There is no internet in the BWCA. Will return in a week. No songbook this Sunday, obviously.

The day before a 3-day weekend has a certain level of deadness to it, so have a zombie poem:

What do you want for lunch?

Jilly scratches her shoulder's dry hinge,
The arm twitches in response and confuses her.
Jenkins had asked a question, but now
Strokes his liver absently, a slimy pet.
Like the last two nickels in a gallon jar
Fingertips just brushing as they creep away
Her thoughts escape her.
But oh she remembers a glorious binge
When thinking and doing and more thinking
Drowned over her like soft grey flesh.
Jenkins gazes, eyes wider for the shriveled lids,
And by his confusion she can tell -
He thinks SHE asked the question.
The question whose answer lingers between them,
Possibly known if the question weren't forgotten.
So she starts a new one, lips cracking a bit
As she stretches her smile wide, teeth bright -
She always has one question to ask.
"Brains?"

Today is Cedar Point Day at my office, but for the first time ever they gave us the option to simply take 8 hours off instead of going to the amusement park. Since I'm not keen on roller coasters and most of my friends weren't going either, I've been doing yard work and other prep before I head off to the BWCA.

I just took a brief break to update my LJ profile for the first time in four years. It only took me a scant two months from my last post on this topic to knock it out. Given that you all pretty much know me anyway and most of you don't actually post anyway, I'm not sure why I bothered, but such is life. I'm not going anywhere any time soon, although at this point I usually get more comments on the x-post to Facebook than I do here. I also modified some minor text snippets here and there on the page and tweaked some settings, so if you see typos or dead links let me know.

Anyone know a way to automatically post a comment to LJ containing a link to the x-posted entry comment thread on FB? That would be kind of neat, actually.

I recorded a podcast once, of me reading a poem. It was part of this 'online poetry reading' thing, and quite fun. Then I tried to do a podcast for an online friend, where I read her story - but it was an erotic story and I blushed too much to finish.

Last night, Brian worked on recording his music talk for posting online. It was great watching him and gave me the urge to podcast again. Should I do a poem? A short story? Would anyone actually listen?

I have this ongoing dialog in my head, whereby I make all these plans of things I'm going to do: I'm going to weed the flower bed, I'm going to move that pile of logs, I'm going to write this story and edit this one and send this one in to that magazine...

and at the end of the week, nothing on that list is done. Writing it down seems to have no affect. Quite simply, I arrive at the 'spare time' wherein this stuff should happen and find that I would much rather take a nap, read, or knit.

Last night I napped, read, and knitted a lot. :D

Oddly, I've decided that what I really need to do is stop beating myself up about that and stressing out - sometimes you just need down time to be, like, down. And I only put these tasks off because I know they are put-off-able.

Last night when I put my bike away, the cable holding the garage door snapped. Another to-do added to the list. Our home seems to be quite demanding of maintenance time lately. I know the garage door has to come first, before the cosmetic task of weeding the flower bed, because I need to use the dang garage, yo.

Or I could spend time tonight clearing away the more cluttered left side of the garage so I can use that door in the meantime. yeah, that'll be the best bet - I can do that after inspecting the garage door hanging mechanism to see if I can repair it myself and if so what tools I'll need.

Or, very likely, I'll get home and decide I would rather take a nap or read or knit, and I'll lift my bike over the pile of junk like I did this morning.

But I have some days off coming soon. LO and mighty they are. I think I'm going to make a list of tasks, and make myself do one maintenance task every day of my days off - and reward myself with slacking afterward. (Rather than slacking first. Because slacking always manages to get done.)

So two Saturdays ago Eliza Rickman rolled into Cleveland late in the afternoon. I fed her a margherita pizza from Angelos. Thus fortified, she did two shows on Saturday night, the first at the Barking Spider and the second in my living room, which I intend to more fully review in a later post. In between shows Eliza drank a lot of chocolate milk, because that's how rock stars roll, yo. Everybody had ice cream novelties and my experimental dessert (a no-bake cherry cheesecake) and then went to bed.

The next morning I took Eliza to the Beachland Brunch, which was stellar as always. I had the sausage & gravy, which always make me feel like I should apologize to my sister the nutritionist. After that Eliza appeared live on Fantasy for Transmitter and Two Hosts, which included many songs from from her new album as well as stuff she picked out from other artists and a fantastic live performance of Ring of Fire on the accordion. We then got milkshakes at Tommys. At the risk of turning this into a tabloid, those concerned with celebrity gossip will note that Eliza had a black cherry milkshake and a spoonful of my peanut butter milkshake.

Eliza didn't have to be at her next stop until Monday, so she came back to the house for some rest & recuperation from the rigors of the road. This meant that I had to feed her dinner. I believe that I rose admirably to the task. This was confirmed the next day; I headed to work while Eliza was still asleep but she left me a very nice note that included the post-script "PS - I would not be mad if you sent me the recipe for that mushroom couscous - it was delish!"

The only problem is that I didn't actually have a recipe. I just sort of made it up, based on a meal my cousin Amy served up at her house a few Sundays previously. I didn't write it down at the time, but I think it went something like this:

Israelis Couscous Pilaf

Olive oil.
2-3 shallots, chopped
1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced (regular ones, nothing special)
1/2 (roughly 3 full cups) pound Israeli Couscous (aka, the big couscous)
4 cups water
Vegetable bouillon cubes (or broth if you have it handy)

1. Boil the water/broth.
2. Saute the shallots in olive oil over medium high heat, stirring frequently.
3. Add the mushrooms and saute a few more moments.
4. Add the couscous. Stir to coat in oil.
5. Add water boiling water.
6. Cook, stirring frequently, until water is absorbed.

Basically, I treated this as couscous risotto. In fact, if I'd added the water in stages and thrown in some wine it would have been hard to distinguish the steps from an official risotto. It generated approximately eight servings and was a lot of fun.

Interestingly, when I was googling for the amount of water that I should be using per cup of couscous, I ran into two contradictory stories about the origin of Israeli Couscous. The more common answer appears to be that it was invented at the direction of David Ben-Gurion in the 1950s. However, I found a few sites that argued that Israeli Couscous is merely a marketing term for a well known Arab dish. I have no idea which one is more accurate, but the cynic in me says that the Israelis-Palestinian conflict is now pushing all the way down to the history of couscous. Fortunately, this doesn't make the dish any less tasty.

Bar Graph

Here is a chart showing the ways in which you have disappointed your mother -
And how that has changed over time.
The blue bars represent the increasing numbers of things you will never be.
The orange dots are decision points, all wrong.
Generally it forms a gradient; the turquoise sunset reveals
A pastel echo of all the many many ways
You failed to justify or redeem the ways in which your mother
Disappointed hers.

There must be some way out of here
Said the joker to the thief
Bob Dylan, made famous by Jimi Hendrix, covered by dozens, if not hundreds.
All Along the Watchtower

All Along the Watchtower is interesting in that Bob Dylan's original version from the John Wesley Harding album has informed almost none of the subsequent versions of the song. The original is a sparse acoustic recording and is notable more for its lyrics than for its music. As I'm sure I don't need to tell you, the Jimi Hendrix Experience famously electrified it and that became the definitive version; virtually every cover version (and there are many) takes its inspiration from Hendrix. Dylan himself adopted Hendrix's phrasing for live performances. Thanks to the obsessive people who track Dylan setlists, we know that Dylan himself has played All Along the Watchtower more than any other song, and virtually every one of those performances followed Hendrix instead of his own original version. It is arguably Dylan's single most famous song, although there is obviously a lot of competition for that title. My iPod has four versions of the song, including the original Dylan, Hendrix and an Indigo Girls live version. The fourth is my personal favorite version of the song and is performed live by U2.

My fifth (and final) year of college was the first time I really listened to U2 extensively. I borrowed a bunch of their albums from my fraternity brother and one time radio co-host Dr. Bovi, including the Rattle & Hum album that features their recording of the song. U2's live version was performed in San Francisco in 1987, and follows Hendrix pretty closely. Most interestingly, it adds another verse that I personally feel is as good of a summation of politically oriented rock & roll as any that I've ever heard. This extra verse is the one that is lodged in my brain and that elevates this song to the songbook.

All I got is a red guitar
Three chords
And the truth
All I got is a red guitar
The rest is up to you

In part because of my obsession with this song, the summer after I graduated from college I did a radio show called "The Crossroads & the Watchtower." I alternated Crossroads shows (all blues) weekly with Watchtower showers (all freeform) and always ended the latter with one of the numerous versions of All Along the Watchtower. I never had to repeat versions, and I wasn't even trying all that hard.

After graduation I had to return Dr. Bovi's copy of Rattle & Hum. This led to me taking the extraordinary step of buying a new copy of the album for my own. I played it almost constantly for the four months I lived at home after graduation; I'm sure my mother would be happy to never hear it again. It ended up being the gateway drug into U2. I've seen them twice and own eight of their albums. Some twelve years after getting into them my interest has mostly waned, and the only album I listen to with any regularity is Rattle & Hum, which if the internet can be trusted is of course the U2 album that most of their fans have the least use for.

On a side note, Bullet the Blue Sky from Rattle & Hum also has one of the most damning lines of commentary to make it on to a live album:

Well the God I believe in isn't short of cash, mister.

I seriously think Rattle & Hum is one of the great live albums of all time.

Tracklist
#1 - Welcome to the Jungle
#2 - Runnin' Blue
#3 - Cryin'
#4 - Mr. Jones
#5 - Blinded by the Light
#6 - Piano Man
#7 - Romeo & Juliet
#8 - Ecstasy
#9 - Seasons of Love
#10 - Red Sweater!
#11 - Insomniac
#12 - It Had to Be You
#13 - Cabaret
#14 - Psycho Killer
#15 - All Along the Watchtower

I ran my first 5K since 1998 today. It was near my office because my employer was sponsoring it. Even with a 9am start the temperature was in the low seventies, a situation unaided by the complete lack of cloud cover or wind.

For some reason, my name and bib number (598) aren't up on the results page. I suspect that this is because they lost my registration and I had to redo it Friday, but the end result is that I don't have my exact times. I guess I'm a bandit! Fortunately, lots of my coworkers were there so I have plenty of witnesses. I did it, I swear! I do have my unofficial splits based on gun time from volunteers yelling them off at the mile marks. Since I started at the back of the pack I could probably cut approximately 10-15 seconds off each of these to get closer to chip time.

1 mile: 9:55
2 miles: 20:11
3 miles: 30:40

I walked a total of four times. The first three walks were less than a minute each and were just past the one mile mark, very briefly at the water station around the 1.5 mile mark and again for the third time as the 2 mile mark. The last was a longer walk at about 2.5 miles for a few hundred yards.

I spent most of the race 20-30 seconds ahead of the 10 minute pace sign, so these sound about right. The pace sign passed me during my last long walk, but from there I did a steady jog which turned into a sprint from the 3 mile mark to the end of the race. I caught the pace sign literally at the finish line. Regrettably, I forgot to look at the race clock as I crossed the line so that's an estimate.

I did know the names of some of the people I passed in that last sprint (I was booking). For instance, I blew past my coworker AB in the last 100 yards and she finished in 30:32 (chip). So I feel comfortable saying that I ran approximately a 30:20 (chip). Not quite under 30:00, but good enough considering that I only had thirteen training runs for a total of 29.3 miles from April 29 to race day. A little less walking and I crack 30 easily.

The next race is Sunday, June 10.

At my poetry group last night, one of the guys had a poem which he explained was about the "infinitely sad" findings he'd read that women were attracted to muscular men, even though they would say otherwise.

"Duh," I said. "I dig muscles."

My friend Mary quickly interjected that I could keep the muscle men, she preferred them brainy.

It kind of amazes me that the simple fact that women consider physical attractiveness in choosing their mates is taboo in our culture. I read an article ages ago where they asked men what they look for in partners and the men mentioned physical characteristics - butt, hair, eyes - while when they posed the same question to women, they mentioned personality characteristics - humor most often.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard that women are attracted to men's personalities, not their bodies. So why doesn't Steve Buschemi get more leading roles? :P

Seriously, though! I'm actually mad about this.

Another recent study just asked women "would you sleep with him?" and showed them pictures - women chose handsome men, naturally, with only image to go on. They then gave them lists of celebrities. If women really were attracted to wealth and power, as many assert, more so than looks, then the billionaire CEOs would have scored at least as high as the movie stars on the "yes" answers. They did not - no one wanted to sleep with Donald Trump, everyone wanted to sleep with Johnny Depp.

DUH.

I'm just going to come right out and say it - our culture has robbed women of the right to choose their mates the same way men do. We are told that we CAN'T. That we must reward ourselves like prizes to 'deserving' men. Hence all this utter garbage about being 'attracted' to wealth - a layover from the days when a woman's only option was to exchange her real reproductive desires for a prostitution of herself for financial security.

I know all you ladies out there want to hold the moral high ground and disdainfully assure everyone that you are above the physical. But you have hormones. I know you do, because I have them, too. Admit it - given a choice between a nice guy and a nice hot guy - nice hot guy wins.

The infamous "nice guy" defense, wherein douchy guys complain that women choose assholes over them, when they are obviously awesome (douches), in part feeds off this because women themselves refuse to give the obvious answer - sorry, that asshole is hotter than you - and you're both assholes, so I went with him. (Rather, we shore up the asshole's ego, let him continue to think that he's a 'nice guy' even as he denies women the basic right to chose their own sexual partners, and come up with any explanation other than the physical appearance of a guy to explain our attraction to him. Though we shouldn't have to defend our choice to anyone, anyway.)

Enough is enough. Let's stand together and admit that we ain't nothing but mammals and the boys we tore out of teen magazines when we were 14 weren't chosen for their sense of humor.