herd of them in their habitat.

But it made me think a little. It is possible to consider that women are always interested in teamwork. It's not that we are not competitive, but we are always aware of the other people.

And maybe, just maybe, that is an explanation for why we are so easily affectionate with one another. We know that life is full of work. There is so much work to be done, that we better be connected with our teammates. The game never ends.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 03:10 PM | Permalink

After thinking it over, and going through the my five year anniversary of my blog, it occurred to me that I'm never, ever going to have a money-making blog.

I'm just not like other people. And MOST people are not going to be interested in the unadulterated contents of my head.

They are going to want recipes for homemade popcorn. And who can blame them?

But that means that I should not worry about my hitcount. It's just never going to get too high, no way around it. So that means my blog has a different purpose. After thinking about it, I think that it should be what it started out to be. A scrapbook of my thoughts. And an exercise book for writing, just to keep in the habit of stringing words together one after the other.

My blog entries are not all good. Some of them are crap. But then again, there have been a few jewels that I am really proud of. And others that are like elixirs of larger ideas, that I can remember and use while puzzling over bigger ideas.

So, THAT means I should not ever worry about the weirdness of an idea. It's okay to be weird; it's my blog and I can weird if I want to.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:32 AM | Permalink

In preparation for next week's journey I bought a book.

I would have got it from the library, but they didn't have it. I read so many books that i have to be incredibly self-discipled about not acquiring too many.

I have begun to mourn the books I have read. It is getting harder to find good books to read.

But today, as I bought Speak, Memory by Nabakov, I was mourning that i would actually be able to read it. Anticipating what a good book it will be keeps it always in the possibility. But reading it destroys forever my ideas about what it might be.

Then I must grapple with what it is.

It is said that the reader is a very important part of the life of a book. Writing it is only part.

As AGONIZING a part as the writing of it is, it is only a part. The reading is the other part. It is a collaborative effort. I write my book, and you others read it. When I have shared my writing with others, they often understand it to mean something I had never thought of. It is a collaboration of creating meaning.

Knowing that, I feel almost as if I am destroying the book by experiencing it.

That reminds me of a scientific principle, whose name i forgot. About how an observed particle behaves differently because of the observation.

that the very act of watching a supposedly inanimate object changes it's behaviour.

so....by reading a book I change it. and in a way, I feel, I destroy it.

I have destroyed hundreds...thousands, perhaps, of books by reading them. Like a ravenous dragon, I tear through them and leave their half-consumed carcasses in a trail behind me creating a never-ending path of carnage.

I may be unworthy of these books, treating them without respect.

But then again, I do at least give them the respect of reading them.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:00 PM | Permalink

From the play The Busy World is Hushed

The mother is talking to her 20something son about his life choices

"From here on out, everything is written in ink"

I've had that conversation before...I have had it in my head and I had it with a friend once.

I told him "You wear your freedom like it's a jean jacket, like it can handle all kinds of rough treatment. I wear mine like a prom dress, that it is so delicate. I have to keep it clean and fresh."

and he just looked confused. He didn't know that freedom had consequences.

Which is what that means, you know? "...written in ink..."

"on your permanent record"

reversion
perversion
conversion
inversion

All the versions end up in the final draft of your life.

But that only matters if someone is reading the record.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:41 AM | Permalink

Me and my piano have been together for 8 years.

This piano has been an adventure since it first came into my life. It was free, which should mean easy. But no, it was free if I came to get it. And I began to understand right away that pianos are a thing not to be taken lightly. My piano is very heavy.

I took it to my home, and began to refinish it. It took forver, and the process carried me through the toughest time of my life, when my marriage was ending.

But I refinished my piano and it was beautiful in the end. Of course, through the process of refinishing it, I took it apart and got to know it's insides very very well.

It began to really bother me that I did not know how to tune it. I could see the tuning pins right there. I had no problem tuning my guitar, and I could barely play it. But my piano I knew inside and out. I began to feel like I could tune it, if I could only find the right tool to turn the tuning pin. It was my piano, dammit, practically a limb off my body. I would be able to tune it if only I could find a way to get started.

Naturally, I turned to the internet. I found an old tuning tool on ebay. But I didn't know if the price was a good one, or if I could do better. I thought I needed just a little more information.

So I found a book on tuning. It came with high reviews online, so I was pretty excited. Once I got it in my hot little hands, i opened it up to find the chapter on tuning tools and tuning.

it seemed that it was not so simple.There seemed to be more to it.

I thought then that i should pay a tuner to come in, and I could watch and ask a lot of questions. I did, and I learned a lot more. My tuner even told me that there was a correspondence course in how to tune pianos. Wow! I was so going to sign up.

Of course, life caught up with me a little bit and I didn't have time to devote to the pursuit of greater intimacy between my piano and me.

Piano tuning is a career, you know? People can earn a living doing it. But I was too busy doing the things I was already doing to earn a living. Spending all day on pianos was just a dream. I had real work I had to do.

But last night I went to the Pomona Valley Piano Technicians Guild meeting. These people have been piano tuners...no, TECHNICIANS for years. As they introduced themselves, they said, "we probably have more than a hundred years of experience sitting here."

They were very serious and engaged in their work. It reminded me of other technology conventions I've attended, where the people are all eager to talk to one another since it is so seldom that they can find a peer on their level.

Piano nerds. I felt like a noob, but like these were my kind of people. I aspire to be a professional piano technician, but even if I don't make a career out of it, there is no doubt that i will be learning how to tune and repair my own piano.

Apparently way way back, one of the Patriarchs of their group had become interested in learning to tune pianos. I will have to learn more about this man, but they told me that he was determined to learn the skill. Naturally, he went to a local piano tuner and asked him "Teach me how to tune pianos."

The man slammed the door in his face. But Mr. Stubborn wasn't taking no for an answer. He was going to do this thing. He loaded a footpump organ onto the back of his wagon (this must have been before horseless carriages) and took it with him to tune a piano. He tuned the piano to the sound of the same key on the pump organ.

...not the right way of tuning a piano...

Later he found a book on how to do it right, and sold his cow to purchase the treasure.

He later held classes for people in Claremont to learn what he had become a master at: Piano tuning and repair.

This makes me humble. It was so easy for me to find excellent resources to satisfy my curiousity.

It didn't used to be so easy to learn. It didn't used to be so available. People were stingy with their knowledge.

This is a great time to be alive. Information wants to be free. But like my free piano, that doesn't mean it is easy.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:30 PM | Permalink

Okay, it's finally hitting me.

I am getting married! In FOUR MONTHS!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*pant* *pant* *pant*

I'm very excited. It took a while to sink in that I would be Mrs. Daley. Well, MS. Daley, because I am my own person. And that makes me smile just about all the time.

But there are some details that come with throwing the big party. Wow!

I need a dress. And I need to figure out what kind of food. And I need to get some invitations.

And I need to register.

...register...that seems to weird. I wonder if I can register at home depot?

what I do know is that I better get on this thing, and fast. I want to have a lovely memory, a time shared with all the people who wish me well, to start on this Marriage thing.

...it'll be great...

I just have to remember to scream in my head, not out loud.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:38 AM | Permalink

ah, last night went very well. A good time was had by all, and puppy was charming. Cat did not make an appearance. He is chary with his public.

And today, despite our busy Friday and Sunday (mother's day) plans, was the first real relaxed saturday that i think I've had ALL YEAR. I guess it proves my idea that Chris really needed to be jerked away from work by the scruff of his neck and do something else for a change.

This is one of the reasons to have company over. That, and to force you to really clean the house for once.

Chris has been a hero-prince all day. He eve woke me up from a nap to say "I made you dinner. I BBQed for you, and it's all ready now."

How great is that? He's wonderful.

So this is just about the most boring entry ever, especially after all my showcased work. But oh well. I'm feeling good, and I will be boring if I must.

Happy mother's day, everyone!

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:26 PM | Permalink

I'm having friends over for a game night.

how exciting! This will be the first game night in my new house of joy.

ah...let us pause as I contemplate my beautiful happy home. I love my home. I love that it's mine and I get to make it beautiful with flowers and pretty things all the time, and no one can tell me otherwise.

And one of the ways of making my house even more beautiful is by having a bunch of great people over and doing something that will be remembered as a good time. It's important to have the memories of good times, for the sake of bringing them to mind when I am alone, and even more for the sake of bringing them up with the people you shared them with. I will be able to say "Remember that one time..." and every gets that special look of remembering, which usually includes a smile.

Yes, it's a vortex of looking forward to the time when I can remember the good time that I am looking forward to having tonight, which leads to...

YAY! We are having the first game night at my house!

There is a big selection of games. I have purchased snacks...Salsa and chips and pretzels.... And sodas, and maybe we'll makes margaritas...maybe...depends.

The only outstanding question is the playing surface. Our dining table is up against the wall, and in that configuration seats four. It could be moved away from the wall to seat 6...which may end up being the choice...but that would make it a tight fit in that passage way.

We COULD go in the living room and put the board on the ottoman and sit on the floor. I will have to consult the players when the arrive and see what everyone thinks. Either way is fine with me...

yay!

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:08 AM | Permalink

It's been 5 years, and I've culled some of what I consider my best entries from that time to share with you all.

But just because I consider them my finest does not make them the most popular.

BY FAR, my most popular entry is this one. It's a recipe for homemade microwave popcorn.

haven't all of you wondered why you should spend ridiculous amounts of cash on a bag designed to pop popcorn in, only to throw it away at the end? Well, even if you haven't, enough of the internet has to lead them to a search, which leads them inevitably to my site.

A strange glitch in the internet makes me the only source of information on this most basic of tasks. Just about every day someone comes to the wonderblog to find out how to make popcorn themselves with common household materials.

I am the dispenser of popcorn wisdom. Do not be tricked into losing your hard-earned money to that suspicious Redenbacher character with his beady little eyes.

The next three most popular are probably tied. I declare them tied because I can't be bothered to actually figure out which is more clicked...

This one is about the camia flower. I was given this pretty flower as a present, and blogged about it. Camia is a pretty name, isn't it? It's such a pretty name that a lot of daughters were named this name. Said daughters do searches on that name. So do the friends, admirers and desperate rejected suitors of these daughters.

Due to another black hole in the fabric of the internet, I am one of the very few sources of information about the camia flower, and the only source that is actually interesting.

This entry is a riff on a Dilbert cartoon. He is meeting his new boss, who introduces himself curtly as "Niel." Dilbert bows on one knee. Get is? KNEEL. I did an entry on all the names I could think of that were action verbs. A silly little execise which resulted in a very popular entry.

This one, a highly popular entry, I am actually proud of. It's a full on personal essay about curly hair. I like it. If I ever get off my butt I may submit it Oprah magazine or something.

This was found by the site naturallycurly.com. They came to me wanting to post in on their site. I negotiated a tank top for my writing. You can find it here.

Yes, I was giddily proud of that at the time. Now, I want more.

My Moose Kill story is still a popular one. People find it searching for moose anatomy.

And I like some of the fictional stories the blog inspire me...This sexy little number was fun...and then my Nadia story.

Miriam wouldn't exist if it weren't for my blog, so I am well rewarded for the last 5 years.

I don't want to stop. But I do want to get better. But this is virgin territory, folks. I am a veteran blogger, even if I am not as well-known as the other people who've been blogging for the same amount of time.

Truth is, I know why those four entries are so popular. It's not rocket science...Someone links to them, pretty much. That's the deal with the curly story and the popcorn. Okay, the powerful names one just stands on it's own, as does the Camia flower. It's an accident of the internet.

I could make like a shark and really go for the hits...Hit me baby! Again! HARDER!

But I can't muster up enthusiasm for it.

Right, that's the other thing I forgot to mention. For a year or two, I was a major poster on Blogcritics...They were a start-up site, and are now something of a force on the internet.

But that was when I was a baby blogger. I reviewed (not very expertly) CDs and movies and such things. But as I got better, I didn't feel like doing that anymore.

We parted ways. I just don't get excited about popular subjects. And so I stopped posting, and they eventually redesigned their site. I wasn't linked to as much and my hits dropped by more than half. That hurt. I guess the internet is a lot like a mall, where traffic matters...I had relagated my wonderblog to an obscure untravelled corner of the internet. And it was not enough to keep the readers.

I don't want to be like the other guys...I want to be me, but better.

And a little rich-and-famous wouldn't be bad...

But thanks so much for those of you who are reading this. it's a journey...I'll try to keep entertaining...at least I know I can entertain myself along the way.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:54 PM | Permalink

..to love my own words so very much...?

I am thoroughly enjoying my own parade of the best of the wonderblog. And I haven't even gotten up to 2006 yet.

As I look through these entries, I am discovering that I actually have a style. I have worked very hard to "find my voice" with my other writing, the stuff that doesn't get posted here. Yes, there is a lot of that. My poems, my book, etc. have gotten MUCH editing and re-working to get the tone I'm looking for.

I love this blog, and I am really glad I've had it. But for the most part, I've considered it a scratch pad. just for scribbles.

The internet has it's own taste.

It loves smut, celebrity gossip and the like. Politics, oh yeah. People can read about the news and that forever.

And the internet loves nerdiness and GADGETS.

none of which is me.

I guess I'm underground even for the internet. I have a style, now that I stop to look at it. Perhaps I should spend a little time trying to craft it and see if I can find an audience now that I've got my groove...

but, as anyone that's ever gone out dancing with me knows, my groove needs no audience. It's good to groove, even if you are the only one on the dance floor.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:46 PM | Permalink

That's how I feel today: cheerful.

Could this possibly have to do with the fact that I bought a They Might Be Giants best-of CD at Amoeba? Not ruling it out.

It feels marvelous to feel cheerful. It's been a while.

I'm so glad to be at home, and have Chris at home with me too. I'm also not traveling for work right this second, so that feels good.

good is good.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:54 AM | Permalink

Our German friends wanted to get some vinyl yesterday, so we took them to Amoeba Records on Haight.

AND we found a parking space.

As I was getting ready to put in the quarters, the meter flashed at me "Free"

I shouted "Free love and parking!"

and a tall sluffy man turned around as he walked by and said, "Amen sister!"

I flashed him a big-ol'-smile because SOMEONE needed to say that in the hippie-Haight-time-warp.

Later, tall sluffy man came up to me in the record store and asked me where I was from, because of my accent.

[Me thinking he is trying a *super-lame-pick-up-line* and flash another smile---i enjoy lame-o pick up lines, even though they never have the desired effect for the deliverer, because they are very funny]

I answer "Around here..."

He looked honestly confused, "Oh, I wouldn't have thought so..."

now I think though...I have been running a joke that amuses me (maybe no one else) that I have an accent that no one can understand...since so often my qups fly far over the heads of others....

BUT ALSO MY REGULAR CONVERSATION! what...what is so hard to hear? I don't know...

maybe I'm developing an accent of my very own....

*NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME*----*I'M BEFORE MY TIME*

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:35 AM | Permalink

I made it. This is the day that I've been waiting to arrive at for the last two weeks.

It's been one thing piled on top of the other and they all must get done. But I knew that Sunday would be the day that it would stop.

Or at least pause.

I just took a shower, so I am clean. I am very pleased with the outcomes of all the piled things.

ahhhh

I'm in San Francisco right now, with Chris. He is not the devotee of the city that I am. But in about an hour, we're going to take some dear German friends who've never been to america before, down to Ameoba records. They want some Johnny Cash, and who knows what else?

It will be fun and nice. I will wear comfortable shoes.....and leave all the stress behind.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:37 AM | Permalink

So this weekend my bathroom is being demolished and rebuilt. It is the shabbiest part of my house. But next week, it will be fabulous!

Also, I've had a last minute assignment at work that I just completed. Installing new equipment. WEEE!!!

and then there are two very heavy TVs that need to be replaced at a different facitility. I ordered and got two new TVs that are even heavier to replace the heavy TVs. But they sent the wrong TV. And so I had to pack up the new heavy TVs, and put the original heavy TVs back.

My back hurts a little today.

and I have a new project for the ship business. I have to make sure the vendor we hired actually finishes the job we hired him for.

We are in the part of the project that takes a fine tooth comb and lots of proving that there is indeed a problem that needs to be fixed.

Oh, but our central air broke. and our home needs new electrical wiring to keep that from happening again.

But we can't do anything about it, because the biggest ship event of the year is happening this weekend. I will be flying to join Chris and all the exuberant collectors for a little ship extravaganza in San Francisco.

---
.......
---

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed.

I'm also a little bit sad to miss church this sunday. This sunday is Palm Sunday.

They could have called it Donkey sunday...or celebration Sunday. It's commemorating the time that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, and everyone was so glad to see him that the whole city, practically, broke off palm fonds and layed them on the road in front of the donkey. If they couldn't find a palm frond, they even lay down their coats to make a beautiful path for the donkey to walk on.

WOW! Such acclamation. Can you imagine? That would be even better than the red carpet treatment.

I have to say, in addition to feeling overwhelmed, I've been feeling underappreciated. Mostly at work.

No one was noticing the great things I did. I was only getting more work.

But...When i think about palm sunday, I realize that favor and appreciation is very fleeting.

I guess I should find it in myself, and not look for it from others.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:59 AM | Permalink

A while back, I had emailed an old friend. We were catching up on each other's lives, and I told him I was studying to get my english degree.

"Oh, that's great! I've always wanted to get an english degree."

I asked him what was stopping him. I mean really, of all the goals in life, that one is very easy. It's written down on paper--a checklist!--what you have to do to make it happen.

That's one of the good things about academia. You can't miss. It is absolutely clear what it takes to get the prize.

Not too much after that I graduated.

Which meant it got harder. What was next? The paved road ended. It was time to break a new trail.

But it wasn't exactly a new trail. There seems to be always another degree. I could get a masters degree in something. OR a doctorate.

But I couldn't quite figure out what the point of it was. What was it for? What did I really want?

maybe, as it happened, i just wanted a prize.

Prizes are good. They MEAN something. In fact, prizes usually state very clearly what they mean:
"For excellence in running the 100 yard dash"
"First place in Watermelon growing"
"For excellence in the study of diversity in the humanities"

I love prizes. Well, there are some that are meaningless. The kidn that everyone gets just for showing up are not highly valued by me.

But I like prizes. In fact, I try to create little things in my life that are like prizes...Like a 'win'.

Getting up and going to the gym in the morning...that's a win.
Meeting the bus is a win.

Those are little things that I can accomplish that make me feel good.

So I can stack up all the little things in my day and feel like a winner.

Lately though, the little things aren't feeling like enough. I want more.

I want wins that take more than a day to accomplish. I want that kind of prize.

I can't see over the hill though. I passed the flat valley a while back. All the easy prizes, the ones that I wanted to try for, I already got.

What is the next one? I can't see over the hill.

Or maybe I can. But it's a long walk.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 05:06 PM | Permalink

Congress passed a bill that we shall have spring three weeks sooner.

Regardless of the equinoxes and solstices, spring begins with daylight savings.

I cannot say that I was pleased to hear that congress had changed the daylight savings time. Daylight savings has some inherent annoyances.

But now that it's here, I'm glad.

My flowers are blooming. The yellow climbing roses, the irises, and even my star jasmine have begun to open andfragrate.

Mmmm....

And now, instead of waiting for the weekend to enjoy the fruits of my garden, I can see them in daylight on weekdays.

So, happy spring everyone. Take time to stop and smell the flowers.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:08 PM | Permalink

Me: Chris, it says in this magazine that the sun can get to you even when you are driving

Him: [Silence]

Me: Seriously, it says the sun can get to you through the windows, and you have to wear sunscreen of 30 SPF or higher. I have SPF 15, and I only put it on my face.

Him: [looks at me]

Me: I'm going to have to take showers in the stuff every day, or I will wrinkle up by the end of the year.

Him: You will be my little raisin

Me: What?

Him: My little white seedless raisin.

Me: [arms around his head] You're wonderful

Him:...my pretty little raisin...

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:54 PM | Permalink

This week at work I had a lot of places to go.

Monday I went to Corona
Tuesday I went to San Diego
Wednesday I went ot Long Beach
Thursday I went back to Corona
Friday I stayed home

Sounds a little bit like the litle piggy game.

Anticipating that I would be going so many places, and since i was on the longest drive of the week, I counted up how many miles I've travelled since I took my current job.

If I count up the commute time to get there and the driving I do once I am on the job, I've travelled 33 thousand miles in the last year and a half.

That's a lot of miles.

I shoud get something for that....Like frequent flyer miles. I once took a trip to Europe for 35 thousand frequent flyer miles...

But maybe I am being a greedy american. Driving around doesn't work like that. Why should I deserve free stuff for just going around and doing my job, the job that I am pretty fortunate to have?

People don't give you stuff for nothing; businesses will give you free stuff because they get something out of it. Like in Vegas--they will give you a free dinner or a free hotel room, but only if you gamble and therefore lose money.

It all comes out with them ahead.

And so, the rich people, the ones with money to be milked, get the "free stuff."

Suddenly, i realized that I _am_ a rich person.

I've seen emails where they ennumerate the way the majority of the world's population lives. Things like water and clothing and medicine are all in scarce supply.

and at the end, they say "Everyone in America is in the top 5% of the richest people in the world."

And it never feels real. Come on, it doesn't. Yeah, I'll read it. I can click the little X in the right corner of that email or webpage to make it disappear and then roll my office chair away from the corner desk in my cube to get up and fill my water bottle from the water cooler around the corner, next to the elevator.

and instead of feeling grateful for the easy life I have, I will be wondering if I can fine a cheap Nalgene water bottle on overstock.com to replace the less-than-optimal water bottle I currently use.

wow.

And when I am driving in my new GMC van with the V8 engine, airconditioning and CD player, I think about how I can get it to connect to my ipod, which it currently does not.

I am the wealthy. I am the very wealthy, along with all the rest of Americans. We are the ones who can be milked. That's how the business world goes around.

It is still a long day, driving to San Diego and then getting up and driving to Long Beach the next day. It is a more pleasant feeling to be grateful for what I have than to be dissatisfied about what I do not have.

But that doesn't mean that my ears don't ring after 6 hours of hearing the engine roar, and my backside doesn't get tired of sitting in the same position.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:25 AM | Permalink

A few months ago, someone told me I was very resilient. His compliment rolled off my back, because I was concentrating on communicating something else altogether.

But it came back to me last week, as I was reading a book by Dr. Ruby Payne. I wanted to read A Framework for Understanding Poverty, but the only book my library had was a relationship book Crossing the Tracks for Love.

I roll my eyes. It is apparently much more important to read a relationship self-help book than to read a societal self-help book. Gawd, we're so ego-centric!

But the book had many of the basic ideas. And that word came up again: Resilience. It means:
Rubber
bouncy
Bounce-back
get-back-on-that-horse-and-ride
Not taking no for an answer
stick-to-it-iveness
STUBBORN

I guess not everyone is like that. It seems like it would come in handy though. What good is it to lay down your tools and give up? Whoever got anywhere by sitting in their mud puddle and crying?

Of course, maybe some people don't want to get anywhere. I do have respect for the quality of 'enough'.

Enough stuff. Enough money. Enough food. Enough enducation.

It's a balance though. Isn't the world big enough to allow boundless pursuit of new things to have 'enough' of?

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:06 AM | Permalink

Lots and lots of thoughts are happening. I would like to stop and post, but before I do I zing off on another Japanese high-speed train of thought.

whew.

I get tired from all the thoughts quite often.

I'm gonna try, later today, to compose a post.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:11 AM | Permalink

I listed to one of my favorite podcasts yesterday:
FatFreeFilm

I used to work with Joel, and I really love the interviews he does on this series. This latest one features Leonard Nimoy.

SPOCK! I LOVE SPOCK!

So I was pretty excited to hear the show. It was great, and at the end, during the "film bites" segment, Spock (sorry, Leonard, you'll always be Spock to me) had some advice.

Speaking of the overwhelming task of producing, funding, and generally making a film [I paraphrase]:

Think of an elephant. If you had to eat an elephant in one day, you couldn't manage it. But if you took one bite out of the elephant every day, with time, you will finish the elephant.

That's a very encouraging thought.

I just wish it didn't seem like I had a herd of elephants.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:29 PM | Permalink

Thanks to the WSJ again, I get to be amused.

It turns out that China has become embarrased about their bad translations. There are all sorts of signs and things with English translations that are...well...pretty funny.

Some are kind of incomprehensible, but some are nice. Their English for "Don't Walk On the Grass" is "Show Mercy to the Slender Grass."

They are not alone. I still giggle when I remember the sign the cleaning people put up after they'd shampood the carpets and they were still wet:
BE CAREFUL OF SLIP AND FALL

what first language resulted in that ESL sign? The cleaning people spoke spanish, but the sign was a printed form, so maybe they bought a bunch of them from asia at a discount. Hard to say.

We live in a complex world.

But China will be hosting the Olympics and have decided to clean up their language. There are language police going around and giving fix-it tickets to cities and restaurants, etc. for their bad english.

Of course there are fans of this sort of thing. Check this out:
www.chinglish.de

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:20 AM | Permalink

Why is the history channel playing "Planet of the Apes"?

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:26 PM | Permalink

They had these in Jr. High. I used to get them also when email was newer.
Because I am not feeling like plumbing profundity for a post, I will share it with you all:

1. What time did you get up this morning? 4:45--I like to start driving to the gym at 5:30, and that USED to mean I got up at 5, and quickly got dressed & brushed my teeth, fed and injected to cat, grabbed my gym bag and drove away.

Now, with Lucy-Puppy in my life, the morning takes longer. I must still do all the above, but first I must let Missy Puppy out to pee, pet her, run her around, take her in, feed her (which currently requires continuous petting all the while so she will get proper nutrition and grow big and not stunted), take her out again, this time to poo (if she hadn't done so earlier--and sometimes again even if she has), scoop said poo up into plastic gocery bag, take bag-o-poo to the trash, run Lucy around some more, then lock her into her crate.

That meant I had to get up earlier.

I'm glad tomorrow is saturday.

2. Diamonds or pearls? What are you kidding? Both

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Happy Feet

4. What is your favorite TV show? Right now? House

5. What do you usually have for breakfast? i cup GO LEAN kashi high protein and fiber cereal with 1 cup skim milk
..but I just finished a donut that my sabatuer co-worker brought in

7. What is your middle name? May, which is a derivative of my grandmother's middle name. My grandmother, I, and my oldest cousin on my mom's side all have the same middle name, but spelled different. I am not sure how the others spell their name. I think Mae and Maye. But I don't know for certain.

8. What food do you dislike? bland food...and kinda don't like beef, but maybe because it is often bland

9. What is your favorite CD at the moment? Royksopp and Andy Bell...yes, that is two.

10. What kind of car do you drive? 1997 Audi A4. Stick-shift. Looked hard to find a stick shift

11. Favorite sandwich? peanut butter is good, but I am trying not to eat sandwiches

12. What characteristic do you despise? dishonesty

13. Favorite item of clothing? I really like the mechanic-style coveralls that I got for doing my work.

14. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? I would like to take the Queen Elizabeth 2 transatlantic cruise

15. What color is your bathroom? blue and grey.

16. Favorite brand of clothing? not a brand whore. I like thrift store clothes
17. Where would you retire to? I have a feeling I will never retire. And I never want to move again. I'll be staying in Claremont with Marshmallow man.

18. What was your most recent memorable birthday? I have had a very good string of birthdays lately. This last one kinda sucked though, cause Chris was sick

19. Favorite sport to watch? Basketball! Go Lakers!

20. Furthest place you are sending this? the end of the universe. It's the internet!

21. Who do you least expect to send this back to you? whatever

22. Person you expect to send it back first? No one

23. Favorite saying? This is a good one.

A Long while back, I was talking to super-cool-friend Char-Lez about the annoyingness of saying "Thank You!" as a prequel to goodbye.

The conversation (often on the phone) goes:

...and so that's settled."

"Thank you!"

"thank you!"

Click. EOM

Okay, who's thanking who for what? Why should I say "Thank you!" when I am the one who should be the recipeint of gratitude? It renders the thanks meaningless, and also trivialized whatever effort was expended on behalf of whoever.

Not to mention the annoying sing-song way the phrase takes on through repetition.

So, I talked about wanting another sign-off phrase, and he suggested "Take Care!"

As he put it, "That is under the radar, because it can mean two things."

Hmm...very good...because if the person is someone I like, and I want them to take care of themselve with tenderness, it works.

But if the person is someone who should learn a few manners, it could mean "Take care not to piss me off again!"

So, I use it all the time now. It is the Murphy Standard.

Take Care, everybody!

24. When is your birthday? 1-1-73

25. Are you a morning person or a night person? If I could ever leave sleep deprivation behind, I might like nights better. But mostly I'm too tired, and morning is when I get things done.

26. What is your shoe size? 8.5

27. Pets? Skellig the cat and Lucy the puppy

28. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us? I'm getting married this year!

29. What did you want to be when you were little? A ballerina and everything. I wrote a song about it

30. How are you today? Wondering how guilty I should feel for eating the donut

31. What is your favorite candy? wow...so many. Butterfingers...Skor...Reese's peanut butter cups..Twix...See's!

32. What is your favorite flower? hmm...I am really into plants. I like a variety, nicely arranged (usually by self)

33. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? Today, actually. My brother is coming to visit!

34. What church do you attend? St. Anne's Orthodox Church in Pomona
St. Anne is Mary's mother. She's on the far right, but you can't see her.

The kid's table during coffer hour. Note redbeard Kevin and black-suited AJ sitting there. They know they are too mature to sit with the kids, but the adults are too boring.

33. What is your full name? Elizabeth May Horner...Soon to be Elizabeth May Daley...but really, Murphy Daley...That's a lot of y's...Apropos...

34. What are you listening to right now? Bangles

35. What was the last thing you ate? dang...that donut will not leave me alone.

36. Do you wish on stars? Yes, but only with the verse..
Star light
Star Bright
First star I see tonight
Wish I may
Wish I might
Have the wish I wish tonight

Unless, it's a falling star. Then the trick is to think of a wish before the star is done falling.

37. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Black

38. How is the weather right now? Blue Sky, and its supposed to get warmer

39. Last person you spoke to on the phone? my brother

40. Do you like the person who sent this to you?Nicole is fabulous...And I love her blog

41. Favorite soft drink? diet grapefruit

42. Favorite restaurant? locally? Espiau's

43. Hair color? reddish brown...maybe totally red now. I'm trying to cover the alarming profusion of gray

44. Sibling? 3 older brothers

45. Favorite day of the year? hmm...I like Easter.
46. What was your favorite toy as a child? Roller skates...and I liked audio equipment

47. Summer or winter? Fall

48. Hugs or kisses? Hugs

49. Coffee or tea? Tea

50. Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate

51. Do you want your friends to email you back? Yes

52. When was the last time you cried? I cry all the time. But I don't think I've cried this week.

53. What is under your bed? Chris keeps finding socks under there. And probably some folded blankets

54. Who is the friend you have had the longest? Telissa...Kindergarten was a long time ago

55. What did you do last night?
Ran around like a crazy person, trying to keep up with Lucy, and then when she went to sleep, trying to get clothes and gym bag ready for the morning

56. Favorite smell? Love smells...I love the smell of Chris, but he is almost always incredibly clean and therefore not very pungent. I have to get up close...But maybe that's part of why I like it!

57. What are you afraid of? Not making the most of every second

58. Plain, buttered, or salted Popcorn? Buttered and salted..

59. How many keys on your key ring? 6

60. How many years at your current job? a year and a half

61. Favorite day of the week? Saturday

62. How many towns have you lived in? 15, with three repeats ( lived in Sunnyvale twice (three addresses), Wasilla twice, and Anchorage twice(8 addresses)). I'm never moving again.

63. Do you make friends easily? no..but I start intimate conversations very easily...You'd think I could land the friend deal, but no

64. How many people will you be sending this to? the world

65. How many will respond? I have no idea

66. Did you notice that 33 and 34 were repeated? No

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:27 AM | Permalink

Andthe sky is blue.

It's winter in LA and we are in a cold snap. So cold, in fact, that it got below freezing.

Which means that many many plants are having a lot of trouble. It just doesn't freeze here. It hasn't been this cold since the 30s.

So, beware. Citrus fruits are going to be expensive soon. Stock up on marmalade.

As for me, I hope my hibiscus make it.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 05:46 PM | Permalink

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:31 PM | Permalink

In the Wall Street Journal Front Page

Domestic violence rate fell 50% from 1993 to 2004, the Justice Depart- ment said, citing no single cause. Na- tive-American women suffer the most.

Too bad for the native american women, but YAY! for domestic violence being so incredibly way down.

YAY and YAY! that's amazing news.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:40 PM | Permalink

Boy oh Boy, is next year going to be busy.

I am in the lull week right now. This is the week when nothing much happens. We are basking in the afterglow of the Christmas lights we can't bear to take down yet, and catching up on the sleep we know we won't get on New Year's Eve.

My job as video conferencing engineer is always light this week. Who wants to have meetings this week? Only crazy people, and they are apt to cancel.

I rushed in this morning (alone, since all the others are sleeping in) to be here for the only conference happening in the morning. It was scheduled for eight.

But it didn't happen. It was cancelled late yesterday (after I left, which was admittedly early).

So, I have nothing until 10.

I am using the time to gather myself together in a tight web of organization. I am re-reading David Allen's book Getting Things Done. I had been trying to use his system when I started this job a year and a half ago. But as it happens, trying to get organized when you have no clue about what you are supposed to be doing is harder than just trying to get organized.

Now, I think I know a little more about what I am supposed to be doing in this place. So, this will make it easier to do the things I'm supposed to get done.

Maybe.

I think my problem is that I have trouble determining which are the Someday/Maybe things and which are the Must things.

Allen says you should track the things that must get done at certain times and use his system to remind yourself appropriately instead of running around thinking of all the things you need to do that you can't do right then. Like, reminding yourself to buy toilet paper when you are trying to fall asleep. Not a useful way to use your brain.

Anyway, I've always had a habit of working hard on things others might think of as impossible or too dreamy. I think it's served me well in the long run, because I've managed to do a lot of impossible stuff.

Writing a book, for example. And nearly equally impossible, becoming a video conferencing engineer.

I completed a lot of stuff this year at work. Some stuff the boss didn't think would ever happen. Some stuff the boss thinks is kinda a waste of time, but I know is gonna really come in handy.

Since I've finished a huge amount of project this last year for work, I will have to come up with some new ones for 2007. I think I'll take it a little easier this year. Last year really kicked me in the kidneys.

But that's just work. I've got a heck of a lot to do this next year that has nothing to do with work.

For starters, I am getting a new puppy in about 3 weeks. And Chris has been going on and on about how I will have to learn not to leave my shoes out. It hit me that I am going to have to have a new lifestyle that leaves nothing on the floor. That won't be easy.

Then, there is the wedding to plan. Oh yeah, Did I tell you that Chris and I are getting married? This will be quite a time consumer. But I'm happy about it.

Then there are all the other things. I will be taking a spanish class. We will be doing some ship things. And there is the trip to Finland. Wow!

I am still anxious to make some progress on my current book project. I have lost some traction and I think I'm starting to gain it back, but the time thing.

I guess I better get organized fast.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:15 AM | Permalink

I got tagged with a meme. Kemal challenged me to share 5 things that people might not know about me.

But aren't I an open book by now? I've been writing this blog for nearly 5 years. What could I possibly have to say that people don't know about me?

Let me think...

1. I drive a stick-shift car.

2. I wired my first walkman to a set of speakers because I couldn't afford a stereo

3. I can ice skate backwards better than I can forwards.

4. My brother was born on the same day as me, but 2 years earlier.

5. I dance like a maniac

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:44 PM | Permalink

It is getting to be christmas time.

My house is in desperate need of cleaning.

I hesitate to go get the tree, because the time could be used to clean up the wreck my house has become.

if I go get the tree, it will take time. I will be exhauseted by the time it's done, and the house will still be a wreck. In addition to the drifts of cat hair all over the floor, there will be a new sprinkling of needles.

It makes me tired.

THE FLOOR IS COVERED WITH CRAP. NO MORE CRAP.

let's move into a hotel until christmas.

In addition to this, i feel guilty. I have no right whatsoever to complain. I had monday off. I could have used the time to clean. I don't have children, which means that the mess I have is all my very own.

I would be upset with Chris for not helping more with the fetid pile my house has become, but he is suffering from success with his little ships. Lots of orders! yay! He barely has time to be civil to me.

In fact, civility has been at a low.

I feel stressed and guilty for it.

Chris wants to get the tree tonight.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:07 AM | Permalink

It's coming to an end, this year.

Time for me has been flipping like pages in an animation book. FRRRRR! watch the little mouse move.

These are days, which I am supposed to be seizing, are maybe slipperier.

But I have accomplished some things this year. I guess...What I am remembering are the things I have not accomplished. That credenz needs finishing.

And when exactly am I going to finish the herb garden?

I have always beenn somebody who turns in assignments early.

I better hurry up, because the deadline is looming.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:35 AM | Permalink

Hey everybody!

I now have completed my proffessional author site! I made it all by myself, and although it is simple and basic, I am not ashamed of it.

here I am!

http://www.writtenbymurphy.com

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:55 PM | Permalink

I love to cook.

I don't get much of a chance to do it, because I always thought I was the only one who would eat what I ate. Chris is very finicky, to my thinking. He doesn't appreciate the experimental.

But this is Thanksgiving, and officially the time to cook and bake. I've been longing to make a pie for weeks now. A good pie is a glorious thing. In fact, I had expressed my longing for piemaing at work and the we all had talked about favorite pies. Rhubarb was a favorite, and also very tart fruit pies. I told them of my walnut pie, which is a regional innovation.

However, our cupboards were bare, and we had to go shopping.

"We have to stock up. Lots of things will be on sale." I told Chris.

"I think you're wrong. I don't rememer things being on sale for Thanksgiving."

"YOU are wrong. I know for sure that things will be on sale. The will have the buy-one-get-one-free sale on things like sugar and flour."

Chris thought that stocking up on sugar and flour was a bad idea. He hardly ever uses flour.

In the store, I was checking on the sugar and flour prices, but he was scoping out the mixes. He has a thing for Betty Crocker. He likes to look at all the pictures of delcious things and think about eating them. He does the same with the dessert menu at restaurants. But the fact is, he seldom eats them.

There were a lot of mixes on sale. He came back over to the cart with a mix for cinnamon coffee cake.

"Baby, you don't need a mix for coffee cake! That's very easy to make. I could make you one, if you really want one."

"But.." he looked at the picture on the package. "It wouldn't have cinnamon."

He's adorable.

So back at the house, I had some baking projects to do.

To my dismay, I had misplaced my holy cooking book, "The Joy of Cooking." I know it's here somewhere, but I can't find it.

Well, no problem. I have the internet! Coffee cakes should be easy to find.

It turns out that internet recipes for cinnamon coffee cakes favor ingredients like sour cream, buttermilk and apples. Didn't pick those up at the store. They also like nuts, which is anathema for my sweetheart. THIS at least I have learned in our time together.It took me into page three of the search results to find an appropriate recipe.

When I mixed it up, and I make twice as much streusel as they called for, because I love Chris and he loves streusel. I made him watch as I sprinkled the streusel on, so he could appreciate what I was doing.

It came out pretty good.

Of course, while the cake was baking, I began to work on the pie.

Pies are a glorious food. Really and truly. On the whole, they are ridiculously simple to make. Except for the crust. But many people choose to have a premade crust, so that takes care of that.

If you ever want to impress someone with cooking skills you don't think you have, make a pie with a premade crust. Pies are only a half a tick more difficult than instant pudding. I mean, geez! You just mix up about 4 ingredients, pour it into a pie crust and cook it. WAY easy.

But, I am not satisfied with premade crusts. I want a little challenge in all this. I want to master the crust.

The last pie I made was lemon meringue, last december. And the crust was too tough.

I hoped to do better with this iternation. I wanted to use my grandmother's pie crust recipe.

My grandmother died during the holidays of 1995. Mom was called to the hospital before she died, and she asked me to come with her. We were able to be with Grandma in her last few days.

I had not grown up near my grandmother. I just didn't know her that well.

But after she had passed we were eating holiday leftovers at my aunt's house, . I was munching on this key lime cheesecake pie.

I exclaimed: "This crust is really good!"

My cousin, who had always grown up around my grandmother, looked at me incredulously. "Yeah," she said, "That's grandma's pie crust. Didn't you know she was famous for her crust?"

Yes, actually, I had heard that. But, I'd never had a chance to taste it. It was only a posthuous pie that let me know.

So, I looked up grandma's pie crust recipe. It was a very different concept from the recipe of the former failed crust attempt.

I mixed up a walnut pie, using the recipe on the back of the Karo syrup bottle. I made two changes:
1. I used walnuts instead of pecans
2. I splashed in a little brandy. Brandy is very yummy.

Walnut pie was introduced to my family by my sister-in-law Karen. Her grandmother's best friend had a walnut tree in the front yard. As Karen said, "That's a lot of walnuts. You come up with as many ways to use walnuts as you can. Therefore: Walnut pie."

But I like it for it's own sake. Plus, Walnus are cheaper than pecans. And it's unusual, so it makes me feel cool and creative.

Karen always used the half walnuts, but one year I could only find chopped walnuts for sale, and I like how that ended up looking. So now I always use the chopped walnuts.

Here, dear readers, is the resultant pie:

Now, that was not enough. I wanted to make cranberry sauce for the dinner. My brother Mark is an excellent cooker of cranberry sauce. Therefore, I am sad when we must resort to canned cranberry sauce.

HOWEVER. Chris's grandmother has a doctor's injunction against seeds. But, I thought...I can strain out the seeds an make a cranberry jelly, instead of a cranberry sauce.

All I have to do is cook up the cranberries and then strain them through a cloth to get the juice and keep the seeds out.

I love cooking fresh cranberries. The skins POP when they are boiling. It's cool.

Straining the pulp was a bit harder than I thought. Probably because I was impatient and did not wait for the cranberry mush to cool. This is what it looked like when I was done:

That's the strained part, not the jelly part. The jelly part is jelling in the fridge. It may need to be put back on the stove with some cornstarch. We'll see.

But that was what I did all night. I love to cook, but I'm pretty tired after that.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

December 30, 1991. That was the last time I set foot inside my parent’s home, the home that I lived in from age 12 to 19.

I didn’t know it would be the last time. Why was it the last time?

When we left, we thought we would return the next summer. But the house sat vacant for 2 and a half years, until it was finally rented out to someone and eventually sold.

I am suddenly very sad to realize this.

It wasn’t such a bad house.

It is now 2006, 25 years later. Only now, I realize that this was the case, that that time was the last time.

I am trying to write about December 25th through the 30th of 1991. I have written a short chapter about it. But I am not satisfied, and I woke up at five am this morning, thinking “Maybe I need more detail. What did the house look like again? Where were we sleeping on the 26th? Did we still have our beds?

Yes, we had our beds. We had the orange nougahyde couch with the cat-scratched arm in the living room. And we had the tweedy hide-a-bed couch there. The wood stove was burning—we must have left it full of ashes. The dining room table made of railroad-ties was still there. All our hand-me-down furniture from the church-going people who were done with it and didn’t want to have to throw it away—the things we had rescued and put to use. It was still there.

Our pets were not. I know the dog Penny had been given away, but I don’t remember what happened with the cats. I liked the cats better that the dog, too. I suspect they were given to the pound. Poor Chang and Bill.

It was cold. Of course it was cold. December in Alaska. There was snow on the ground, I remember that.

We had put all the house plants—well, the ones that were our favorites—down in the first floor. Someone from church had said they would take care of them for us until we returned.

April was going to take care of mine, and I don’t know where mom’s plants were going. But April told me that although she came to get them the next day, they were frozen when she came. The house had been left with no heat, so the plants didn’t make it.

Maybe she was lying. She did lie a lot. Maybe she forgot and didn’t get the plants for weeks.

But for the last days, while we were still in it, the house was warm but bare. The kitchen was cleaned before we left, because of course Mom did not want dirty dishes or dirtiness in general to greet us when we returned.

If I had known that I would never set foot in the house again, I might have done something different. I might have…taken a walk around my favorite paths and then walked through the door again. One last time.

But I did not do that. I was scared out of my mind. I was filled with thoughts of surviving in Russia, getting to Russia, and whether or not the Federal warning to Americans to leave Russia would result in us…being killed? Being thrown in a Russian prison?

But my little teenage mind was too tenacious to consciously dwell long on death or imprisonment. My most uppermost thought was of whether or not I would ever see my heartthrob Alex again.

I did not.

But I had at least been warned about that. He told me he probably would not be back when I returned. As it happened, he would have been back when I should have returned. But I did not return the next summer.

I did not return until a year later. And then only for a few weeks. We all turned around and went right back.

But Alex had warned me that he did not expect to be there when I returned. So I knew I would never see him again. I mean, I hoped I would, but I knew I might not.

I was not warned that I would never see that home again, except from the road.

When we did return, we did not stay in our home. We stayed in other people’s homes. I stayed with April, a mistake for sure, as it turned out.

But our home was still empty then. Why didn’t we stay in our home? I know why. For the same reason aspiring actors in Hollywood do not work to get good ‘normal’ jobs. They don’t want to be comfortable; they want to be actors.

So we, we did not want to be comfortable. We wanted to go back to Russia.

What did I want? Did I know what I wanted?

I was so pushed along by the currents. I remember wanting to go back to America so bad that I could barely breathe. Not that I didn’t love Russia. Not that the time I had spent there and the friends I had made weren’t the absolute pinnacle of my life—they were!

But if we hadn’t come back when we did, we would have lost our ability to return. The return airplane tickets we had would expire if we hadn’t left when we did. And they were not cheap. $2000 dollars in American dollars at a time when candy bars cost $0.35. Two thousand dollars when dollars cost 500 rubles and a loaf of breast cost one ruble.

If we hadn’t gone back, we would have been stuck in a volatile Russia with no way out. I didn’t like no way out. Even then, I had to know where the back door was.

Is that so astonishing? How many people do not survey and make sure they know the way out of any given situation they find themselves in? I do. Maybe that’s when it started for me, the fall of ’91. That was indeed the season that set a lot of personality cement.

But we finally and at the last minute did not let our escape ticket expire. We went back to Alaska and did not stay in our home.

Did I want to go back to Russia? Yes, I did. I do believe that I did. Russia was the best time of my life. And we had left those poor people at the school hanging. Maybe they needed us.

Maybe they didn’t. I don’t know.

But I did go back. All of use went back. And I ended up living on my own—well, not with my parents—in Yakutsk.

After Masha went back to college, Mirnyy was much less interesting.

Yakutsk was pretty good. I met Lena.

But then when I came back from Yakutsk, when I returned to Alaska and left Russia behind for good I also did not go back to my home.

It had ceased to be my home. I didn’t want to live with my parents anymore, and living in their house would have meant so many things.

It would have meant free rent…But, no, it wouldn’t have. The mortgage on the place was 1200 a month. The church was paying that while my parents were missionarying in Russia.

Would the church have allowed me to live in the empty house while my parents were in Russia and they were paying the mortgage?

By ‘the church’ I mean the pastor, April’s dad.

My earning power at age 20 would not have managed to pay the heating bill, let alone the mortgage.

I am certain that Mr. Byron would not have let us stay there. I say ‘us’ because Chris had come back too.

I didn’t want to live in my parents’ house when I got back. I wanted to be an adult and making my own way.

I did not want to live in Wasilla, with no prospects and no hope. That town had been tapped out before I even got there at age 12. It had nothing for me. In Wasilla, the best I could hope for was a job as a checker in a grocery store. And I would need several years of experience doing entry level work before that promotion to checker could be an option.

I didn’t want a job as a checker. I wanted more.

More meant Anchorage. Anchorage was the promised land, as far as I was concerned. That city would never be tapped out. The big city. It had so much going on, I would never run out of it.

And that was where the university was. I wanted to go to school. School! And school where I could take part in the social life. Where I could date if I wanted to, something I hadn’t really been able to do. My first year of college was a mine field of avoiding and deflecting possible dates…The ‘rules’ for accepting a date were too extensive and embarrassing and, basically, impossible to make it happen.

But no one even thought about the house for Chris or I. No one suggested that the dusty door be opened to let us in there.

My parents’ car, the one we were going to leave behind until our return had seized it’s engine right before we left. There was no family car to go with the family home. Certainly, the subdivision that the house was on was remote enough that we would need a car to be able to live there. It took 15 minutes to drive to the nearest grocery store from the house.

And it took 25 minutes to drive to church.

And an hour and 25 minutes to drive to the University of Anchorage.

But I didn’t want to stay in that house, because it would have meant going to church in Wasilla.

I could not do that. I could not not not go to church in the church I had gone to all that time.

I had decided that in Russia, the first year. I had decided that, and told my parents about it. We had discussed it, and the consensus was that I would not have to go to that church again because I would not live in Wasilla. I would live in Anchorage when I returned, and I would choose a new church there.

But only my parents and I knew of this agreement.

No one from that church suggested that I had a home in my parents’ home anymore. My parents included.

So, the last thing I remember is looking back on the dark brown carpet of the first floor and seeing our plants sitting together in the middle of the floor. My impatients plant and African violet that had been given to me age 14 in the hospital and the spider plant.

Chris gave me the spider plant later that 14th year after we had been fighting. Mom was sick of us and told us to do something nice for each other. I made Chris a cup of tea. He painted a card for me and gave me a spider plant he had grown from one of the spider plant babies. I felt cheap then, for my measly cup of tea.

The spider plant survived. The other died.

But that was the last I saw of that house. I never saw my room again. I never walked in the woods and returned through the door again. I never warmed my hands on that wood stove or whacked creosote out of the chimney pipe again.

That was it. The end. And I didn’t know it at the time.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

IMG_0319
Originally uploaded by murphy_h2001.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:19 PM | Permalink

I am very very proud of my book. I published it this year, and it took a lot of hard work.

Recently I was listening to an interview of Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander. She talked about the party she had after her book was published.

She wallpapered the room with her rejection letters.

I should accumulate rejection letters, I suppose. I feel slightly averse to it. I mean, they are rejection letters, after all.

But, it also seems the path many successful people take.

I wonder.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 03:36 PM | Permalink

It's been very hot this week. I mean, close to the 90s.

It's just weird.

I miss the chill on my cheeks. It's not easy to find frost around here.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:07 PM | Permalink

Last week, before work, I needed something from the garage. I flipped on the patio light to go get it, and heard a big rustling noise.

I caught sight of a furry bottom and a naked tail walking slowly away. Of COURSE, I grabbed the camera. But the possum was very well camouflaged, and my camera couldn’t focus.

Of course I told Chris about it, when I made my 11 o’clock wake-up call from work.

“Baby! I saw a speckle-bottom possum in the yard this morning!”

“Did he leave?” Apparently, Chris had a low opinion of rodent-tailed creatures living in our backyard.

That is, until the next day. He caught site of my speckle-bottom possum on the neighbor’s roof—in the daylight! Then his marshmallow center took over, because the possum is cute.

He called me to tell me about it. “Did you know that the possum in the only marsupial in America? It’s not a rodent. In fact, it eats rats and mice. And insects. They have a very low body temperature, so they can’t carry rabies. They are actually good to have around.”

“See? I told you it was cute”

“Yeah, maybe it will come back to our yard.”

“It says that possums don’t like to be out in the daylight. And they are not so good at climbing. I wonder how it got on the roof?”

"He looks kind of sad. I wonder how they will get him off the roof? He must have gone up there because they have dogs in the backyard. He ran to get away from the dogs and now he can't get down."

About an hour later, a police car drove up and stopped in front of our house. Chris was feeling a bit uneasy. Maybe the neighbors, whom we didn’t really know, had taken umbrage with his photographing their house.

The policeman walked over to their house and came out again. Chris did his best to look busy at his computer while he drove away.

But then, an animal control van came and caught our possum.

We are afraid to find out what happens after that.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I’m going to write about something I’ve never written about before. I’ve always considered it too boring and uninteresting.

I want to write about refinancing.

Is there anything more mundane than refinancing a mortgage? It is perhaps the very definition of bourgeois. It means you have a large, immovable possession that roots you to a place. BUT EVEN MORE, it means that you have had that large immovable possession for a long time.

Many, many people have the same situation. It is not a terribly adventurous or creative thing to accomplish.

People who refinance are the same sort of people who stop and go next to me in the pod-o-mobiles on the way through the 20-mile-an-hour-stop-and-go traffic. These people are the same people who wear the business casual clothes from Target and Mervyn’s that I wear.

These people are the demographic. These people are the satisfied—the well-fed who worry mostly about which people they didn’t manage to sleep with. I worry mostly that I am becoming one of these people.

I don’t want to be like everyone else. I want to be free-thinking and artistic and unique. I think about this as I chose my business casual clothes each day. And as I surge slowly through the cattle drive of rush hour traffic.

But I am doing a refinance. This is something none of the bourgeois enjoy doing.

We—dare I say it? —We don’t enjoy all the small print and the thinking of what it means. And are we getting screwed? How many itemizations have we forgotten to compare?

I’ve discovered that there are “packages.” There are tables and specials and the things that the mortgage brokers are selling.

I looked into it. I compared. I figured out exactly what I want. I found a lender who will give it to me.

Of course, I had to compare against other lenders. But no one has a “package” for what I want. In fact, while shopping for my refinance, I discovered that most of the lenders couldn’t even do what I want. They were so surprised that I asked for that particular type of loan, that I started to doubt my research.

I asked Chris about it. “Why is it so surprising to these people? Did I do the math wrong?”

“You are asking the lenders. Who do you think is benefiting from the packages they are trying to sell you? You did the research.” He gave me a squeeze and said, “You’re smarter than the average bear.”

Well.

That makes me feel a little less of a sheep in the bourgeois herd. I guess if I can do an avant-gard refinance, I can’t be too off my mark

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:57 PM | Permalink

I finally decided to join a gym.

It’s been a while, and I hate to spend the money on something I could theoretically do at home.

But I was getting tired of the same exercise video at home, and I thought about it. If I go to the gym near work, I will shave about 30-45 minutes of drive time in the morning…What if I took that time and used it to exercise instead of drive? That would be worthwhile!

So, I found a club right near my job. I joined, and was taken in my the sales pitch. They had a SALE on personal training sessions. How serious was I about my fitness goals, really? A personal trainer would take me to the next level.

Wow! The next level! Give me a scoop of that.

It wasn’t until I got home that I realized I hate people telling me what to do. I can’t stand exercise classes, because who are these idiots telling me to “Breathe!” and “Kick higher!”?

Leave me alone. I’ll be just fine on my elliptical trainer and the weight machines.

I snuck into the gym alone a few times before making an appointment for the personal training sessions. Sneaky, aren’t I? I fooled myself good.

But the inevitable could not be delayed. I could not let these sessions go unredeemed. This was money, after all!

The appointment was made, and the next morning was the day of judgement. Immediately, I regretted tying myself down like that. Who was this personal trainer anyway. “Greg”—his name tells me nothing.

He’s probably an idiot. I’m going to ask him important questions about health and workout strategies and he will look at me with no comprehension and no answer.

He is probably a nineteen year old community college dropout who will try to sell me Myoplex powder. He will probably be short and have no sense of humor.

He will be stupid. He will come up to me, and will do the ‘orientation’, which involves a caliper to test my body fat.

This is what the internet tells me about calipers, also known as the ‘pinch test’: they are only a good way to measure body fat when handled by someone who knows what they are doing.

So, some gel-spiked short bicep-heavy teenager is going to shoddily pinch my fat at 6:30 am, and he won’t even get my incisive quips. He will try to sell me so lame it doesnt' even have an informercial.

AND I HAVE PAID FOR THIS PRIVILEGE.

How did I sign up to have a homo half-a-sapien pinch my fat before dawn? What does that say about me, really?

Maybe I can get out of it. Perhaps I can put a sharp little comment out there, and if he is as idiotic as I fear I will simply bow out of the fat pinching. I’ll just go straight to the weights and ask for a new trainer. A girl. Aren’t chicks smarter in general?

No, all gym rats are stupid. There is no way around it. This is a lost cause and I am fool for being suckered in.

This situation I have gotten myself into is simply a bad deal all around. I must only endure it.

The alarm rang early. I drove to the gym and was there early, too. I admit I was nervous.

I said as much to Greg. He nodded seriously, and talked about what would be happening that doy.

Greg was not a teenager. Greg was tall. Greg actually had a lot of experience, and was good with the questions. The fat pinching was handled with professionalism, and I feel reassured.

We’ll see how it goes, but things were not as bad as I feared.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:41 PM | Permalink

* Vaccuum
* get my car's oil changed
* backup my computer hard drive
* lose 20 pounds

okay, the last one is just being hopeful. There is no way I can lose 20 pounds in one weekend. But if I were to lose 20 pounds, or at least start on it, maybe my list should include:

* spend 4 hours at the gym both saturday and sunday
* clean cupboards of all food and replace with liquid meal replacement supplements

Is that likely to happen? Absolutely not. In fact, maybe I should include another thing

* make a pot of healthy vegetable soup to snack on throughout the week
* buy new sports bras, since the last ones are losing their spring

Let me tell you, sport bras with elasticity of steel are vital for a good workout regimen. I wear two, because I want no bounce whatsoever and the least amount of jiggle I can manage. That takes two very snappy sport bras. Which are hard to find, because the bottom part that goes around the chest is a tourniquet and the part that goes around the actual shelf is not tight enough. You'd think that BRA makers of all people would want to protect my assets. It's tough.

But actually, which of these will get done? maybe I should be realistic about my list of things to do this weekend. What will I actually do?

* eat bag of salt and pepper potato chips
* watch psych and rockford files on Tivo
* take hot bath
* Stay in bed late and giggle with Chris about silly things

That sounds pretty good. I'm sure I'll be able to do that.

Maybe if I substitute the potato chips for a bowl of airpopped popcorn, that would be perfect.

Weekends seem to be so full of promise, and yet so little gets accomplished in the end.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:29 AM | Permalink

Tonight was the first time I got to be the visiting author for a book club that read my book.

It was thrilling!

They asked me to have study questions for the book, which I created. We all discussed it. It's so different to talk about my writing after it's done! I'm so used to giving it out for critique. But this is in stone now, no editing etc.

Which means, I got to actually talk about the story and explain this and that. You're NEVER supposed to do that during critique.

and at the end, I asked the ladies, "did you like it?"

And they all sincrely said, "yeah, it was good."

and they all said, "We want to know what happens next! Are you writing a sequel?"

It was amazing.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:37 PM | Permalink

Chris has been bugging me for years to go to Yellowstone. In his Chris-fashion, of course. He has a way of subtley talking about it in glowing terms and reminscing about how he enjoyed his trip there when he was a child.

He finds bits of trivia to bring into the conversation. "Did you know that inside Yellowstone is the cone of a volcano? that's why it has geysers."

"Did you know that it's the first national park ever? Ullyses Grant signed it into being a park even before Yosemite."

And finally, "Would you want to go there this fall? We could take a week and go there after school starts and the kids will not be crowding it."

The fact is that, while I enjoy nature, I prefer trips to places of deep history. Like...Paris! Old buildings and interesting shopping is my idea of highly enjoyable.

Also, I like to see new things. I don't want to read the same books again or vacation in the same place twice. The world is so full, and life is so short, I don't want to retrace my steps.

But I hadn't been to Yellowstone. And it did sound pretty good. Yes, Chris, I would go.

And we bought the books. And we gathered the maps. Chris handled the hotels, I handled the airfare. We were set.

Yellowstone was unendingly amazing. We saw so many animals and we saw the kind of landscape you can see nowhere else.

Old faithful was great, but the other geysers surpassed it.

The buffalo were majestic. The moose were focussed on their meals. The bears were funny, and the elk were....Well...it's was mating season for the elk.

We saw antelopes, but they were not playing with any deer. Maybe that's early in the season.

The coyotes looked so much like dogs, we wished we could give them treats.

Chris wanted to know if I would be willing to come back. I think so. It would not feel like retracing my steps.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:48 AM | Permalink

I'm back.

I got back yesterday from a glorious visit to the first national park america made.

it was amazing and incredible and I spent the last three days sad that I had to leave.

I spent the first five days pretty sick with a cold. That adds up to 8 days, which is how long I stayed there.

Fortunately, I have the world's most considerate boyfriend and he was able to drive me around and I saw a tremendous amount of the park and it's wildlife.

Wow.

Wow.

I will post some photos (you'll be sick of all the photos I post!) when I download them.

It's just a quiet day at home now, getting used to being home.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:05 AM | Permalink

I am very excited to go on my vacation. I can hardly wait.

Chris has been talking it up for forever, and now we are finally going to Yellowstone.

He and I have been on a lot of nature trips. Heck, we've been on a lot of trips. Most of them have been nature oriented.

This will be a doozy. No one in my family has been to Yellowstone. I have not been.

I am looking forward to it. And since it's a matter of thumb-twiddling for the most part, I took the opportunity to organize my photos of other nature trips.

I'm on flickr, and I'm now working to get it synced with this blog. I"d love to share my photos with you all.

Just wait.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 03:17 PM | Permalink

This is the last third of the year.

It's been a good year.

I've felt particularly lazy this week. My co-worker said he's felt the same way. Could it be because that the weather has stayed in the high 90s?

I've felt like doing nothing but watch TV, read, and sleep.

So, this would be the perfect way to spend my holiday weekend. Somehow, though, I have planned all sorts of things. I'm helping my church move this saturday, going to meet friends on sunday, and having dinner on monday.

I'm reading a really good book right now. Desirable Daughters by Mukherjee. It is kind of a mystery, but not so much that it hits you over the head with it. It's a mystery that sneaks up on you. Which is good, because I don't like mysteries.

However, I think I will finish it tonight. I only have about 8 pages left.

Back to the library!

But I've got another on on tape, called Bang!
It's an african-american lit book...There are a lot of african american books out there...whole sections of book store are now being given to african american books. Interesting...Anyway. This one is about a family, well, the son in the family, whose younger brother was shot at the age of seven.

Poor little kid just got in the way of a bullet meant for someone else. The family gets destroyed with grief though. The mom can't let go, and the dad decides that he let his sons be too soft, and if the 7 year old had been tougher, he would have made it.

So the older boy and his best friend (whose father is dead) are taken on this camping trip. THe dad drives way out there, and after two days of camping, just drives off. He leaves them there to fend for themselves and find their way home.

It gets worse and worse from there. It's pretty sad.

I only have one more tape of that to listen to. I'll probably finish it this weekend too.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:33 PM | Permalink

Summer is almost over. Perhaps it is over. It doesn't feel over in my new home town. But the kids are back in school.

I miss school. I miss it very much. I miss having a teacher tell me "Good job!" when I turn in my homework. I miss the motivation that comes from know that someone notices how I am doing.

But I'm a grown up now. I dragged out the whole school thing almost as long as I possibly could. It's time now for me to kick my own butt.

I have done a huge project, getting my book published. But I am realizing, that is only half the work. Just because I wrote it does not mean people will read it. I need to get it into their hands.

Which takes a whole new set of skills and experiences that I simply do not have.

I am going to have to learn them. It's harder than I realized.

And the fact of the matter is, no one is going to really care if I don't succeed. That means it's very easy for me to not do it. I could procrastinate and take forever and ever and never quite do it.

I want to do it. But this is harder than I thought. It's taking some real effort.

and a lot of it is just mental work. It's scary. And it doesn't seem like it should be.

But I really feel liek I'm swimming with sharks. Even if they are only in my mind....

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

..or just finished reading...

*Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami
*Pay it Forward
*The Language of Archetypes
*Until I find You
*Liza of Lambeth
*Anne Frank
*Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I wish I could slow down a little and savor some more. It seems difficult to do, as if I am very behind on my reading and the books are all so interesting.

Perhaps I will re-read when I am old.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

But the most fascinating thing for me was—and is, still—that there were words, lined up to say one thing and another, but one’s response was not exactly to the words, and what they appeared to be saying, but to something enormous and living beyond that, which the words exactly entailed.

I have thought this for a long time. I’ve thought that words are the stones that mark out the outlines of greater thoughts and ideas—even another world. They are so very little in themselves, these poor words. But they have such power at times, when wielded.

Books, poems, they have a use. They are particular and different than other ways of conveying ideas. Music has it’s own, movies have their own, conversation, theater, photographs—they have their own particular strength and logic. Each has a cause and effect.

But words as so dear to my heart. Words on a page or spoken out loud move me like nothing else.

Even talking to myself, I am in awe so very often of what words can give me.

I think of Archimedes “Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth.”

He was speaking of the mechanical tool, the lever. Words to me are the lever of the soul. Give me a way to string the words and who can’t I move?

At least that is the possibility.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:36 PM | Permalink

Previously, I wrote about a writing group that I am starting.

It's the 3rd Tuesday of the month, and the first meeting was in July. But no one came.

I was sad, but I decided it was up to me to do a better job of advertising. I researched it, put up a few more flyers and also called the local paper to have them put it on their calendar of events. I put it on Inland Empire Craig's list, and I even guilted my neighbor into coming.

My very nice neighbor Sue said she would come. She said she'd never written before, but apparently she felt sorry for me and agreed to come. I felt slightly guilty about guilting an uninterested person into coming, but I really didn't want to have another no show class.

August meeing came. And so did three other people. And if you count neighbor Sue, four! It was fabulous. And as it turned out, Sue's interest wasn't purely pity after all. She has some great projects in mind. And so did Julie, and Marie and Ella.

What a great time!

I am proud, and very pleased that I persevered in spite of initial disinterest.

Now I too am inspired by the class, and I am getting my promotional kit together. Miriam needs to get out into the world and meet people!

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Things come in cycles.

I learn important life changing things, things that will redirect and fundamentally change how I do things.

Then, I forget.

Then, i remember again.

"EPIPHANY 2: BACK WITH A VENGEANCE!!!!"

How come I forget? I forget what was so important to know.

And I will keep forgetting. I know this.

I remembered a thing I forgot yesterday.

i was frustrated that I wasn't meeting certain creative goals. Then, while whining and beating myself up about it to Chris (who listened so patiently) I remembered.

I CAN"T do those kinds of things head on. I am not that way. I can't sit down at a desk with a sheaf of white paper and a pencil. I do not sit up straight and pay attention and dispatch tasks.

I have to approach them sideways. I have to almost pretend that I'm not really doing it. I need noise, music, people, distractions. Otherwise I panic.

Funny, I've been panicking.

So, now I have remembered what I forgot.

We'll see what I forget next.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Miriam can be found here

yes, you got that right! I am on Amazon.com

I am pretty happy about that.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There's a mind puzzle that goes like that. The goose, the fox and the grain have to get across the river. But your boat will only carry one at a time. And if you leave the goose with the fox, the fox will eat the goose. If you leave the goose with the grain, the goose will eat the grain. So how do you get them all across the river?

I want to exercise in the morning. I also want to beat traffic in the morning. I want to write in the morning. I like to ride the bus to work when I can.

So...I have been exercising to a tape in the morning. But I've been doing the same exercise tape for almost two years, and I think I'm getting a repetitive stress problem in my side. So, I need to change that.

Also, if I go to work earlier in the morning, I will spend approximately 1/3 to 1/2 less time on the road. Maybe I should join a gym near my job, leave way early in the morning and exercise on the other side of the commute.

However, that would mean giving up the time (not that often, but sometimes I do) I would have to write if I rode the bus to work.

Hmm...Come to think of it, I have not been that successful at writing on this particular bus. I just end up getting distracted. I used to be very good at writing and riding...But I haven't been very productive with original work lately, on the bus or otherwise.

Anyway. THe bus has the advantage of being less wear on my car, and morally superior to burning up my own personal gasoline.

But it means that I spend more time on the road than I would if I drove in early to work out at the gym.

Also, if I drove in early, I would actually work out longer and potentially be a hardbody. I can dream.

So, okay, if I drove in at 5:30 am I would get a good workout in and spend less time in traffic (and therefore less gasoline), it would take care of my desire to exercise.

But I would have to develop another habit to set aside time to write everyday.

It's always a balance....

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:40 PM | Permalink

i was all proud of my assimilation to the heat. I have gotten to where I can tolerate it so much better.

When I first moved to California, I was rendered immobile by 80 degrees. It was like superman and kryptonite...I fell to the floor in a jelly and couldn't move.

But I can move in it now! I can accomplish housework and perform feats of concentration, such as reading or paying bills.

That is, until last weekend. I went to Sacramento, and it was as if the kryptonite had been distilled.

It's a heat wave.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Chris said to me last night "If it wasn't hard, you wouldn't want to do it. You'd just complain that you were bored."

Boyfriends can be so annoying when they are right.

The fact is, I had a disappointment yesterday. I have been working to set up a writing group, a class that I would lead and charge money for. Not a lot of money, but I wanted to get a group of people that were more dedicated. My thought is, if people have to pay for something they will value it more.

So I wanted to get a group of people dedicated to writing. I also believe that I would be a good leader and teacher of such a group.

I made reserved a community room and put up flyers. I prepared handouts and guidelines for the students. I had a lesson plan and extra pens.

I got to the facility early and waited. I had no idea how many people would come!

No one came.

I choose to believe that I need to learn how to advertise the group better. In fact, I have a lot to learn about promotion and advertising. My book needs a lot of that too.

I don't know much about it. I will have to learn.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I haven't been in my house for a full year. And the house is old and quaint. I have decided to distract myself for the extreme heat by doing some house projects.

I am refinishing a door.

Basically, there was some peeling on the paint in a very obvious place. It looked kinda shabby, and the only way to repair it is to strip all the paint off and repaint it.

The door are very pretty, with the sort of detailing that doesn't happen anymore. Nothing too ornate, just three indented panes with a little detail around the edge of each pane.

I thought about how many layers of paint had been put on that door over the last 56 years, and I thought the details would really pop out if I were to reduce it to a mere 2 layers.

Stripping paint is not a job for the faint hearted. Or the easily distracted. Fortunately, I am neither. But it is still a LOT of Paint to get off.

Of course the first thing was to unscrew it off it's hinges, so I can lay it flat. I had to use a little stripper just to find the screw under all the paint, but I accomplished it.

Then, I had to take the doorknob off. The doorknob looked worse for the wear.

We will need a new knob. Which is an interesting thought. What sort of knob do I want?

Then I notice...almost every doorknob in my home is unique. How did such a variety of knobs get into this house? I think there are 15 knobs in my little house, with about 10 unique models.

They have different shapes, a lot of different finishes. How did that happen? was there some kind of freak reason to replace the doorknobs everywhere?

Doorknobs are not as cheap as I would like them to be. About 25 bucks. Not much for just one, but it's a little pricier to buy 15. I will, however, be buying 15. I am pleased with the thought of uniformity in my doorknobs.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:30 AM | Permalink

I am feeling like writing.

But I am full of too much to write.

Okay, so I will write a list. Maybe it will mean something when I am done.

LIST OF WHAT I AM WEARING (VISIBLE PORTION ONLY)
lipstick (onsale, and slightly melted from being left in the car) VINTAGE MAUVE
BIG coby headphones
pretty gold and jewel earings
white shirt with french cuffs. The shirt WOULD be crisp if I had ironed it, but I didn't, so I am wearing
Danskin hoodie, teal, which I bought while wandering around bored after work in San Diego. Work trips leave you out of sorts.
Ipod in my pocket, which is not visible, so I shouldn't count it but I am anyway.
Jeans, with the up-and-down white threads that were fashionable last year in the same way that acid wash was fashionable in the late 80s and which will probably look as dated even faster but which make me feel slightly cool even though I know they are not really cool anymore, if I were a fashionista---oh, and there is a hole on the right thigh.
brown suede nike high-tops

Oh yeah, and a silver watch which is probably broken since it is not waterproof and got overly humidified in san diego and now has condensation on the inside of the glass.

hmmm...That doesn't really leave me with things to talk about. Maybe I need another list

I know I need to make a list of the things I want to do. i have a lot of good things happening. I tell you the truth, I feel strange with out more stress in my life.

My projects seem small and insignificant.

i remember when I worked at McDonald's as a teenager. I remember the slow times. I felt like I was stuck in molasses. I couldn't move fast, because when it was slow, there was no reason, no pressure to do so.

My manager would tell me to move faster. It was a high-pressure environment. But I just couldn't be inspired.

I did okay. I was never fired from mcDonald's or reprimanded in any way. I did speed up when the customers lined up.

But, when you don't have something pushing you, it's hard to push yourself.

So, i feel like writing. But I have to get my thoughts a little better organized before I can begin.

I guess i need to take the time to do that.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:36 AM | Permalink

It is, you know.
"I have not yet begun to fight!"
"Give me Liberty or Give me Death!"

Do you all feel that way? What does liberty mean to you?

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:55 PM | Permalink

In my previous post about my boring life, I let you all know about my insecurities and my active imagination. The fact is, I am feeling vulnerable about my writing. I feel rusty. And I’ve been doing the never-do-that thing of comparing myself to others.

I am not Shakespeare and I am not Amy Tan. I am not anybody but myself, and that can make me feel depressed and inadequate.

I chose to spend a little time writing about myself, and it made me feel better. I shared it with you all. It amused me to write it; I thought it would amuse others to read it.

You’ve seen it on my page here, and I submitted it to another site so even more people could enjoy it. I submitted it late at night, and it was too late for the editors to check it and post it.

I was excited and checked my email to see if I had gotten any comments about it in the morning. Here is what the editor said:

Dear Murphy,

Thank you for your contribution, "My Boring Life." Currently it is not suitable for the needs of [our site] and will not be published. It's been placed in Draft to give you an opportunity to get a copy of it for your computer.

To be resubmitted, the article would need to address the following:

There appears to be no discernible reason why you went from having a boring day to being quite upset. Was this an effort to inject some level of excitement into an otherwise boring day or was there a catalyst for this?

"Chris" is mentioned only in passing so we have no idea who this person is or their place of significance in your life. Where did you meet this person? How has this person come to be involved in your life? What is your relationship with this person? What book was this person reading that needed to be returned?

Although the title and opening paragraphs indeed define the boring life, it's unclear whether this is a problem to resolve or a rant about the way things are. If the former, the article would then need to include resolution of some kind, perhaps any steps you've taken -- successfully and unsuccessfully -- to bring more enthusiasm in to your life. If the latter, it's not likely to hold the reader's attention.

It's been my experience that even the most boring life is only seemingly so, that in fact many opportunities pop up all on their own and, if taken, do wonders for the humdrum of routine. Additionally, seeking out opportunities instead of making the most of things that could happen but didn't (dropping car/work keys in the library drop box) does also lead us down paths of ever-growing activity where we oftentimes meet those who share our interests.

Other issues you might address would be why you work out, where you are employed and your duties/relationships there, the significance of both your mother and yourself having seemingly boring lives, what's going on with your car and how you resolved its issues (and if you didn't, why not? Money? Time? Knowledge?), and how it is that you came to live in this town for about a year (when/why did you move?).

Feel free to resubmit the article after it's been reworked. I look forward to what you do with it.


Sincerely,
[missy editor]

What?!? had I asked for armchair psychotherapy? Maybe she read it too fast. Couldn't she see the hyperbole? I mean really, just the phrase "The mind boggles with such humdrummery" should have rung the "time to laugh" bell. Everything in this email seemed to say "I am stupid and I don't get it." I replied quickly:

Missy E.,

This piece was meant to be a piece of humor, talking about the busy excitement of ordinary life.

The first-person narrator complains about having a boring life, but in reality, her life is actually rather exciting. I believe "ironic tension" is what I was striving towards.

It is possible, I suppose, that you found the piece boring and uninteresting, and therefore did not see any tension between the "boring" premise and the things that followed.

You are right, though, about me not introducing Chris. I will edit that to say that he's my boyfriend. But I don't think the title of the library books would push the momentum of the story, and would only distract.

Perhaps you would like to give it a re-read, with the understanding that is a piece of ironic humor, and see if your below objections remain unresolved. Then we can go forward with the next step.

Murphy

Her very quick reply back cleared things up:

Dear Murphy,

As a good portion of the article was speculation per things that could have happened but did not, there is little in the way of ironic tension between the general theme (of a boring life) and that which actually took place.

The article will not be published as is. It will remain in Draft until 9pm eastern time and then it will be deleted.

Sincerely,
Missy Pissy editor

Harsh. Harsh. My life was excruciatingly boring. It is proven so. And the only possible humor is the one that Missy Pissy understands. After all, one must have standards and hold all others to them.

I think I may not submit to that site any longer. I enjoy my own writing too much.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The fact is, I find my life mostly unexciting. I do rather ordinary things and I am not very interesting. So, I don’t necessarily talk about what I’m doing, because even I don’t find it interesting.

This is a problem for me. Really it is. Because when it comes time to say something, to give an account of myself when someone poses the questions “How are you?” or even “What’s new?”—I am at a loss.

How am I? About the way I was yesterday, the previous day in my unexciting life. Nothing of any significance is new.

So, I end up saying something inane and leaving the question-poser disappointed. Yes, I know they only ask because their life is also without excitement. They are asking in the hope that I would have something to bring to the table, some appetizer of excitement to share.

Nope. I hate to disappoint, but I got nothin’.

Yesterday was a particularly uneventful day. I came home with very boring ambitions. I wanted to eat dinner, exercise and deposit some checks in the bank. Maybe putter into a little housecleaning. I wanted to be sure to charge up my Ipod since I had neglected to do so the day before.

The mind boggles at such humdrummery.

I wasn’t hungry right away, so I got a jump-start on the puttering. I put the Ipod to charge and began righting the housekeeping wrongs of the weekend.

Order and cleanliness emerged shyly in places they usually were not invited to. Good news! Even better, the Ipod was charging faster than I had hoped, so I got to putter wearing the ‘pod.

I was listening to podcasts. Podcasters are enviable to me—people with cleverness and gumption, with something to say, something worth capturing and distributing. I listened and envied and puttered.

Then mom called. No more podcasts, but I got to tell her about the cool stuff I had been hearing. I told her about my despair of being dull as dirt.

Mom had called, because she herself was doing something uninteresting. She had lots of copying to do at school, and just wanted someone to entertain her. I guess I got to be her live podcast.

Well, she had a lot of copying to do with an uncooperative machine, and I had a lot of things to tell her about my boring life, and the artistic poverty of my blog.

“Oh honey! You are an excellent writer! I love reading what you say on your website!”

This is very nice to hear, and adds considerably to my enjoyment of this phone call. But to be realistic, she is my mother. She has to say that. The compliment has a short half-life.

Nevertheless, I spent too long on the phone to my mother. When I hung up I was very hungry. And I still had to get to the ATM! Not to mention working out.

I was rushing now. Grab the checks. Find my shoes. I’m hungry! I am not in the mood for this!

“The library books are overdue. Can you return them?” Chris asks politely.

I’m in a hurry. I’m hungry and I have things I need to finish. “No.”

“It’s right next to the bank. You can do it.” The needle had moved from polite request into the indignant/whine zone.

“Fine!” I snagged the books, hopped into my shoes, crabbier than ever. I shouldn’t have talked on the phone so long! Did I have a pen? I would need it for the deposit slip.

I get into my car. Well, at least the radio is playing something I like. But it’s dark and I can’t remember exactly where the bank is. It’s somewhere on this street. I’ll find it eventually.

Just past the railroad tracks, the car shrieks.

FWEEE! A picture that looks like an inkwell sprung a leak—a gusher of newfound Texas Tea…Oh crap. Something is wrong with my oil.

I don’t want to deal with this! I am not stopping. I’m going to the bank. I’m going to deposit all this stuff and go home and eat.

Where is that bank anyway? It’s got to be here somewhere. I will figure this out, look up this German symbol of an inkwell with a geyser, but only after I reach the bank.

But then I have to yell at myself. Oh great, so now you are going to ruin your car just because you are pissy and don’t want to return library books. Is a seized engine worth this?

FWEEEEE!!!

I answer myself, I’ll do whatever I please and I don’t feel like talking. Where is that stupid bank? I thought it was here.

There was a bank there, but the wrong one. I pulled in anyway and turned off the car and the radio. At that point, the inkwell geyser blinked off.

WHAT?! The car light had been screaming at me, telling me something is wrong, and then just goes silent, like "never mind, you’re busy, I didn’t mean it...”

Don’t toy with me! Either there is an inkwell oil geyser happening or not. Them’s fighting words round here. I pulled over for you, car, and now you want nothing to do with it? I don’t’ think so!

I turned on the radio again. I’m not losing my good tunes for this passive aggressive car. I got the manual out of the glove compartment.

I’ve been through this before. The alarm documentation is not intuitive. It’s not even in the index under ‘alarm’. After flipping back and forth for a while, enough time for the tunes to segue into commercials, I discover that my windshield wiper fluid is low.

I’m certainly glad I stopped.

I drove around and finally found the right bank. There is a line at the ATM. But maybe that's just as well, because I need to add up the total of the checks. No calculator. Well, I should know how to add and carry.

I wonder what they would do if you got it wrong? I mean, is it no big deal, or do you only get so many chances from your bank? You could get some kind of notice.
“Dear Bank member:
After received your third addition failure we are rescinding your ATM deposit privileges.”

That would be very humiliating.

Or worse, maybe they would think you did it on purpose! I know of a girl who was dating this guy. He would deposit empty envelopes to withdraw money out of his account that wasn’t there. He needed the money because he was a crack head. They broke up, thank god. I should call her.

I triple checked the math on this deposit—I’m pretty sure I got it right. And at least that is done. Now to the library.

It is so dark out; I can’t see any signs. Geez, I’ve lived here almost a year. When will I figure out where I am?

I fall back on my strategy of starting one direction and going somewhere until you are there. It worked, and I found the library. I know the distance from the bank to the library was shorter than the drive I took, but I got there, so who cares and leave me alone.

I found a parking space quick. I jumped out, leaving my door open and my purse inside. I grabbed the library books and my keys in my hand. There’s the drop box. Pull it down; in they go. Be careful not to drop the keys in the drop box!

I wonder what would happen if I had dropped the keys in? I wonder what I would do? Good thing I had left the car door open. I could get to my purse and cell phone to call Chris to come help me.

Would the library people come and open the library to get me my keys? Claremont is small and very Mayberry, but I don’t think they are that Mayberry. I would have to wait for them to open in the morning. Well, afternoon. They open at 1.

But I would be okay, because Chris would come get me and there is a spare key to the car and to my house. I’d be okay. The only key I don’t have spares for are the work keys.

Oh man! That would be terrible. I couldn’t get into work. I would have to call there and say I would not be in because I had dropped my keys in the library drop box. That would be beyond embarrassing.

I could just say I was sick. I would have to lie. Call in with a cough or something. There has been a cold going around. I could make it convincing.

I have never called in sick when I wasn’t sick, but I know people that do. Why do we have to do that? Why are we forced to lie? Why must we come up with some story? Why can’t we just be given respect? I mean, we should just be allowed to say, “I will not be able to come in today” and leave it at that. That would have some dignity.

But my keys were in my hand, so I drove home. I knew my way home from the library.

I made some soup and sat down to talk to Chris. I told him about my boring unexciting life, and about all the enviable podcasters and bloggers who are so far above me in importance and relevance.

He was kind and acted interested.

Dammit. I didn’t get to workout.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

This is a special day. This is the day that the earth begins it's change.

Up until now, 2006 has been getting lighter. Lighter and more sunshine. It has been getting slightly warmer too.

But now, NOW, the earth will get darker. More night.

Interstingly, it will get hotter for a while longer. The next 3 months should be extremely hot. Maybe 4 months.

But it will be darker.

And I think everyone should notice. I myself will be eating barbeque with Chris tonight.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:01 PM | Permalink

I watched a South Park episode last night. Kenny, whose most prominent feature is his propensity to die, had gained proficiency at a video game. The game was a war between heaven and hell. He was extremely good at it, achieving level 60

Of course, he died, but it turned out that his death served a purpose. The video game really was a simulation for the war between heaven and hell. His skill at the video game saved the world.

Kenny's propensity to die, combined with his skill at the video game, had saved the world.

There are people who have incredible skills that are meant for highly specific intersections of the time-space continuum.

Remember Rubik's cubes? My brother had a friend back then who was so good at solving Rubik's cubes that he had to lubricate them to allow for the super-fast manipulations. What a genius! Incredible!

The rest of us cheated, and moved the stickers. But this one guy, he was a master.

What might have happened if he was born 50 years earlier? He would never have discovered his talent.

There are possibilities that are for only that moment. Right now, not any other time, blogging is happening. I have a feeling that blogs will evolve into something else pretty soon, but RIGHT NOW there are some earth-shaking bloggers out there.

Instapundit has a blog. He is like a perpetual motion machine of blogging. With the incredibly wide and sometimes deep levels of curiousity and knowledge he has, can you imagine what he would be like to live with before he had to blog to put that into?I imagine that his wife was relieved when he began to blog.

And in a totally different genre of blogging, there is James Lileks
His perpetually funny and often profound writing is also massively popular.

These two guys are totally different in style, but similar in that they are born to this time, this space, this blog

My blog has dropped from popularity lately. Not so many people are stopping by, because I have not been maintaining my 'web-presence.'

I try to tell myself that I am a different sort of writer, when faced with the web titans I have mentioned.

But as for some people...They were born to blog.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 03:19 PM | Permalink

I moved into my new home last year. In August. Or was it September?

And it is a nice home. I enjoy it. There is a small kitchen, one bathroom, and three bedrooms.

Of course, one bedroom is to sleep in. The other bedroom is for Chris to use as his office.

and then the third. The third bedroom has remained as a place to stick other things. All the unfinished things, not yet 'away.'

It is the junk room.

But no more. I cleaned it out. I cleared the floor. I found a place to put things away. Even if it was just the garage. It has a corner vanity, where I keep my jewelry. I have a lot of it, you know. But there is a coffee table, which holds my laptop and the cat, much of the time. There is also a comfortable armchair, pulled close to the spot for the laptop. The cat is in this the rest of the time. And a few blank places along the wall. But I ordered bookshelves for them. By next week, it will be the

LIBRARY

and not a bad one. It makes me happy to sit in it.

HOORAY! No more junk room! I posses all of my home now!