Zazen

Took the boys out to get some local 'za tonight, which they both greatly enjoyed. I got them a 12" cheese pizza, and I got myself a 12" with jalapenos, hot Italian sausage, red onions, and, for fun, a quail egg added on one slice (I had to get that, when I saw it on the menu). I'd also gotten some garlic bread for B1, some melted goat cheese-n-sauce for me, and a Fat Tire beer. We got stuffed. I couldn't even finish the beer, and we ended up taking most of the pizza home. Of course, the beer and the appetizers took their toll, but beer-n-pizza, right? Anyway, it was good, and the boys ate heartily. Great thin crust pizza...

See how much we had left over? Great stuff!

Speaking of beer, saw something amusing on my bike ride home (btw, it was frickin' chilly by the lake -- definitely going to wear a jacket tomorrow) -- anyway, a gaggle of either boys or else barely-legal skater kids got busted on the beach by bike cops for bringing lots of PBRs with them. They looked particularly chagrined, since all of their beer was, of course, taken. They were getting ticketed, so I assume they were legal adults getting busted for bringing booze to the lake -- open container and/or who knows what else? Their faces were priceless, like "Fawwwwwwwwwwwwk."

June

I'm kind of amazed it's June already. Summer's nigh upon us! I'm very aware of the long days, perhaps more than I've been in a long time.

I am tempted to catch the new Terrence Malick movie, "The Tree of Life." It's a whisker over two hours long, which is always a deterrent for me, where movies are concerned, but his style of movie-making is very singular and would play out very well on the big screen, so I may catch it when it rolls through town. Haven't decided, yet. I thought that with "The Thin Red Line," too -- wanting to see it on the big screen, but punting it, then catching it on DVD, and thinking "This would have really been great to see on the big screen." We'll see where it's showing; it's coming to Chicago tomorrow.

They finally drained those underpasses. I'm grateful for that, although they shouldn't be clogging up to begin with. The city needs to stay on that. The US has been lagging for over 20 years on infrastructure development, shamefully behind our supposed peers in the First World; that takes its toll around the country. Bridges, roads, sewer systems, all of that. It's going to take some major collapse of something critical to likely shake off the ignorant torpor that the Right inflicts on the citizenry for that kind of stuff. Infrastructure matters (and it's one of the few capital investments that can't be offshored -- it actually yields multigenerational benefits here at home).

I keep thinking about scoring myself a ticket to Next, the avant-restaurant of Grant Achatz fame. The theme of it changes every few months, and right now it's Paris, 1906, so I am tempted to go and try it out. I'd probably have to fast before attending such a thing, as they pile on the courses, there, from what I've heard, and it's all very rich. What's kept me back so far is the irritation of having to buy a ticket to go. But what tempts me is that I've had Achatz's cuisine before, way, way back when he worked at Trio, a top-notch restaurant in Evanston, and he is a wizard with food, he truly is. That meal I had at Trio was sublime, so I know that his approach at Next will be as thoroughly awesome. So, I have that to consider, as well. I have to see how long it's still the French cuisine, before it changes, and decide from there.

I'm all thrown off by the Memorial Day Monday; today feels like it should be a Friday, but it's so not! Haha!

Cage Match

This YouTube amused me: The Evolution of Nicolas Cage's Hair.

Yeah, baby!

I managed to make it home before the storms hit -- always a coup when one bikes to work. Seriously, it's like sailors of old -- you have to mind the weather when you're biking to work and back, and we're due for some big storms, or so they're saying. The city already got pounded the other day -- in fact, when I tried my usual routes, I had to detour, because a number of the underpasses were impassable morasses (hhuhuh -- "morasses") of icky water from overworked storm drains. I tried fording one, but when it got about a foot deep, I turned around, not wanting to get my nice oxfords soaked in city slopwater. Anyway, I zigged and I zagged, and it was alright. I never care if it downpours while I'm on the job; it's the transition points that matter, and so making it always feels good.

Tonight, I'm making a chicken cordon bleu sandwich. NOM!

Exene has the boys for the next couple of nights, so I'm thinking I'll alternately chill and exercise, not necessarily in that order. I'm in a good mood tonight. Woo hoo!

(Sandwich is ready, biting into it. MMMM.) Being able to cook is one of my not-so-secret weapons. The truth is, it's not a gimmick with me; I actually enjoy cooking, and enjoy feeding people. I'm not a fancy or ostentatious cook, but I cool pretty well. Even in the darkest days with me and Exene, I felt a grim kind of satisfaction in being able to cook a good meal with panache -- kind of like "Well, this is HELL, but at least I'm able to function within it."

I bought these great tomatoes at the store the other day -- so good. Makes me jones for a deck so I could grow my own tomato plants. That takes me back to my childhood in Youngstown, because we'd always have tomato plants growing in the garden out back. I loved that. The smell of tomato plants transports me that way. Mmmm. I'm just a sensualist!

I bought these crab rangoons and lobster rangoons at Target, of all places, and they're so good! I love crab rangoons, particularly (especially with some sweet-n-sour sauce). Really, I love anything with crab; I make killer crab cakes (that sounds funny). But anyway, crab rangoons are really good, and, surprisingly, Target's rangoons are damned good. Who knew? I'm the last person in the world to endorse a Target grocery item, but their frozen rangoons are mighty fine.

Well, this is a long enough entry for now, yes?

Shew

Man, I need to hunt around for an air conditioner. It's looking like this summer's gonna be roasting! I have to find one that'll amply cover the space in the apartment. I *could* just make use of the building's ones, but I'd like to get my own, a new one, so I can be sure there's ample coolant and what-not. Gotta take measurements on the windows, get something that'll fit them.

Daddy's Day

Hmmm. Yeah, so, don't forget: Father's Day is June 19 this year. Why not get him "Le Male?" For the Dad Who Has Everything...well, maybe not everything he wants. Send him a message in a bottle with Le Male...

And if he likes to get wet, don't rule out Le Male "Scuba..."

This is just such a brazen marketing approach, it cracks me up. Is there a comparable she-perfume out there? Like "Lahore" or something, featuring some buxom woman body perfume bottle?

Da Heat Is On

Wow, it's pretty hot today, indeed. Although there are nice breezes blowing, so that makes it more bearable. I took the boys to the park today, for a little picnic and some Frisbee and playing catch with a football. B1 throws a good spiral. We hung out there for awhile, before the boys got worn out in the heat, and we headed back home to try to cool off.

One gross thing I had to report -- there's an area grocery store that's good; near-vital for local purchases. However, there's one real liability associated with it: they have this beverage area, like sodas-n-such, which is this room you walk into. Now, thankfully, I don't stop in there, but I do have to walk past it to get to the rest of the store. Anyway, some derelict and/or psycho urinates in that room. It's insane. The room's a quiet little nook in the store, so I can see some looney tune making that their port-o-potty and not getting caught. But AUGH! The urine-stink of it is eye-wateringly bad. And it's not somebody being overzealous with ammonia, btw. It's somebody pissing in there, and it somehow not being dealt with and/or caught. It's horrifying. Thankfully, I never go in there for soda, but good lord. The store needs to radically reconfigure that room -- they need to do away with it, restructure it or something, and then tear up the tiles just clean the hell out of that room. I can't fathom how people who do buy soda can possibly stroll in there with that stench radiating outward. WTF? Fortunately, it's only in that one room, in the one corner of the place; the rest of the place is fine. Pisscasso must be caught!

Cool

It's supposed to warm up significantly the next couple of days, although right now, it's nice and cool. We'll see how it goes.

Grateful to have a Monday off. I'll celebrate by doing laundry in a few. Hahah! Exene'll drop the boys off at some point this morning. We'll do something fun, weather permitting. It still looks like it wants to rain, and what's a Memorial Day without rain, right?

I was sketching out the premise for the new piece I'm going to be working on. It's going to be hard to classify, but, if I do it well, should be coolly memorable. I may have to do a fair amount of research on it, to get it right; that's always a tightrope for me, whether to write the story and add in the details in subsequent drafts, or whether to try to anchor the story at the outset in the right details and proceed from there. I'll figure it out.

Typhoon

Lordy, a bit storm blew through the city; I got soaked running errands, but, fortunately, the boys stayed dry, thanks to my adroit planning. But still, I got totally nailed by the cloudburst. Now they boys are with Exene (who also apparently got caught in the storm while she was running); B2 actually conked out ahead of the storm, as he so often does, when a low-pressure front moves through.

The boys were cute last night -- B1 wanted to play an "immune system" game, so I ad-libbed a game of "Lymphocyte & Germs" with him and his brother, using colored blocks. The boys both enjoyed that, which amused me. B1 loves that kinda stuff, and I actually know a lot about it, so I tried to put that to work crafting something they could enjoy.

Now I'm just chilling out (after having dried off) and am cooking up some crab rangoons. NOM NOM NOM!

Overcast

So, Exene dropped the boys off over here at 5 a.m. (!!) because she was running a 10K. I agreed to it, since I always enjoy time with the boys, naturally, but that was damned early. She's training for a triathlon this summer, apparently. Anyway, today's a very drizzly kind of day.

The boys are happy to be with me, as always -- B2 is conking right now, has a little bottle of hand sanitizer in one hand, and his blankie in the other. That amuses me. B1 is telling stories as he plays.

My brain is going a mile a minute and nowhere fast. There's stuff I should do, but I'm not doing it. Something about overcast days, they just sap productivity in some respects. It's supposed to be progressively warmer as the weekend advances. We'll see.

I had an idea for a new story, which I duly jotted down on some paper. I need to get back into my routine, work on that. I've not written squat in several weeks. Not from a lack of ideas; I've just had a lot on my plate. I'll get back into it.

I watched "Kick-Ass" the other day, enjoyed it. It's an amusing movie, although the conception of superheroes in it is decidedly unheroic -- that is, they are more like murderous vigilantes who basically butcher whomever they're going after (except for the feckless, clueless title "hero" -- although, when he truly becomes a superhero, at least by the standards of the movie, he butchers with the best of'em). Anyway, the willingness to kill (and use guns) is one of those lines in the sand with superheroes -- clearly, it's a nod to the realities of such activity, but at the same time, it's so unheroic as to call into question the whole enterprise. It's like when the Joker asks the veteran cop (rhetorically) why he uses knives when he kills, instead of guns. Kind of like that. Anyway, Mark Strong is good as the villain, and the movie is definitely entertaining, although it's nowhere close to a kids' movie, obviously...

Big Daddy clip

One of my favorite clips of the movie, actually. It captures the spirit of it nicely. Cage is great as Big Daddy, and Chloe Moretz is great as Hit-Girl.

Anyway, the movie's pretty damned fun. I'm glad I (finally) saw it.

Blah Blah Blah

Yeah, so let's think about today. I've been boring-blogging for awhile; just a lot in my head, haven't had time to put stuff down, or perhaps worse, I make a mental note to do so, but then forget to do it, and the thing is lost.

Today was lovely-sunny but cold -- the whole week's been frickin' cold, but that's supposed to end (for the moment) this weekend, when temperatures are supposed to leap, and it's going to be frickin' hot. But at the moment, with it being around 45 degrees, it's hard to see that. But it's Chicago, it's May, it happens. Blah blah blah.

I bought some rubber stamps at the MCA today, including one with "BLAH BLAH BLAH" on it that I particularly liked (since I tend to say that, when suitably motivated). It's done like a DRAFT stamp. My favorite detail of it is the tiny "blah" checkbox on it. I love that. The Department of Blah.

Anyway, I love it. I enjoy stamps, and this one just caught my eye. I'd like to send notes to people with that stamped on them, just for fun. Blah blah blah!

One of my favorite lyrics from the Sex Pistols, the tune, "Liar," has Johnny Rotten singing "I don't need you/Don't need your blah blah!" The idiocy of that line always cracked me up, made it memorable. I'd post it, but the Net is being glitchy right now.


I saw somebody who looked like somebody today -- it was uncanny, the resemblance. Even the same anti-smile. Surreal, really. Just weird when one sees something like that, to the extent that you have to do a double-take. The tyranny of geometry.

Looking forward to the long weekend, have to admit. I may take the boys out on a Memorial Day picnic, weather permitting. They'd love that. I may take them grocery-shopping tomorrow, get a bunch of stuff, so we'll be stocked for the weekend, and then a picnic on Monday. That sounds like fun, once thing I do know how to have.

Hmm

I like Campari. I also like Salma Hayek (okay, she's got a reputation as being majorly high-maintenance [putting it politely], but she's very juicy). But somehow, Salma Hayek shilling for Campari is perplexing to me. What does Salma Hayek have to do with Campari? And the ads are kind of odd the way the Burger King "King" ads were odd, too...

For example, the above ad makes me think that Salma actually bludgeoned her Eurotrash lover/boy toy with the Campari bottle (or else she drugged him), and you were walking in with some ice (because you guys were going to have a three-way, of course)...

and she's staring at you, trying to make up some story about how he's just sleeping with his eyes open, that he's not actually dead. All of the ads are willfully off like that. It's the kind of thing where I might be tempted to reach for a bottle of Campari, only to hesitate, with a kind of David Lynch icy jazz soundtrack coming up, some odd stranger appearing, some film noir fugue state intruding on the moment, giving me pause. Because she will kill you...

In fact, she just called you up, so you can join Eurotrash Victim 1 and Glamour Boy 2 (who she's ensuring is dead by gouging him in the eye with her hand).

It can't rain all the time...

It rained all last night. Distant thunder, softly pattering rain. Cool temperatures, so it was good sleeping weather, at least, although I slept fitfully last night, woke around 1 and around 2 for no apparent reason. Lots of odd dreams -- inside a convoluted El station (I think I've dreamed about this train station before, honestly -- this massive, labyrinthine train El station I have to wend my way through); the boys and I in this mall that had this neon-banked walk-through video game that had this neon mummy that would chase you quasi-comically as you ran down the corridors, bouncing and bounding on these barricades to escape. B2 and I were on this one, and he stumbled at one point, and I said to the mummy we had to do it over. The dream had it first that it was a digital neon mummy, but then I saw that it was an actor playing that role, and while he was like "Okay" I could tell he was tired, didn't want to have to run through the corridor again, so I felt sorry for him, doing this thankless gig. And then I dreamed I was at a lackluster party, and I suggested we do improv to liven things up, but I insisted that only people who knew how to improv participate, so a half-dozen of us (including an unaccountably youthful Bill Murray) wrangled this improv performance in the midst of the party, which slyly subverted the languid party and livened things up, although then more people arrived to the party, not realizing that we were doing improv, which made the party more like this massive performance art piece, weirdly enough. Trippy dream(s) last night.

I was a little down last night, but I think it was mostly just me being tired. I usually cheer up when I've had some sleep, although I don't like that my sleep was interrupted last night, for whatever reason.