theology&geometry

Welp, in mere hours, it’ll be time once again for the you-know-what. I’ve said the word “zombie” so many times this week that I’m kind of tired of it and would like to not say it again for a few months. So it goes. Every year.

I’m paranoid about turnout, of course. I always imagine that it will be, like, thirty people, all of whom will be immensely bored. It’ll be good. I know it will. It’s just that, every year, so many people around me who are so seemingly gung-ho about it drop out at the last minute. Shit happens, this I know. But that kind of thing skews my perception of the whole and I assume that everyone is going to spontaneously decide not to show up. And that’s when I get to start kicking myself for not doing a better job of getting the word out. Even though, damn, we got on Fox 13 news last week (even though they did tell everyone the wrong date) and we’re in Friday’s paper and I’ve seen a fair amount of web buzz about it. And I’ve been slogging through the nightmare that is MySpace for months and months, making sure the kids know all the details.

It’ll be fine.

Breathe breathe breathe.

The only thing that’s going to suck about it is running around, trying to make sure people take the correct turns, and trying to take pictures that don’t suck. All while being completely out of shape. That I don’t look forward to. So if you see me running around and I’m not, shall we say, verbose, it’s probably because I’m out of damn breath and don’t want you to see me pant. And sweat. Which I will also be doing because it is going to be very warm.

Can you tell I’m nervous? I haven’t even had anything to drink to fuel this bloggeherrea. I’m just straight-up anxious.

Okay. I’ve got to clean up a bit since I’ll have a houseguest. And I should probably go to sleep at some point and hope this hurty throat I’ve got going will disappear overnight. The hurtiness, that is. I’d like to keep the throat.

Redesigns aren’t meant to be conceived of and executed in less than two hours, but, well, this blog is fairly low-maintenance, so, there ya go.

Sayonara, T&G 2007. You served me well.

I’m sure I’ll be making minor tweaks to the redesign (which isn’t so much a redesign as it is a change in color palette and banner) in the coming days. I have no idea how this looks in Internet Explorer, nor do I care.

I’m not taking many photographs lately. Stepping off the Project 365 bandwagon for 2008 has really sucker-punched my motivation. Which sucks. I’m nothing if not goal-oriented. Methinks I might jump back on. Informally. But formally enough to ensure that I at least get the camera out once a day.

After work I hopped over the bridge and tried to reason my way toward the West Memphis Wal-Mart (not such a good strategy in retrospect, because, while you’d think we’d have evolved by now to be able to sense Wal-Mart, it just didn’t work that way for me). A smarter person would have printed out directions or at least looked at them before embarking on the road trip, but, chickens, I am not a smarter person.

Anyhoo, with Phil’s help, I was able to locate the damned bastion of late-night consumerism, only to find that their dress-shoe selection is even more depressing than I had imagined (I am struck with intense love for Target right now, and always, except for that brief time when I tried to boycott them over their wishy-washy birth-control policy). But I came away with a pair of pumps (ick, that feels wrong to even write) and a half-slip that will get me through my former co-worker’s funeral tomorrow (er … in eight hours), and hopefully I will be able to stow them away until the next funeral, which I hope doesn’t come for a long, long time.

I’ve got to get my daily picture posted, but I’m exhausted, so I should probably wash my face, empty the trash, and go to bed.

Two non-sequiturs to end this rambly post:

1. This shit is awesome.

2. Holy crap, I’ve forgotten the second.

• Dried cherries from Walgreens. Dear god these things are amazing.

• Jezzball.

• Grow.

• The new Kings of Leon album. Finally, I’ve come around to liking it after a month of feeling extremely “meh” about it. And I can pinpoint the exact moment my opinion changed: Mother’s Day, at my aunt and uncle’s cabin, just as a political discussion was getting heated and I realized I couldn’t sit there and not say anything for much longer (I try my best these days to stay out of these discussions because I always end up crying because the people I love hold such awful opinions of their fellow humans of different races and, often, genders), so I grabbed my camera and my iPod and went upstairs to sit alone on the deck. As I settled into the rocking chair, I hit the shuffle button. And “Knocked Up” began, its opening beats steady and quiet, building gradually. I stared out over the river to the opposite bank and watched the wind flirt with the trees. I think the sun winked at me, y’all. The song was the perfect soundtrack to a breezy Sunday spent on a rocking chair on the bank of the river. And after that moment, the rest of the album made complete sense.

• Procrastination, which is why I’m making this list.

• Relatedly, ambivalence.

• lolcats. I know, they’re on the verge of jumping the shark (if they haven’t already), but they crack me up so much I just can’t stand it. Lately I’ve been giggling at I Can Has Cheezburger? and contemplating the greater cultural significance and grammatical implications of cat macros. And you can even make your own. I’m itching to break out some homemade ferret macros. Felix was born to be a macro star.

I’m having the worst time falling asleep tonight. I suspect that has a lot to do with getting totally shitfaced at 3 p.m. and then passing out at 6, only to wake up and lounge around, still fairly tipsy, until bedtime.

I laid down at 1:30, read a bit, then turned out the light and tossed and turned through a series of dream-limbo misfires — the kind that put you in such unpleasant scenerios so that you’re sure to wake up before you actually fall asleep. The only one I can remember is a weirdly loud buzzing going on in my head that startled me awake. I woke up, flipped over, and fell into another unpleasant dream. And again and again. Until mild desperation set in.

And as soon as I was actually slipping into some real sleep, I heard a door slam and some shouting out in the parking lot. And, because my Grandmaw taught me well and I am a nosy creature, I slid open my window to listen to the commotion. And lo there was profane name-calling. And the woman getting into the car said something about “That’s why I won’t be up on you again and you can’t even pay your rent!” And there were strings of epithets that would make sailors swoon. And there were car doors slammed.

And when the car rumbled its way out of the lot — I actually half expected it to go tearing out — I tried to get back to sleep, only to slip once more into uncomfortable near-dreams, and be awakened once more by the slamming of a car door, at which point I realized that crazy car lady had returned to the no-rent-paying gentlemen with whom she’d just had a tiff, and they proceeded to hash out their problems in the parking lot — again — at an elevated volume. At which point my downstairs neighbor (who will be getting a cake from me for this) ventured outside and said, “Look guys, I’m not interested in justice — I FUCKING LIVE HERE! — so could you go inside or go home or just cut it out because I FUCKING LIVE HERE!”

After all that excitement, I’m finding it hard to get to sleep. Which sucks. Because I got lots of shiz to do tomorrow.

• Give me $100 so my rent check won’t bounce.

• Better yet, buy me a house.

• Get my jokes. They’re not that obscure.

• Make my arms stop peeling. How many layers, exactly, did I burn?

• Squash this insufferable anxious ennui that’s churning in my gut at all times.

• Give me some kind of hope that I’m not wasting my twenties being even angstier and weirder and lonelier than my teens.

• Mandate that if a machine will only take quarters, there must be a functioning change machine within twenty feet.

• Go get my clothes out of the dryer.

(Not to be continued with BAMF blogging, which is what I do here on a regular basis.)

This weekend I’ll be tickling the polystyrene buttons for The Commercial Appeal here at the official Memphis in May blog. Everyone’s favorite Brandonian will be there too, thank god, since he’s not updated his own blog since September — September! — and has left us pining for his biting insights since then.

I won’t actually be at the festival the entire time all three days; I’ve got to work in the office until 7 or 8 on Friday and Saturday, at which point I’ll be hauling ass down to the river. Sunday, though, should be pretty laid back, since I’m technically off work. I can think of worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon than down by the river, soaking up sun (hopefully), listening to the hum of live music and the pulse of a drunken crowd.

Something new for the BSMF blog this year is a reader-submitted Flickr photostream. If you’re at the festival and you want to send photos that you’ve taken, shoot them to this address: flickr@commercialappeal.com. Keep the boob shots for yourself, pervs.

The weather looks to be sufficiently iffy for a muddy ol’ good time, at least on Friday. I’m looking forward to it.

Random thing No. 4,312 that drives me absolutely batshit crazy: People touching my computer screen.

What is it about those flat-panel LCD screens that make people want to touch them? Is it because they go all gooey-crazy when you put pressure on them, and you can see the little ripples of color go trailing across the screen? Is it because people secretly want to see if they can bruise someone else’s screen with a quick jab of the forefinger? Is it because people want to leave their disgusting fried-dumpling-caked fingerprints all over my freaking screen?

I’m considering putting up a sign on or near my monitor that says something like, “Touch here only if you wish to pull back a bloody stump” or “My personal space extends to here” and then pasting arrows all the way around the screen, just so there’s no confusion.

So the next time you saunter over to someone else’s computer to point something out to them, and you raise a wobbly, outstretched finger toward their monitor, take care to keep your icky flesh at least half an inch from the actual screen! Those of us with mild OCD thank you, jackass.

I just got back from a walk to Burke’s to return the book I got for my dad’s birthday, which — as I suspected — he already owned. That little transaction will help out with the budget situation this week, but it means that I have to keep hunting for something the man doesn’t already own. Which is fricking impossible; this makes at least the third or fourth time I’ve bought him something he already has, and had to issue an IOU instead of an actual gift.

I need to be more creative. Luckily I have something in mind that I KNOW he doesn’t have, if I finagle a decent price.

The walk was nice and, by the time I had made the block and arrived back at my apartment, I was good and sweaty. It’s warm. Niiiiice and warm. Ah, from winter to late spring in the matter of a week. Love it. Had to throw the hair into some pigtails to get it out of my face. I’m getting the itch to cut it again (it’s been July since I had a haircut), but I have to go through the requisite several weeks of overwrought worrying about what I should actually do to it. I think I actually started the requisite several weeks of overwrought worrying a month ago, so maybe I’m getting close to making an actual appointment.

Blah blah blog blah, who cares about my hair? I barely even care about my hair!

Okay, I’m gonna go make a big fat salad for lunch (at 4 p.m.? yes) and eat some gouda.

Felix says hi.