Burst Pipes - Aftermath

Well, the bedroom looks like we just moved in. We pulled everything that was in the path of the water and moved it into the bedroom. Shit is stacked everywhere. I can't imagine that all this stuff goes neatly away some where, but it does thanks to Clarisa's extraordinary ability to fold space and time in order to stow anything anywhere. Its a real honest to God talent. All the piles of stuff will be transported and disappear and in a short while this place will look like it always does. For now though, stuff is everywhere and its grating on Clarisa's innate sense of order. The Force must be balanced....

...Moving along...

Of course, its ass cold and the pipe that burst last night is already frozen again. In a questionable attempt to dry the place out, we pulled back the carpet in the bedroom where it got soaked to expose the padding underneath. An electric heater is blowing on the floor right near said pipe. Now, the Murphy's law part of me is saying - "Now we are going to be flooded and electrocuted on top of it."

I'm tired of having to spend close to $500/MO bucks to heat this joint in the winter and still freeze my a$$ off. You would think that would be money spent to make it warm but no way.

Burst Pipes - a kind of screenplay.

The Scene - a man riding home on Metro North Railroad. He is reading "The Discoverers" by Daniel Boorstin. He is wearing a yellow Burton boarding jacket, jeans and a pair of Columbia boots.

[Sidebar - Evidently in 1421 or so, a Chinese eunuch named Cheng Ho took about 30,000 of his closest friends on an adventure all over the Indian Ocean on ships that were just amazing to look at. Huge things. Pretty things. And they sailed not to conquer or enslave, but to spread the word of just how kick ass they were and show that, in fact, they did not need a damn thing from anyone. Oh, and if you brought them a Giraffe, the beers were definitely on the house, so to speak.]

[annoying cell phone ring - sounds like a slot machine]

- Man pulls out cell phone from jeans pocket and answers it.

Man: "Hello"?

- Its his wife and she is freaking out a bit and in a stressed but her voice is still kind of eerily calm.

Woman: "James! Oh what we've worried about has happened! One of the pipes burst and there's water everywhere. I just called the fire department. I need to go. You need to take a cab home. Bye!"

- The man has the next 25 minutes between the train and the cab ride home to wonder just what the hell is going on there and how bad its going to be. He hopes, wrongly, that its an outside pipe and the water is not spilling into every crevice of his house. He thinks about his wife crying and all of their stuff being destroyed. He thinks that he should still be thankful, because even with however bad this is, there are still people out there a LOT worse off than they are. Surprisingly, he manages to remain calm and just see what there is to see when he gets home.

- Water water everywhere. Not as little as he'd like, not as bad as he'd hoped. He pays $300 to the emergency plumber team and keeps helping his wife clean up the water that has run from the back of the house, underneath the kitchen tile and out into the dining area. They order a pizza and think hard about moving south or west.

Subway Music

NYC has a way of adding a twist to the routine. Just when you think it’s going to be the same old same old you come upon something different. It might be a building, an event, or maybe a person that grabs your attention and for a moment or two takes you out of where you are at and serendipitously places you, however fleetingly, in that realm of shared experience. And, if for some reason nothing like that happens the distinct turning of the seasons is sure to give you something different. You just need to be a bit aware. Yesterday, I got one of those twists.

Since it’s been a little cold in these parts lately and I've been running a little late as well, I've taken to riding the subway. The route is simple and fast -- Times Square shuttle to, well, Times Square and the Q/R/W to Herald Square. Yesterday I hopped on the Times Square shuttle, grabbed a handrail and waited for the inevitable lurch forward. Then, my morning routine was interrupted. A smooth voice wished "New York" a good morning and announced that the performers to my right and across the car from me were Miss Jubilee and Chocolate Thai. I looked over and saw a late twentyish man with a big kind smile, dreads, a goatee and some sort of pointy Asian looking hat. Behind him was a pixy of a woman with short hair, a faux rabbit fur vest and cuffed furry boots over her jeans and she held a large well-played dreadnaught guitar. She started to play and they both started to sing as the shuttle headed out.

This was different. I've seen lots of subway performers over the years, but never actually anyone perform ON the subway. What's more, they were pretty good. Good voices - nice melody and harmony over simple folk guitar rhythms with a distinct island feel to the sound and the lyrics. I sat there thinking that they were good and then I thought about how much work it was just to get to where they were - to have original songs, to have made a demo CD, to have the guts to ride the shuttle train with commuters, to play their stuff and to ask for donations and to sell their CD...well I just thought I had to commend that so I bought their CD as I got off.

They were on the subway again this morning and I made sure I told them I liked the CD and they seemed pleased.

So thank you to Miss Jubilee and Chocolate Thai and good luck. Check 'em out at Barnard College Radio (http://www.wbar.org/index.php), 87.9 on your radio dial.

ESPN.com - NFL - NFL - Recap >> Jets F*&%K it up 2X

ESPN.com - NFL - NFL - Recap > Same Old Jets

Un Fahkking Bee Leev A Bull that they lost that game. If Doug Brien was a Brazilian soccer player he would be fearing for his life right now.

So far, when Sfumato comes over here to watch Jets playoff football, they have lost 100% of the time. Also, each time he has come over for Jet playoff football he has brought a very tasty homemade guacomole and in that guac is inscribed the word JETS. Each and everytime he has come over. Tasty guac, salty chips...bitter defeat.

A Happy Day, A Conflicted Day...

Today, my birthday, marks three months since Jenn died (October 13th, 2004). So, I've been a bit apprehensive about really celebrating it and feeling good about it and all of that. Of course, everyone else says, and rightly so, that thats kind of silly and self destructive thinking and hey man, its your birthday. Go have fun.

So, to celebrate my parents came over this past weekend to celebrate. We didn't do anything too fancy. Just got some appetizers and some good beer for my Dad to try instead of his usual stuff. Of course the conversation turned toward Jenn and my mom brought out the actual medical examiners report and let me read it.

Its kind of surreal, reading something like that about someone you know and love. Its medical and objective and sterile -- but informative. I learned some things that make this somewhat easier to deal with that I might post here but I'd like to get a feel for what my parents think first.

As for today it was a quiet evening at home. We got some takeout, watched Anchorman and pretty much thought it sucked. And we were really trying to not let it suck for us. But it did. :-(. And I got a call from an Aunt and I got a call from my Mom. It turns out she got roses today for no reason from a neighbor. The significant thing about that was that she has been praying for a sign that Jenn is ok. She prayed for a rose this morning. The roses showed up this afternoon.

How bout that.

Hi I'm James and I work for...

iVillage! Yes, that's right. A month and change after joining Healthology, I now work for iVillage. The executive team at work announced iVillage acquisition of Healthology on Monday morning this week after aborting the same announcement Friday evening (hence making everyone sweat it out as to what it was all about). I'd like to say I'm super rich and that my stock options will enable me to retire but that is not the case. I'm DEFINITELY working for the foreseeable future. Oh well. Thus far its a positive move - as they seem to need QA people, and they have more resources.

Notice - slight technical tangent approaching. Grab a double esspresso if you are not a web standards geek or just skip it.

They are also into CSS driven layouts. Check out their launch of their entertainment site and view the source, Luke. Its All CSS and it validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional. The inner geek in me is soooo happy about that. It means I might have a chance to ply my web standard knowledge on a larger scale. Very cool. I've been away from that stuff for a while, but I find it interesting, compelling and even fun, so its worth it to get back into it if there is an actual reason to. I say that because I spent an awful lot of time learning Coldfusion only to find it hard to find somebody that would let me use it / wanted to pay extra $ for the hosting or because they thought it was a "beginner" language. Ok - so why is the .NET plat form basically CFML then. Oy. I hate that "if its easy it must suck" mentality in tech. Anyhoo, the point is if you learn something, you want to use it, it in this case is web standards.

Happy Birthday To Me...

[old codger voiceover]

Hot Damn. I'm 36 Goddamn Yeers old. How 'bout that. Ain't that some shit. I'll tell you what. It sure is. Some shit. I tells ya. Yep.

A little catchup...

The holidays, thankfully, are over and with them a bit of my depression. For whatever reason, in about the past 15 minutes I started to feel pretty good about things. I just feel "better" all of a sudden. Lets see if it holds. Someone also suggested I keep a time record of how I'm doing - so why not start here and now...

1/6/2005 4:50 PM - Feeling good. Not great...Good...From a relative perspective that is... I've been better. Of course I had a nice fudge brownie about 15 min ago. Lets see how much better "better" is when I recover from the insulin shock.

Lets rewind a bit to New Years Eve and New Years Day. Our New Years Eve Plans fell through suddenly on the 31st, just hours before we were supposed to head out to see some friends in Hyde Park. The reason being that their house was a wreck and they were particularly stressed out. Why you ask? Well, the deal is that they had bought a 9 month old golden retriever as a Christmas gift for their 4 year old, Zack. In theory, its a great idea. A boy. His dog. Bonding. Face licking. The fetching of slippers. Squeals of delight. Lots of Kodak moments. You get it. However, and you knew there was a however coming, right? Otherwise what's the point of all of this? Well, the however is that this dog turns out to be 12 Monkeys kind of crazy. It bites the kid, it shits and it pisses everywhere at any moment. They take it for a hour walk and it pees and poops. The moment they get back inside, Star ("the dog" up to this point) taps into a reserve bladder and whizzes all over the living room. Star is supposed to be crate trained, but star is is whizzing and pooping all over his cage and all over himself. While not whizzing, shitting or biting people, Star is chewing everything. The Couch. The Carpet. The Kitchen. Yeah - the dog tried to eat the kitchen. The family - not so pleased.

So here we have a terrified 4 year old that wants Santa to take the dog back but is also afraid that Santa will be upset with him. Angry even. So the dog winds up in the kitchen, the kid is hiding in his room and the parents are like -- we need to find pooch a new home ASAP. Naturally the breeder will not take it back. Eventually they get a single woman with the patience of Job that must own lots of brushed steel furnishings to buy the dog. Zack is ecstatic that the dog got taken away, but still worried that Santa has some sort of retribution in store for ungrateful children. However -- I have the feeling that Santa just might write Zack a letter telling him its ok. Nice one, right?

And that, dear Internet, is the story of how New Years Eve was almost lost. Almost I say, because our friends Dave & Jacquie either had nothing better to do or took pity on us and came over to hang out with us. It was a fairly uneventful evening, with the ladies watching some movies and Dave and me putzing around in the office with my computer. I showed him the graphical sweetness of Half Life 2 and the awesome fury of Counsterstrike Source and demo'd my GuitarPort software by Line 6. The GuitarPort is a nice little device that allows you to get just about any guitar sound you want with a mouse click and also provides a wealth of lessons, licks, full tracks and sheet music. Its really helpful. If you are starting to play or have been playing for a while but are not rigged up completely, this is a great investment for a hobbyist or mature player. Of course, Line 6 sells all sorts of other goodies as well. If you play, check em out if you haven't. Anyhoo, Dave got so excited by it that he came over on Tuesday night and we played around a bit. He is a lot more skilled than I am, so he kindly assumed the role of instructor and showed me some stuff. As a direct result of his visit I'm working on 10 Years Gone by Led Zeppelin. Sounds good, not boring to learn and challenging but not impossible for my skill level. Back to the roots of things man, back with Led Zeppelin. Tell you what, its a lot different now than 20 yrs ago or so when I first attempted to play guitar and I tried to play Heartbreaker for my friend Tom. I remember laying down the main lick or so for him and he asked me what it was. "'Heartbreaker'", I said.

"No its not." Tom said.

Lol, I was heartbroken. Of course what I was hearing in my mind vs what was coming out of the amp were two completely different things. I'm not great now, I know that, but I know I am getting better and better and what's more I am enjoying it. Plus I have a few folks around now patient enough to help me learn and cool enough to jam.

Ok getting back from the tangent there... So New Years was saved by Dave and Jacquie and Clarisa and I woke up on New Years Day after having slept in a bit. I surfed the net, blogged a while and just felt generally morose and quiet. It was going to be a cave day. But - we got a call from Christine and Barry asking us to come up. I was like, Ok, but not super excited. I was feeling pretty crappy that day. Just read the last post and you will get the gist of my mood. Still, mainly because I felt that way I thought it important to get out of the house and actually do something. I asked Clarisa to ask them if it would be cool if I brought my guitar. I knew Barry played, but we had never done anything like that together. It turns out it was a great idea. We played most of the evening and had a big sing along, with Clarisa and Christine even butchering an acoustic version of "Times Like These". We had a blast playing and singing. But the highlight of the evening came a bit later on when we went to check out the new stuff in Zack's bedroom. Under a plush toy or two I saw a table hockey game. A brand new Stiga NHL table top game. I immediately waxed nostalgic and I had to play. I grabbed the game up and called to Barry. "We HAVE to play" this. Immediately it became obvious we were both big fans of the game and "understood it." The old moves from hours (well, days really) of playing in my youth came back pretty fast. We were both a little rusty though and could not pull off some of the trickery we once knew - like bank shots and deflections and such. Despite our rustiness, our enthusiasm more than made up for it. We had a blast and eventually had to be dragged away because it was getting too late. I was like there is more hockey to play and more music to talk about and more hockey to talk about...but the night was over. I actually didn't want it to end. It was the most fun I had in a long time. Between the hockey, the guitar and playing around with Zack, I was really happy. It was nice man, I'll tell you.

The crazy thing is that Christine and Clarisa have known each other for close to ten years and Barry and I just bonded a week ago. Go figure. Everything in its time I guess. Next weekend we are supposed to be heading up again. Clarisa is jokingly calling it a "play date". Great...

BTW its 11:31AM on Jan 7th and I am still feeling "better". No sugar rush. Just some caffeine from a coffee this morning and a diet coke right now. Looking forward to getting home and a weekend with my guitar. My foots still to banged up to do much else. Soon though - or else I am going to need to switch to the "fat" jeans again.


And - before closing this long winding post, I'd just like to say thanks to the folks who took the time to email me about my depression. I really love you for it. Thanks

Rising to the New Year

I thought I might try to write something about the new year. I wanted to write something that said that the past is always with us despite the start of a new year, that we are not in fact starting anew. I wanted to write about hope and pain and our collective struggle to be better. I was thinking about it when I came across this article in the New York Times:

The New York Times > Opinion > Editorial: Rising to the New Year

To quote (well, paraphrase really) James Carville from his cameo in Old School, "That's perfect." Its a great piece of writing. Go read it. Now.

As for me, I definitely do not feel as if I am starting anew today. I still feel the weight of 2004 squarely upon me, squashing me, especially that last quarter from October till now. I know I am still depressed. I know I suffer from a low level depression a better part of the time and I know that its gotten worse since Jenn died. At times, doing the simplest things seems so hard and fruitless. Then, even if I want to do something, I have a hard time sticking with it and easily lose my concentration. My brain says -- "Not interested anymore. Move along or I will fall asleep..."

Its time to talk to my GP and see if there isn't anything that he can do. I remember feeling better and want to be like that if I can again and if that means trying Zoloft or Paxil or some other anti-depressant, I'm willing to do it. Toughing it out and talking it out have not done the job by themselves.

So here we are, Internet. Happy New Year. Or, in the spirit of George Carlin - "Have a moderately pain free year."