Both Ends

May 13, 2013 in Journal Entry by Cheshire Splat | No comments

I don’t have many poems committed to memory… okay let’s be honest, I have almost no poems committed to memory. However this little ditty has always stuck in my mind, and of late I find it to be particularly apropos.

My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes and, oh, my friends
It gives a lovely light!

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Life has been busy. Crazy silly busy.  Here’s a short to-do list to give you an idea:

  • Buy new headphones
  • Fix up that bike a friend gave you
  • Floor hockey night
  • Bocce night
  • Text your aunt back
  • Start getting ready for your big summer party
  • Book Asheville trip
  • Book Denver trip (well, decide if you’re going first)
  • Book Portland (figure out when first, though)
  • Celebrate your birthday
  • Kayaking safety training
  • Pick up tickets, so many shows coming up…
  • Build shelves, lots of shelves
  • Paint the mud room (do this before the shelves)
  • Paint your bedroom
  • Text that girl you went out with the other night (can’t tell how interested she is though…)
  • Start getting ready for another juice (or semi-juice)
  • Figure out which 5k’s your doing this summer
  • Finish The New York Trilogy (good luck finding time for that!)
  • Practice your French

I’ll be happy if I get to half of these… though at least half are not optional.  To top it all off I volunteered for a special detail at work, which has been leaving me exhausted every day. Time is at a premium, sleep is at a premium, and the list just grows.  Sigh.

Things are, despite my frustrated tone, quite good though.  In fact, just about everything in life is going swimmingly really…. except for dating maybe, but maybe that’s content for another post… I’ve accepted that dating will always frustrate and confuse me; I’m cut from relationship type cloth… the in between of dating is just… I don’t know what the hell it is.

But enough of that.

What interests me most at looking at the above list is what isn’t on it. I’ve been doing a pretty poor impression of the video game and tv loving homebody I used to be. I’ve been doing and watching more sports than ever… it’s strange. Floor hockey, running, biking, kayaking… what happened to that nerd who used to stay up all night playing Xbox games? I miss him. Those Xbox games were fun.

It’s confusing really… my social circles of late have evolved along with my sporting activities…. Sometimes while sitting at happy hour I wonder if folks I’m with realize what a bonafide nerd is sitting at the table. I may be wearing an O’s cap and cooling off after a close game of hockey, but man I have a book case full of RPG books (mostly D&D) in my den downstairs… books I have no intention of ever getting rid of.

Sometimes that feels like some of the dating confusion… finding that right person who’s just as up for kayaking on a Saturday morning as she is playing Castle Crashers and re-watching Game of Thrones on the DVR… or perhaps raiding the farmers market and cooking up a bitchin homemade brunch. I don’t know. It doesn’t sound that complicated when you spell it out.

I feel like I have more thoughts here, though maybe there’s a separate post in it.  And dating… yeah probably some dating posts. I’ve been on myself lately to stop procrastinating about it. I guess somehow, some way I’ll find time to squeeze it into the list above.

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Alone in a Dark Wood

April 9, 2013 in Film and Television by Cheshire Splat | No comments

It surprises me to look back on my last post, my joyful boasting about my favorite new appliance and my wishful thinking of summer soon to come, and to find that among my list of most looked forward to items I did not list Mad Men.  I have a shameful confession to make: I forgot!

I could pine away with mournful excuses, but instead I’ll simply say that I’m human. Perhaps like Don Draper, who is super humanly human. Fortunately it was all over Facebook and everything else, so I set it up to record along with everything else.

And wow, what to say.  I’ve long enjoyed reading the A.V. Club’s write-ups of the shows I keep up with. Their write-up of the Mad Men opener is a bit broken up, as it apparently was based upon a preview reel and then expanded, but it offers some food for thought. Of course you don’t have to stop there.  Write-ups and reviews of shows abound on the internet these days. You can’t throw a rock without hitting a TV blogger on some parts of the internet anymore.

the Inferno

An accurate representation of how I myself read important Italian poets on the beach… but with less cool voice overs.

There are, it seems, two interesting recurring themes this episode:  the opening lines of Dante’s Inferno, which goes, “Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and awoke to find myself alone in a dark wood….”  Despite my deep and abiding love of Italians (and especially Italian women), I’ve never read Dante, so I don’t have much insight except to wonder if quoting from Inferno is perhaps a little heavy handed.  And if Mad Men started off in season one with a man (Don Draper) straying from life’s path midway… well then where the hell are we now?  He strayed back onto the “right” path for some time, and then of course right back off of it… and we’re still only midway?  Life is not like a commercial it seems:  it’s fucking long, and we’re back where we started.

Kinda.

I like the point that I read (and I forget where) that certain characters have morphed into each other.  Pete into Don.  Peggy (also) into Don.  Don into Roger.  Roger into Burt.  They even added in an obsequious new character (played by James Wolk), and I’m guessing he’s going to morph into Harry Crane… because, hey fuck it.

The other theme that kept coming up was Chopin.  Particularly this piece. I’m not the biggest classical music nerd in the world, but I do enjoy some Chopin. (And if you are a non-initiate then I’d point you to the succinct and wonderful Pianist soundtrack for a nice sampling.)

So there are clearly some heavy meditations upon death… though I would suggest that really it’s much more about happiness.  Success, status, beauty.  They make us happy until they don’t.  That really has been Matt Weiner’s milieu through this whole show, and goddamn is he good at it.  The start to this season seems no different.  The AV Club’s write-up kept suggesting that the show started by meditating and confronting its own past.  That doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.

But I wonder of what’s to come.  I love the last season, with it’s disjointed plots and themes… episodes that focused solely on single characters.  We’ve got less than two seasons left to go, and I wonder where Matt Weiner and company are taking us. I don’t expect this season to play out like last season, but I sure hope it doesn’t echo too much of other seasons past.

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Consider the Juice

March 27, 2013 in Journal Entry by Cheshire Splat | No comments

So I have a new hobby. It’s called annoying the living hell out of everyone by going on nonstop, seemingly uncontrollably, certainly–to say the least–with an egregiously unchecked sense of enthusiasm, about my shiny new juicer. Yes I am that guy: the dude who bought a juicer and won’t shut up about it.

It’s only been a week, and it’s been amazing. I’m still in the early stages, experimenting with recipes, but I’m in love with this new appliance. Just the hum of it as the engine spools up, it sounds like a mini aircraft engine. It hums. And then with frightening ease and efficiency the little bad boy shreds up anything I can put into it. Carrot-apple-ginger, my morning green juice, my homemade V8 (still a work in progress…) Juice man, it’s the best!

I’d already been incorporating V8 into my diet as a snack anyway, but this has felt like a gateway being thrust open. Just a whole world out there of juices to make. And all of them (well most of them), delicious, fresh, healthy snacks. This all ties into my healthier diet of late, which I’m not even sure if I’ve journaled about here.

It’s funny, for a guy whose pride and joy was once his secret chili recipes, I’m subsisting these days mostly on things like chick peas, juice, granola, greek yogurt. And cheese. Of course, delicious life-giving cheese. It has been good, and I have been feeling great (and not to mention looking better…).

But the juicer has kicked it up a notch. I feel as if a new plateau has been reached. In fact, our house has quickly become such a juicing hotbed that my roommate showed up the other day with a Fronana. This is a type of juicer that makes deserts with yogurt and frozen bananas. I promptly dubbed it the Bronana maker and declared it as a victory for our house.

So perhaps in the coming days I’ll post some juice recipes. At the least it would be nice to figure out my own homemade V8. My first attempt did *not* go as planned… but some experimentation is to be expected, even desired.

Anyway, spring is starting and here are the things I am currently looking forward to most:

Sunshine
Kayaking
Floor hockey
Bocce
Game of Thrones Season 3
NOLA
Swimming
BBQs
Gardening
Fitting into all of my old t-shirts again (woohoo!)

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+/- in the Convenience Column

February 16, 2013 in Journal Entry by Cheshire Splat | No comments

I’ve been thinking a bit lately about motivation.  In part, I suppose, because that is part of my job these days.  I should be keeping my techs motivated to do good, accurate work.  It’s tough, though.  I suppose I try to just be fair and lead by example, and maybe I haven’t gotten much further than that with it right now.  And that’s institutional motivation anyway.  Everything is different when working within an organizational framework.  One needs to consider corporate culture.  Ethics.  The law.  It’s complicated.

Shouldn’t personal motivation be simpler?  Sometimes it doesn’t seem so, but I’ve been keeping at it.

I really got my ass kicked in broomball Thursday.  It was a good night, let me be clear.  I got my first assist, and I had some shots on goal–even if they weren’t great ones.  But man did I push myself.  I was aggressive and kept pushing.  In the second half, I started to go too far and felt it immediately.  I was playing wing, and I could feel their defense getting tired.  I scrambled like mad on a few back to back plays, sprinting harder than I had since basketball in high school.  I rotated back to the bench a minute later, out of breath and panting like I’d just gotten run over.  My breaths came so deep and hard, for a second I thought I would hyperventilate.  Right there, mortified in front of these teammates who are still very new acquaintances to me.

Things cooled down. I caught my breath, and in the end we chalked it up as a somewhat successful loss, as for the first time this season we were playing with some real teamwork and putting pressure on goal.  I spent the next day completely laid up.  I’m getting old, man, I can’t keep doing this.

And yet I do.

I’ve been striving for discomfort lately, and from it I’ve been finding a new reserve of self motivation.  It’s tough when you’re in your thirties, and so many things in life seem to be on…. I want to use the phrase “cruise control” here, but instead I think I’ll say schedule.

You live by the schedule, you die by the schedule.  You have a career–an organization and a set of peers that have daily expectations and challenges for you.  You have a home–a never ending set of responsibilities and projects.  You have a family–where do I even begin with that one?

You live by the schedule, you die by the schedule.

It’s easy to lose your motivation when locked into a circle. A routine that can seem as meaningless as it can directionless.  I’ve taken to the inconveniences to break it up and keep me moving.  The problems, the challenges.  Too many people let go and let the schedule make all the decisions for them.  I mean, it’s easy.  I can’t even call someone lazy for simply checking in every day and meeting those tasks of career, home, family.  After all, there are many who fail to even do that.  Those destined to wipe the schedule clean and start over.  Once, twice, maybe again and again. We all know a few of those folks.

It’s tough, but I’ve been at it in little ways.  Playing in a more competitive broomball league is just an example.  It’s hard, it’s kicking my ass, I have no idea how successful I’ll be, and yet I’m keeping at it.

I woke up today sore as fuck and yet as refreshed as ever.  Decided to hell with stopping by the office on a weekend (I had planned to go in).  Today I’ll set my own schedule.

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A Hot Date with Cold Ice

February 14, 2013 in Journal Entry by Cheshire Splat | No comments

The older I get the more I seem to fall back on simple truths. The kinds of truths that we choose to believe and hold close. And for me one of the most important is this: be a lover, not a hater. In fact, let those damn haters hate.

It’s lovey dovey Valentine’s Day, and the world–especially the internet–is showering us (itself?) with a hearty salt and pepper mix of affection and cynicism. The lovers gushing, the cynics growling. Me? I’ve got a hot date with an ice rink tonight, so you won’t catch me doing much of either. While at this time last year I was getting smashed on Leviathan with my then girlfriend, the lack of either this year has not dampened my spirits in the slightest. In fact, I may have actually been asked out once or twice this week and politely ignored or misinterpreted such invitations. There hasn’t been anyone on the radar lately who has caught my attention. Well, not who’s single anyway.

But enough of that.

I’m pumped for tonight. This winter my love affair has definitely been with winter sports. I’m playing in a full ice broomball league this year, and the competition level is higher by a manifold set of notches. You might not think there’d be much difference between half ice and full ice, but it almost feels like a different game. Like the difference between put put and real golf. It’s a long, fast horizontal game. Lots of sprinting. A lot more contact. And real, actual strategy.

Fear not, I’m accustomed to dating the cold ones.

The first couple games I wasn’t sure what to make of the competitiveness. At first of course I liked it. No dumbed down casual league rules. Folks on the ice are actually trying to pass and make real plays. But as we lost two games, the flip side quickly began to show. My teammates freaking out over missed plays, goals, and losses. A mad, wide-eyed, “C’mon guys! We gotta get back in this!” I play sports in my free time to have fun first and win second, so we seem to have different ways of looking at it.

But I think they’re starting to get through to me. In a good way. And fuckin A good, this is what I wanted. All week, I’ve been obsessing over my Thursday night game. Thinking about how much sleep I get. How many minutes of practice I can sneak in before the game. What my sticking is going to be like. Hell, even what I’m going to eat today so that I don’t cramp up. I want that win.

The drive feels good. Something that I’ve been missing lately for sure. Feels like once I got my promotion last year, I settled in and started to get comfortable. Once I get comfortable, I get lazy. This seems to be a theme for me. But self improvement is also a theme, and I’ve got a very determined opinion about which of these I want to win out.

So let’s see a win tonight in broomball. And if not a win, then at least some good aggressive play and perhaps even a goal.

I was going to write about skiing here, but perhaps I’ll save that for another post. Here’s a picture from Seven Springs, where I just went this weekend with a bunch of folks. Loads of fun, and I’m definitely getting better. Can’t wait to hit the slopes again this week.

2013-02-09_13-29-55_692

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Every Year, Better

January 15, 2013 in Journal Entry by Cheshire Splat | No comments

Right, so it’s a new year already.  Been meaning to make a new years/last year summary kind of post but haven’t quite gotten to it, and honestly wasn’t entirely sure what all I had to say.

Last year was definitely a year with its ups and downs, but all in all, I really managed to right things and pull onto an even keel, which is what I wanted.  It was on the whole a successful year.  I’ve always been a bit vague on here about the past two years, but suffice to say I dealt with a little more than a normal share of hardships and it was tough getting through some of that.  These past six months were about putting the last of that behind me.  And much of that meant just working my ass off, which I did, even if it meant not being around a lot.

So that’s the thing I’m looking forward to the most in the coming year: being around. Focusing on what I want to do as opposed to what I need to do. Life is good, and I’ve worked hard to enjoy it.  It really does change things, if subtly, when you know that.  When you’ve worked through that.

So, I’m not much of a resolution maker but here are a few things that I’m looking forward to in the coming months.  Perhaps I will bother myself to journal about them on this modest little page that I pay a tidy little annual sum to reserve.

1) Vacations

So far I’ve got a ski trip planned and a tentative Vegas trip, but it’s time to plan some more. Currently I lack a default travel partner, but whatever. I worked my ass off last year and took like two trips. This year there needs to be more, even if they’re just here in the U.S.

2) Dating

Yeah… I don’t really have anything to say about the break up I went through last year… and I don’t have much to say about the dating I’ve done since then.  The only woman I dated last year who I actually really liked ended up–in the end–making fun of me on her blog and basically calling me a homo. Because I like flowers. I don’t know if that’s a remark on my taste in women or a remark on the emasculating power of flowers, but I sure hope it’s not the former. And anyway, as a good friend of mine put it to me lately: “…well, we’ve got you as a +1 for the wedding.”  So I need to get on that.  I hate dating, I really do, but there’s no reason for me to be hanging back and getting made fun of for my homophilic love of flora in the meantime.

3) French and Motorcycles

I’ve been meaning to learn some French and learn to ride a motorcycle for a little bit now.  I could see me skipping out on the motor biking, but getting more and more into cooking has really made me want to learn some basic French.  I mean, just to pronounce and spell things.  I don’t expect to be great at French anytime soon, but I’d like to at least sound like a competent chef.  It seems that if you want to get serious about cooking, there’s just no side-stepping a little bit of French culture.

Which sounds fine to me. How about some French classes and then maybe a trip or two to Quebec? These are worthy and easily attainable goals.

I guess I’ll park it there and leave it at that. Three goals sounds good, and things all around are good. Also things are tired. It’s late, and I’ve a busy day tomorrow providing for my technicians.

Au revoir for now!

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The Registry

August 28, 2012 in Journal Entry by Cheshire Splat | No comments

I see the appeal of it. It’s neat, it’s concise, it’s convenient. It’ll track everything for you, all but eliminating gift duplication. And it lets your guests know not only what you want, but what you really need. It’s wedding season right now, and of course I am talking about wedding registries.

I’ve had the pleasure of perusing a few of them lately, and I’m trying to figure out what to make of them. You see, for me this is all relatively new. Very few of my friends got married young, so now that most of my folks are hitting their late twenties and early thirties, the wedding bells are a ring ring ringing. And I am a shop shop shopping.

Part of me doesn’t like this. I guess I should throw that right out there. I propose that there is something at least partially effed about registries, and I suppose that explains my need to explore the thought.

Let’s look at one wedding: one of my best friends’ little sisters. I just purchased for the lucky young couple a voluminous footed bowl. Now, if I could entreat you just for a moment not to snicker at the name of the voluminous footed bowl, I will assure you that it is a very fine piece of glassware. It’s a table bowl. The type of fine crystalline object that ensconces a bunch of apples (as pictured) or whatever other decorative bric-a-brac one drums up, and while displaying such decorative objects, indeed in doing so, ties the entire room together. It is an ornamental center piece, ready to anchor many a room for many a years to come.

But what does it mean? What the hell does it say about my relationship to this young couple—what personally—that I just bought them a fucking bowl for a gift? I don’t know, and that’s what I’m struggling with. I guess I want every wedding gift to be intensely personal. I mean, I at least had the class to get the couple an ornamental, elegant centerpiece instead of, say, towels. Or forks. Or an over the sink colander.

With the other wedding I just shopped for, I did at least a little bit better. I went BBQ themed, getting them some grilling items and a cookbook. The registry site even allowed me to gift wrap them neatly in one box. I’ve toasted with this couple many times, especially the bride who I’ve known for some time, over many burgers, beers, and such. But does the BBQ gift set belie a closer connection between myself and the couple… or did they just have a more eclectic registry?

With the last wedding I went to, I actually went out on a limb. Unsure at the time if I was being appropriate or being foolish. I went half on the registry, half off. Of course this was a gift for a friend who I know a lot better and have some history with. And the off the registry gift was a risk too—it was a board game. What kind of schmuck brings a board game to a Tupperware party? The couple can neither sleep on it, cook with it, nor use it as a chip n dip. But this is a couple who likes games, and besides games aren’t cheap anymore. Good ones run $50 – $100. And besides besides, they liked it.

I’ve got my sister’s wedding coming up, and that’s the one that’s really driving me nuts. It’s my little sister.  I want to get them something special, and I sure as hell don’t want to get it off the registry. I mean, is the registry only for more distant friends and family in the first place? Is that the point that I’m missing? Maybe.

But I’m working on this one. Something special for my little sister and the luckiest guy in the world. I need a home run on this one. Nothing short will do.

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Little Joy

August 1, 2012 in Journal Entry by Cheshire Splat | 2 comments

Here she is. My little joy Juno.

I’m actually still working on the name. Everyone things that she’s named after the movie. Read your damn classics, people. That’s all I have to say.

But she’s what I’m focused on right now.  The little bundle of joy I have waiting for me at home.  She is adorable and playful and cuddly and all of the things that a kitten is supposed to be.  And she’s the only positive thing I have to focus on at the moment.

My grandfather passed away this week.  I’ve searched for some profound words to say about it, but all I’ve got is a messy ball of feelings.  His health had been in decline, so the family was prepared for this… as relative a term as that is.  One is never truly prepared.

But there is something profound about the expiration of a generation.  I never met my other grandfather, actually, he passed away before I was born.  And both of my grandmother’s passed on a little while ago too.  I was too young then to realize what I was really losing… I guess that’s the way things go for many of us.  And now that’s it.  My parents are the last generation.  And after that it will be mine. We march, rank and file, a step closer to the end.

My grandfather was a quiet man who kept to himself. I sometimes wonder if anyone ever really knew him.  I’m glad at least I got to visit with him one last time while he was still lucid. And I don’t have any profound words to offer about his life either. He fought in the war. He was a company man, a family man. He loved his football. About as American as they come. I suppose in looking for something profound to say, I’m digging for some deeper way of expressing that I’m simply going to miss him.

The week has generally sucked in other, less dramatic ways as well…. I started to write about that here, but you know what, skip it.

It’s strange. I haven’t told any of my coworkers yet about my grandfather. I mean, I’m genuinely depressed about it… I wonder if it shows. I’m in a training session all week and even though I’m not running it, it would still behoove me to be energetic and social. But it just feels like me and them right now after this loss. There are only two men left in my family. It feels pretty lonely.

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Jet Plane for One

July 7, 2012 in Journal Entry by Cheshire Splat | No comments

I’m sitting at an airport gate, having arrived early for my flight for once, and killing some time.

This is the first time I’ve traveled alone in a little while, and it’s a bittersweet mix. Exciting because I’m getting back in to being single again, and yeah it does feel pretty good to be a bachelor on the go. But I do so miss having a traveling partner. I hadn’t even done a *that* much traveling in my last relationship, but we did get around to a few places. NOLA and that bed and breakfast ski weekend stand out as highlights. And we had been in the process of planning more when the relationship split. Such is life, I guess.

And that’s been a weird hold up for me in dating. I spent the better part of my 20s learning things the hard way, and I’m just now in the phase where things are good and I’m ready to travel. And, man, am I! I’m a homeowner now, so I have to be careful with money, but still, traveling is the thing at the top of the list. I want to get out there. See the world. Hell, just see more of the US. And I’m gonna do it.

But it can be a little weird when you’re on a date with some uber ivy league girl and she’s been to a dozen countries already. Cause she could be out on a date with some other guy, who’s been to just as many countries. And such is dating. I guess the dates where you’re feeling weighed and measured aren’t the good dates, and honestly they don’t phase me that much these days.

But it’ll be nice to find the girl who’s going through the same steps as me. Maybe I should stick to dating the liberal arts majors, for whom entering the workforce was a less than glorious experience and who had to survive on their wits for a bit before they started to find success? There’s folks like that out there, right?

Anyway, guess it’s food for thought.

For now I board a plane to San Diego to enjoy a couple of days at the beach with friends. It’ll be sweet. And then after that… on to the next adventure.

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Off to the Best Coast

July 6, 2012 in Journal Entry by Cheshire Splat | No comments

Tomorrow I will be leaving my home state for a brief sojourn on the west coast, and I couldn’t be happier.  With everything going on, I’ve needed a vacation.  I will be dipping my toes in the Pacific, along a beach that looks just like this one:  

Jogging along the surf in the morning is one of my favorite things to do, and for the next several days that’s just what I’ll do.  My friends I’m staying with live south of the city, and in past visits I would jog every morning down to the estuary that is the last piece of American thing along that coast before the hill slopes upward and Tijuana springs from it–crammed up against the fence and spilling down the hill into the sea.

It’s intensely calm standing on the boarder like that, another world just beyond your reach.  Everything is behind you in a moment like that–your home, your people, your life, your past–it is all quite literally behind you, and for a moment one can forget everything and simply behold another world.

And I’ll need some peace of mind like that after these past few weeks.  I seriously am having a hard time getting my head around the good, good things and the bad, bad things that have happened.

The long term relationship I was in ended, rather suddenly, when my ex decided she was moving to another country.  And of course, only then did I realize how I felt about her, and as much as I tried to figure it out and express it, there was nothing to be had in the break-up for me but heartbreak.  It sucked.  But life moves on…

I got promoted at work.  Again, finally, only this time the pay grade is permanent.  And there’s more buzz on that note that I don’t want to get into yet, but I’m optimistic.  I’m in a leadership position now, finally officially, and I love it.  My work is challenging, and my days go by quickly.  Perhaps I have more thoughts on this that I should sort out… especially since the road to this promotion was not, for me, a straight one.  I endured some ups and downs, and I really think they made me, frankly, more of a man.  I do not feel young anymore, and I do not approach my problems like a young man.  Which is interesting, because I still look like a young man.  I really want to shave this beard off, but people give you shit when they think you’re a twenty-something know it all.

There are family issues going on as well, and they are not good.  I’m not sure if I’m even ready to type about that here….

Life at home couldn’t be better… when my power’s on at least.  The storms knocked out power for the better part of a week, and we had to toss out all our food.  But things with my roommates right now are great.  In fact I was crashing at my roommate’s girlfriend’s house while the power was out.  It’s good to have good people in your life.

So there’s a lot for me to compress and file away while I’m relaxing and jogging and swimming at the beach the next few days.  It’ll be nice.

Oh and speaking of compressing things…. I’ll be compressing a few of these bad boys.  Burgers at Hodad’s!  Can’t wait!

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