Yesterday, in a mad rush to get to the 7 AM Faculty meeting, I forgot my lunch-- and the meeting was a boring explanation of why teachers will no longer be getting "highly effective" grades because administrators are revisiting the language in the Danielson evaluation model . . . super-fascinating, especially for someone who is retiring-- and then this morning, because it's Back-To-School-Night, I wanted to go straight to the gym before going back to school, and so I brought my gym bag, which was green, but forgot my school bag, which is also green-- so I had to get a loaner computer from the library and couldn't leave and reenter the building because I did not have my ID; my class was a humid jungle, absolutely disgusting, but we suffered through (the principal walked by, felt the wave of heat coming out of my classroom and said, "That's awful, you should put a work order in" but I don't know what that will do-- my little portable AC, which is too loud to teach over (or hear the children, they all whisper now when they speak) can't combat the body heat generated by twenty-seven teenage bodies, so there is not any foreseeable solution . . but I did make it to the gym-- where I learned that my phone is probably dead and the Google Messaging app, which hasn't been working well for two days, completely blacked out-- and the nursery, where I bought some Creeping Jenny and Ajuga-- and then I went home, walked the dog, snacked, saw my wife-- who has no AC at all in her classroom-- she had an awful migraine from the heat and humidity and immediately passed out-- and then I showered, noticed I lost three pounds (water weight) and got back in the car and headed to school, but I stopped for a large can of Coke on the way and it was $2.30 cents and I happened to have cash, $2.35 cents and I thought the register guy was going to give me a nickel back, but instead he just passed me back my dime (and when I got back into the car, I realized why he may have done that, as I had a large booger in my nose and perhaps he felt bad for me) and now I am about to begin my last Back-to-School-Night ever, and that makes me very happ.
Sunrise: A Mystery Town Wrapped in an Enigma Inside of a Riddle
Like a set of three Matryoshka dolls, the three narratives in Téa Obreht's novel Sunrise nest inside of each other, and each story has its own set of secrets-- it's a gothic Western tale inside a Jonathan Franzen story of familial relations and disillusionment inside an episode of Alone (complete with tragically inspirational backstory) and so if you're looking for a page-turner that's a bit more meta than most, this is the book for you: nine Bulki bars out of ten.
We Bike to the Train
I Should Have Biked to the Train
Bruce Springsteen: More Youthful Unintentional Irony
Bruce Springsteen, just like my son Alex, produced some fantastic unintentional irony when he was a young man (and I learned this from the fascinating book Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run by Peter Ames Carlin) because while Bruce was writing and recording songs about being sprung from cages and driving down Highway 9, songs about offering Mary redemption and escape beneath the dirty hood of his car, about two lanes that could take her anywhere-- car-centric anthems like "Thunder Road" and "Born to Run"-- and stories about the Magic Rat driving his Dodge over the Jersey State line to meet a barefoot girl in "Jungleland"-- while he was making this seminal rock album, Bruce could NOT really drive a car-- he was so obsessed with music and his guitar in high school that he never learned to drive, and he didn't get his own vehicle-- 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible-- until after the album's release, in 1976 . . . so perhaps that's why the album is so romantic about cars: Bruce hadn't experienced road-rage, maintenance costs, and traffic yet; if he had, he might have had a very different tone towards automobiles and the Magic Rat might have caught the PATH over the Jersey state line.
Young People, Sometimes They're Ironic and They Don't Even Know It
I'm very proud of my son (and thanks to everyone at Stages for allowing him to intern and mentoring him) because he's landed a job at a company in Brooklyn that makes buildings in NYC green and ultra-energy-efficient, but full disclosure (not that I'm going to call his new boss and rat him out) the last two times Alex left town to visit his girlfriend in Manhattan, he left his window-unit air conditioner on—and the first time he did this, it ran for days (because his ultra-inefficient brother didn't bother to turn it off and we were at the beach).
Everything, Everywhere, All at Once . . .
Yesterday afternoon, the dog and I were turning the corner from the park, and I saw my son Ian in the driveway, standing in the bed of his pool technician company pickup truck, wearing his pool technician collared shirt, sweeping—and when I got closer, he explained that some pool chemicals had spilled in the bed of his truck and he was cleaning up the mess . . . he was sweeping the granules of calcium hypochlorite—the stuff you use to "shock" a pool—and putting it all back into a big plastic drum; I didn't like the smell of it, so I told him to put on his ventilator mask, and he did so, and I grabbed him a trowel and a flat shovel to make the cleanup easier—and I should mention it was drizzling while he was cleaning up the spill and it had been drizzling while he was driving back from the Pennsylvania/New Jersey border, where he was working earlier in the day-- covering for someone who maintained pools in that region . . . once he got the bulk of the granules into the plastic container, he twisted the lid onto it, and we did a bit more hosing things down and cleaning up and then when he went to pick up the drum, he noticed it was HOT—there was some kind of reaction going on inside; I'm an English teacher, not a chemistry teacher, so I ran inside and googled some things and learned that because the calcium hypochlorite had gotten a bit wet and also because it was mixed with other organic matter from the back of Ian's work truck—some leaves and cardboard—that this was a highly unstable chemical situation, liable to spontaneously combust or explode . . . so I told Ian to call the fire department because there was no way I was allowing him to take the top off this plastic drum, which was getting hotter and hotter; a fire truck arrived in a matter of minutes, and the firemen got out and we explained the situation; just after the fire truck pulled up, my son Alex drove part way down our street and then had to back up, and he got out of Ian's car (which he had borrowed) and told me some very good news-- he got an engineering job in Brooklyn! with a company that takes city buildings and makes them ultra-energy efficient and green . . . awesome, amazing, incredible news!-- but there was very little time to celebrate, because the fire department had called the Middlesex County HAZMAT unit and they were on the way—and some police cars were pulling up . . . so I hugged and congratulated Alex and then got back to the task at hand—what was going to happen with this very hot drum of toxic chemicals in front of our house?-- I thought the HAZMAT crew would just take it away, but no such luck . . . they wanted Ian to call his boss and see if the company had a way to deal with and dispose of the drum—and then my wife arrived home from work, and I had to convey the GREAT NEWS! ALEX GOT A JOB! and the other, not-so-great news: YOU ARE STANDING IN A TOXIC EVENT! and then there was much consternation and many phone calls—Ian's boss had to talk to the HAZMAT crew— and there was much use of equipment—chlorine meters and heat meters and fire hoses (to wash away the pool chemicals in the street) and there were probably a dozen various town firemen and county HAZMAT guys chatting and discussing, and then another youngish guy from Ian's pool company showed up—but slightly older and much more experienced than Ian—and the HAZMAT guys put on their HAZMAT suits and tried to open the lid of the drum, but some yellow gas emerged, so they stopped—because they didn't want to release the gas into the neighborhood, so instead, the more experienced pool guy, who was a stand-up dude with an 80s mustache, a self-prossed "safety freak" who never removed his ear buds during the entire ordeal and had a wonderful, slightly jaded outlook on the scene (and he also gave Ian a nice plastic scooper) and this self-professed CPO (Certified Pool Operator) took the drum and put it in the back of HIS company pickup truck, and his job was to transport it to some county building in North Brunswick, where the HAZMAT people would meet him and figure out how to dispose of this mess—but before he took off with the drum, he shook hands with every guy there and thanked them, and then Ian and I shook hands with people and thanked them—this was quite the social event: town fire department, county HAZMAT guys, a schoolteacher and a couple of pool technicians, and the EMT guys that checked out Ian's vitals—all trying to figure out how to deal with this toxic, unstable drum of pool chemicals . . . but it seems we avoided a major explosion or a Don DeLillo-style airborne toxic event, and in the end, Alex got a job, and Ian might still have a job . . . we shall see (and I was going to abstain from alcohol this week, after a bibulous summer, but that resolution fell by the wayside—for stress-relief and celebratory reasons).
Last First Day (Dave Finally Figures It Out)
In all likelihood, this will be the last time I do "first-day-school-stuff"-- I am hoping to retire at the end of this year-- and fortunately (or unfortunately?) I have finally figured out the perfect lesson to do on the first day of class with my College Writing students-- a simple categorization, analysis, and synthesis progression using some quotations about writing-- so better late than never, I suppose.
Let's Get Small . . . Let's Get Really Small
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| R.I.P Big Guy |
A T-shirt, Wrapped in a Mystery, Inside a Drawer . . .
You might be aware of the t-shirt enigma, but if not, I will do my best to explain it: most of the time, unless I'm about to exercise in an extremely cold environment, I want to wear the lightest, softest, thinnest t-shirt in my drawer—I assume this is the same for most people; I want to wear a light, soft, thin t-shirt when I am working out, when I am lounging around the house, when I am sitting on the porch in the Jersey humidity . . . so when I open my t-shirt drawer, I choose the thinnest, softest t-shirt, which means this t-shirt, soon enough, is going to go through the wash and get EVEN THINNER and EVEN SOFTER . . . thus precluding the wearing of my other t-shirts, which are thicker and stiffer and stifling and so, of course, do not go through the wash repeatedly because I rarely wear them-- so they never attain the status of the venerated thin and soft t-shirts . . . I'm not sure how to remedy this—there is, of course, the inevitable demise of these thin and soft t-shirts, but it takes a while—and I'd like to have more of them, so I occasionally wear a thicker t-shirt for a bit and then toss it in the wash, but unless I make a concerted effort to change this pattern, I'm stuck inside a cycle wrapped in an enigma of a riddle of soft cotton.
Texas . . . It's a Universe Unto Itself
While the next two books in the trilogy don't quite compare to Bluebird, Bluebird, Attica Locke does wrap things up for Darren Matthews and his mom in dramatic fashion-- lots of family secrets (and a bit too much family history for my taste) and much conflict over race and crime in East Texas (and even a fair perspective from the POV of a Black Trump supporter) make all three of these three books compelling reads.
Home . . . The Place Your Kids Fuck Up
We are back from the beach—and I am home for the first time in a month (aside from a short pit stop three weeks ago, when I drove from Kill Devil Hills to the Jersey Shore—I stopped at home for a moment to pick up the dog and the bikes) and the house is a mess: the houseplants have not been watered, the lawn needs mowing, the backyard is a jungle, the bathrooms have not been cleaned, the dishwasher has not been run, the cardboard was not put out, Alex went to the city but left his AC on, the rest of the windows are open, etcetera, etcetera . . . the moral being our boys do not know how to take care of the house, BUT most importantly, the mess is superficial . . . they didn't burn the place down, so the vacation was well worth the cleanup (and my body is a mess too—a month of eating and drinking has me weighing in at 196.9 . . . not the worst number to see on the scale, but still).
Thar She Blows . . . Or Thar He Blows: It's Hard to Sex a Humpback Whale
These Are a Few of My Favorite F@cking Things
Our beach vacation—and the summer itself-- are coming to a rapid end, so this morning I decided to cram in a few of my favorite things before the thunderstorms:
1) I went to Wardell Park and played some pickleball—it was hot and humid, and I really worked up a sweat;
2) when I got back from pickleball, I got on my bike and rode to the beach and jumped in the ocean and took a swim—this makes my knees feel great, and I will truly miss this when we return home . . . in all my time at the Jersey Shore, the water has never been warmer . . . I know that when I finish playing pickleball back in Central Jersey, I should come home and take a cold shower or go to the Y and swim in the pool—but it's not the same as biking down to the beach, standing knee-deep for a while contemplating the waves, and then diving into a wave and swimming around for a bit, buoyant and also able to flush out my nasal cavities without shame—because the ocean is so fucking big, what's a little more snot in it?
3) I went to Jody & Jodee's Fish Market and got yet another incredible fried fish sandwich—and I took some surreptitious photos while I was waiting for my tilefish on a roll because this place is Jersey as fuck . . . you couldn't invent the people who wandered in-- and where else can you get a fresh fried bluefish sandwich for $8.99?
A Feverish End to the Summer
Last night was the final Taco Tuesday of the summer at Barrio Costero—Soder joined us for steak tacos, but Stacey did not . . . she was still recovering from her trip to Vegas—and now I am sad to report that this long and wild month of socializing, partying, drinking, smoking, swimming-- so much swimming, the water at the Jersey Shore has never been warmer-- doing Zyn nicotine pouches, reading, strumming my guitar, writing podcast scripts, eating seafood and thin crust pizza at Vic's, drinking fancy drinks at The Wheelhouse, napping on the beach and all the rest of the good stuff is coming to an end; we visited so many people and had so many visitors that my head is reeling—but now it's time to dry out, start eating healthy, and get ready for school; vacation is not quite over, however, so my wife and I enjoyed a serene paddleboarding/kayaking journey this morning on the Manasquan Inlet, and because I was on a paddleboard and I was wearing my polarized sunglasses, I was lucky enought to see a number of needlefish darting through the water and several packs of fifteen to twenty cownose rays, flapping their wings just below the surface of the water . . . you should actually call a group of cownose rays (or rays in general) a "fever" of rays-- but I'm not a pedantic douchebag, so I'm not going to do that . . . anyway, I paddleboarded over a whole fucking bunch of cownose stingrays and it was a little scary-- but apparently they visit every summer when the water warms up, and they're fairly docile unless you step on their poison barb-- so be on the lookout and try not to shit yourself if you find yourself in the midst of them.
Worm Holes and Plot Holes at the End of Oak Street
Warning: spoilers ahead for the fairly entertaining dinosaur movie The End of Oak Street, but do not let these spoilers or plot holes stop you from seeing the movie—especially if you're like me and thoroughly enjoy any movie where humans have to survive while being chased by prehistoric megafauna—but the film opens a major can of time-travel worms in order to save Dad-- who gets eaten by a dinosaur, he sacrifices himself to save the family; so when the family finally finds its way out of the Cretaceous period and portals back to 1982, for some reason they pop out a few minutes BEFORE they went on their prehistoric wormhole journey—so now, just for a few minutes, there are two versions of all the characters, so the wife calls her husband to deliver some pizza, so he drives out of the neighborhood that is soon to be transported back in time-- but he's essentially and unknowingly abandoning his family—the family of doubles, so the doubles of the kids and Mom are going back to the Cretaceous to have more adventures, but without dad, they are going ot have to fend for themselves—because the version of the family that just came back are essentially stealing dad from another family/timeline . . . because the original Dad got chomped and eaten by a dinosaur, so they grab his double to complete the family in the present (1982) but now the other family that got sent to the past has no dad . . . so what if THAT family also makes it back? -- dad is really the dad of THAT family, and this "Rick and Morty" type theme is NOT addressed, nor is the fate of the family that gets sent back in time-- now Mom does phone a few people and tell them to get out of the neighborhood before it gets transported, and one of those people is the librarian . . . so she does NOT go back into the past, yet she's the character that saves them from being eaten right before they jump into the portal—but she shouldn't be there at all. . . but maybe don't think about any of these paradoxes and just enjoy the feathered, modernized dinosaurs (interestingly, no one in 1982 remarks on this, even though proto-feathers are a more recent addition to the idea of a dinosaur, but whatever) and hope that big-budget directors and producers and studios keep making stupid movies with giant creatures (maybe there will be a sequel, where the dadless family survives the Cretaceous and makes it back to 1982 and then steals dad back from the original family?)
Profound Epiphany (NOT about clip-on umbrellas)
Dave Sits Up Straight
I must have been hunched over all day yesterday-- while riding my bike . . . which is a mountain bike so you can't sit upright-- and while sitting at the various bars we visited, and so when I jumped in the ocean yesterday afternoon and swam a bit, my left shoulder did something weird, and since then it's really been hurting, especially when I rotate my hand inward towards my torso-- and while I'm not a doctor, I do have YouTube, and so I think this is a shoulder impingement or some rotator cuff tendonitis, which can be caused by poor posture and hunching over-- so, once again, I am trying to improve my posture and walk like I have a stick up my ass, thumbs forward, shoulders back by the ears-- but though this makes my shoulder hurt less, it also feels very silly, like I'm playing some weird role in a movie: "HELLO I'M DAVE! PLEASED TO MEET YOU! I'M IN INSURANCE SALES! ARE YOU THINKING OF CHANGING YOUR POLICY?" or some shit like that . . . I'm even sitting up straight as I type this sentence, so it's hard with me to end with a joke or something ironic-- it's like I've evolved from a mischievous ape into an actual human being-- and so I'm just going to sincerely thank you for reading and wish you a blessed day.
Bars and Belmar on Bikes
My Knee is a Champion (to be precise, Sam Champion)
My left knee starts hurting when the humidity increases, and it REALLY starts hurting before a big rainstorm—so judging by how my knee feels this morning, there's going to be a big rainstorm today.
An Irishman and a Black Lady Walk into a Bar . . .
The Keys That Broke the Cat's Back
My wife went home from the beach yesterday to set up her classroom and harvest produce from her garden, and she didn't arrive back to our beach house until 9 PM—and she brought back various things we forgot to originally pack or needed: a fan, boogie boards, dog food, dog shampoo, some groceries, and her weighted (12-pound) vest, which I left in the car because I didn't feel like carrying it (it's heavy!) and then this morning, I moved her car out of our narrow driveway and snagged a spot down the street so that visitors could pull in, and when she was leaving to go for a walk, she asked, "Where's my weighted vest?" and I told her I left it in the car because it was heavy and I didn't feel like carrying it in last night, and then she said, "Where'd you park the car?" and I told her I parked it down the street, and then she produced a discontented grunt, and I asked why she was annoyed,, and she said she didn't want to carry her car keys around while she took her walk, and I said, "You're putting on a twelve-pound vest but you don't want to carry car keys? Seriously?" and then I brought up the whole straw-that-broke-the-camel's-back proverb, and she said something about the size of her pockets, and I was like, "Put the keys in the vest! You won't even notice!" and she laughed and went on her walk.
A Man Can Dream
My wife and I took a bike ride to the Asbury Sunday Market this morning, and I bought a loaf of sourdough bread and some wild mushrooms, and then we continued biking north along the coast into the high-rent districts of Loch Arbor, Allenhurst, and Deal-- and as we biked past the Gatsby-esque houses and estates, there was a small part of me that hoped that somoene pulling out of one of these driveways, in a Land Rover or an Aston Martin, might graze me with their expensive car-- nothing to awful, but maybe knock me down, maybe I'd suffer a broken wrist or a concussion, and the owner of this fabulously expensive house and car, maybe this person had a couple of DUIs in the past, and they've already been drinking a bit and they really don't want the authorities involved in this accident so they're like "How about two million dollars to keep this quiet? What's your Venmo?" and the Venmo goes through and I get an Uber to the hospital to get patched up and then I retire and buy a beach house.
Rolling Rolling Rolling, Keep That Wagon Rolling
Sometimes You've Got to Use Force When You're a Man
This morning, my wife wanted to bike down to the ocean for beach yoga, but her bike lock was jammed (I was also planning on attending beach yoga, but the Moccios showed up last night and I overindulged, so fuck that) and so she drove her car down to the beach for yoga, leaving me with the project of unjamming her bike lock; I googled the problem and the internet told me to lubricate the lock and then try to feel the tumblers falling into place—they might be out of whack—and gently pull the lock apart- with the force that you use to open a refrigerator door . . . same with the YouTube video I watched, the guy said the important thing was NOT to use too much force, so I greased up the lock with some Pam cooking spray and tried to gently prize it apart but no dice, so then I grabbed a variety of tools and implements from the kitchen and tried to gently pry it apart—a bottle opener, a fork, a butter knife, etc.-- and then I noticed the plastic combination rings were starting ot crack and decided to apply a bit more force—perhaps if I could see what was going on under the plastic?--and I cracked one of the rings, and it did not help; there was no little button under the plastic that said "Press Me To Open a Jammed Lock," and so I went back inside and—BINGO! -- I found a screwdriver, and so first I ordered Catherine a new lock from Amazon, and then I took the screwdriver and went at the stupid lock, ripping apart the plastic rings and jamming the screwdriver in the device and leveraging the metal, cutting my hand in the process, but I finally got the screwdriver somewhere fatal and ripped the lock apart—and I was very satisfied when it slid open, despite the fact that I ignored all the advice on the internet, because-- like Kenny Rogers said-- sometimes you've got ot use force when you're a man.
Dave is a Fucking Genius
I think by this time, we all know that you put the beer in the cooler first, then the ice—but I just developed a similar move that I've never seen before; I was going to heat up some rigatoni and meat sauce in the microwave, and usually the sauce splatters all over the inside walls, so I have to put a paper towel over the bowl, but this time I had a brilliant idea, and I put the meat sauce on the bottom of the bowl and I covered the marinara with the rigatoni—so then when I microwaved, there was no splatter!
Everybody Likes a Compliment (especially Dave)
Sad News and Nostalgia
Some sad news was passed along to me recently: Tim Raba passed away; I haven't seen Tim in many, many years, but he was a phenomenal North Brunswick athlete—primarily baseball and soccer, but he could play anything—and while he had his struggles after high school, I'll always remember embracing him after he scored in overtime in the County Finals against East Brunswick—he was the other outside back, I played on the left and he played on the right (and we had two future college players at stopper and sweeper . . . we were the best defense in North Brunswick history, I think we had three goals scored on us in 24 games my senior year) and Tim and I were the fastest kids on the team, two of the fastest players in the county, and now he's gone and I'm fat and slow, and there's a lesson here, but it's lost on me, other than time goes by and everything falls apart.
It's Hot, Widespread Panic HOT
Dave Visits Two Beaches, Bitches
OBFT XXXIII . . . Hauling It Back to Jersey
Typical Beach Report
A solid Wednesday night get-together to start OBFT XXXIII— Billy, Cliffy, Charlie, Paci, Swaney, Vicki . . . uh . . .Ethan, Jason, (sorry to ruin the rhythm) and, of course, Whitney and Elaine; we went to Aw Shucks for oysters— it was national oyster day— and some other bar for drinks; Charlie and I stopped at 7-11 for tobacco products— I wanted to try Zyn and Charlie wanted to by some traditional Copenhagen— and we were so confused by the array that the lady gave me my coffee for free . . . this is the second time in Norfolk that my general befuddlement has been rewarded by a free cup of coffee; then we went back to Whitney’s place and chatted about old man things: knee replacements, hip replacements, GLPs-1s, retirement, how annoying pets can be, King Crimson and Frank Zappa and jazz, etc and I tried the Zyn and it really worked— major nicotine rush— and then we left for the beach fairly early, the BBQ stand at The Border Station wasn’t even open yet, so I just got coffee and peanuts— but at least the lid fit on the coffee cup, because my drive from DC to Norfolk was marred by a faulty 7-11 coffee lid . . . I went to sip my very hot coffee while driving on I-64 and the top popped off and hot coffee exploded all my hands, shirt, shorts, legs, and car— yikes— but that is forgotten (and so is the back up trying to get through the I-664 tunnel into Norfolk) because now I’m at the Martha Wood, enjoying the water and the ocean breeze and the rocking chairs on the porch, reading a completely bonkers James Elroy book called Widespread Panic.
The Mall is a Mess
Full disclosure: I love shitty hotel gyms—probably because I wake up early and this gives me a destination while my wife sleeps, and there is always one other lunatic in there with me; that is how I began my day yesterday, and then Cat and I took the Metro from DuPont Circle to The Mall— and the Mall is a MESS . . . Apparently there is going to be a Grand Prix race later in August and so there are crews tearing up streets, building giant grandstands (which obscure the view of the Capitol building and the Washington Monument) and there are chain link fences and barricades made of rubber tires everywhere— it’s not particularly aesthetically pleasing, and I’m not sure why we have to race cars around to celebrate 250 years of America— a horse race would be more appropriate, especially considering that our reliance on the car and gasoline usage are what has America over the barrel— but don’t get me started— anyway, we wandered through the wreckage but thoroughly enjoyed our time in the National Botanic Gardens and the lovely courtyard within, and the Hirshhorn Museum has an incredible collection of modern art and complementary Basquiat and Banksy pieces that pretty much explain post-modernism, and then we walked to The National Portrait Gallery— and after a quick stop at Compass Coffee, I highly recommend their nitro cold brew— we enjoyed seeing paintings of all the presidents (and a photo of Donald Trump, looking extra tough) and the various other historical portraits and portrayals— I can see why people like this museum, as it’s a nice break from the surrealism and abstraction of Modernism and post-modern art . . . there’s recognizable people in these painting; then we took the Metro back to our hotel, swam in the pool, and headed to Boqueria DuPont Circle for happy hour drinks and tapas— lovely spacious bar, which is the difference between DC and NYC— DC has height requirements on the buildings, nothing more than 10 stories or so, which makes the city much more spacious and spread out, there’s not the crowded density of Manhattan or Philly— which is nice when you’re in a bar, but not so great for walking (I racked up 26,000 steps yesterday) and my wife questioned this number because she only had 20,000 steps but I reminded her that I wake up early and I’m always pacing around and then, after we went to the Western Market and ate some ice cream, we did a calibration test and walked the same distance and she registered 366 steps and I registered 372 steps, which is a negligible difference— though she claims I “wave my arms around a lot” and that’s why I get more steps— anyway, we fell asleep to an Office marathon while our children played ping-pong and partied hard in our driveway, enjoying the parent-free home (but we can spy on them with the Ring camera, which is fun) and no Cat is headed back home on the train and I am headed to Norfolk for OBFT XXXIII.
From Jersey to Double DC
What Happened at Roy Rogers in 1995, Remained at Roy Rogers in 1995 . . .
My wife and I are about to leave for Washington, D.C. and after we spend a couple of nights sightseeing, she will take the train home, and I will continue on to Norfolk and the Outer Banks to see my college buddies-- but hopefully when we stop for lunch THIS WON'T HAPPEN . . . or if it does happen, since now we live in a time period where everything awkward and embarrassing is caught on video, perhaps it will be a blessing in disguise and I'll be able to retire immediately.
What Are Two Kitchens I Had Never Been In?
This week, my family tried and enjoyed food from two very different restaurants, Amma's Kitchen and Birria Kitchen . . . but they have two things in common: they both have "kitchen" in their name, and they are both in Edison; Amma's Kitchen serves authentic South Indian food in a casual spot located in a strip on the renowned Oak Tree Road—the dosas and roti and dal and fried chicken and biryani were all fantastic—my kids said that it was even better than Delhi Garden—and that's saying something—and as a bonus, there's a massive headshot of Amma on the wall of the restaurant watching over you as you eat; the best thing at Birria Kitchen are the birria tacos, although the chicken al pastor and the birria burrito were also delicious—we only had the beef birria tacos, but they also have chicken birria . . . next time.
Living Under the Shadow of a Big Dumb Cup
My wife and I went to my buddy Terry's yesterday for some poolside fun, and while the food and the weather and the water and the company were all fantastic, the best thing about this outing to the suburbs of Manalapan—which is a fairly long drive from Highland Park, especially due to the state of Route 18—is that my wife left her Big Dumb Cup at Terry's house (and this blunder was in no way engineered by me . . . I'm not that smart) and so my wife's menacing behemoth cup (and the straw) are a good thirty-five minutes from our kitchen . . . but now my wife is threatening to buy another Big Dumb Cup to replace this one—because apparently all of our other water bottles suck—so my nightmare might be doubled if my wife purchases another one and then Terry returns the one she left . . . right now I'm enjoying life out from under the looming shadow of the Big Dumb Cup, but for how long, for how long?
Dave (and Shakespeare) Stick the Landing
Shakespeare's Hamlet has one of the finest endings of any piece of drama, and I think I did a pretty good job ending my podcast ABOUT the ending of Hamlet (and endings in general) but all I can ask is that you give it a listen and decide for yourself: Hamlet: Act Five, Part Two . . . The Readiness and the Silence . . . and if you like, leave a favorable review please . . . I just listened through, found one error, corrected it, and reposted the audio, and now it is as done as it will ever be—although I did forget to put in a clip from the very silly Steve Coogan film Hamlet 2 . . . perhaps I will go back at some point and add that, but for now I'm taking a much-needed break from recording, editing, and mixing . . . hopefully, it will be easier when I record my next episode, which I'm going to try to write soup-to-nuts while I'm on vacation, and then record on a new computer (if it ever gets shipped).
Finished!
One More Day of Recording!
The End is Nigh, The Rest is Silence
I've been working like a dog every morning, for hours at a time, and I'm damned close to finishing my Hamlet podcast . . . and bringing this thing to an end is difficult and it's freaking me out.
There, But For the Grace of God, Go I . . .
Barbara Kingsolver's novel Demon Copperhead retells the story of the orphan boy David Copperfield in modern-day Appalachia—Demon Copperhead survives neglect, the foster care system, addiction, and the catastrophe of the opioid crisis, which hit Appalachia especially hard; despite the hardship, there is a rural beauty to the setting, but about the only thing I could relate to in this tragic story of persistence is the fact that Demon Copperhead hurts his knee playing sports, and it really bothers him (but luckily, doctors aren't still doling out oxy prescriptions for any modicum of pain, or I might have ended up addicted as well).
We Live in a Twilight World
Today I finished watching Tenet, which is generally considered Christopher Nolan's least-liked movie—but luckily, this is my son Alex's favorite Christopher Nolan movie, and he has seen it multiple times, so he provided a helpful (if sometimes overbearing) running commentary as I watched . . . the film is a combination of Shane Carruth's time travel masterpiece Primer and a typical spy thriller, such as The Bourne Identity, and if you can't watch it with my son (who understood Primer on his first viewing) then you might need to look at a chart or watch a YouTube video to understand the way various characters weave their way forwards and backwards through time, or you could just watch it without comprehending all that and simply enjoy Kenneth Branagh's Russian accent and Elizabeth Debicki's lithesome figure (Debicki pretty much plays the same role in The Night Manager . . . a beautiful trophy wife married to an evil arms dealer, and she gets mixed up with a spy).
Nobody Wants to Hear This Shit
My wife and I spent a few days at the beach—we stayed with my cousins—and while I couldn't play pickleball with my brother because of my knee, just about everything else was lovely: an east wind blowing off the ocean; cornhole and beers on the beach; a brand new cousin, little baby Emerson; geocaching success with Kim and my wife in Strathmere; Bananagrams with my mom; good food at La Finestra and Johnny Cutlets and Phil's Famous Pizzeria (who knew they had the best cheesesteak around? my cousin Kim, that's who) and on the homefront (my wife's homemade meatballs) and our children did a good job taking care of the house and the dog (they even took out the garbage) but nobody wants to hear about this kind of shit, how great it was at the beach, how nice it was on vacation, so I'll skip to the mishaps and controversy, which were rather minor:
1) after taking a nap, my wife slipped and fell on the concrete steps walking to the beach and scraped up her knees and hands (but actually escaped without much damage, considering)
2) the house my cousin Jeff rented, which is on the beach, is quite fantastic except for one complaint . . . and this complaint was only from the ladies, who took offense—but I thought it was kind of endearing . . . the owner of the house went nuts with his label maker and labelled EVERYTHING; like I said, the women found this overbearing, but I liked it, I never know where anything goes or how anything works . . . I've provided photographic evidence to do the labeling justice . . . and I love the the owner requests on the glasses shelf "If It Breaks, Please Replace" and that he labeled a large clam shell with the address number.
Dave's Not Here Man
I'm currently at the beach, but I asked DeepSeek to read my blog and provide you folks with a sentence in the same style as Dave, and the AI determined that my style is "verbose, meandering, self-deprecating, and slightly absurd" and produced this:
I have, after a period of what I can only describe as existential lethargy—a condition not unlike the feeling of having one's soul slowly drained by the relentless, beige-colored hum of a malfunctioning refrigerator—finally arrived at the conclusion that my latest, and perhaps most ersatz, theory regarding the universe is that it is not, in fact, expanding, but rather that we are all just slowly shrinking in direct proportion to the ever-increasing number of awkward moments we accumulate over a lifetime, a proposition which I will now proceed to support with a series of half-baked anecdotes and a misuse of the word "miracle".There's No Basement at the Alamo, and There's No Water Closet Inside the Trojan Horse
Keysourcing
Call to action: we all need to put our heads together and remember where I put the spare key to my Kia.
Dave's Left Knee . . . Won the Battle But Lost the War
I did NOT sleep well last night: yesterday, I went for a bike ride in the morning, down the towpath next to the Raritan-- but after a few miles, the trail was washed out, muddy, rutted, and full of puddles . . . so I turned back, went home, and iced my sore knee-- and then I went to acupuncture and my knee was feeling good (perhaps because of the dry weather) and so I went to play some pickleball at Buccleuh Park-- perfect weather so we had a big group, over a dozen players, and though I was determined to take it easy and not strain my left knee-- last Monday I got a cortisone shot, which seems to have done absolutely nothing-- so I was limping around to some extent, but my friend Ann and I got into one of those endless matches against two very good players (Kevin and Jim) where you get so focused that you forget you're injured-- and thirty minutes later, we ended up winning, 12 to 10 . . . fantastic, but at what cost? at what cost? my knee stiffened up, and despite ingesting and smoking a fair amount of THC, my knee still hurt all night. I was rolling around, trying to find a comfortable position-- I got up at 2 AM and went downstairs and took some Advil and iced, and I think I fell asleep for a bit, but it looks like I'm going to need the HA gel shots in my left knee as well, so I'm trying to get that scheduled, but it seems I won't be playing any pickleball or basketball any time soon.
Let Us Reflect Upon How Menacing These Big Dumb Cups Are
Dave Has Three Different Thoughts in Less Than a Second
It's Never Ugly in Princeton (Even When the Air Quality is Awful)
Yesterday, we took the train from what has to be one of the filthiest, smelliest, most dilapidated train stations in New Jersey: New Brunswick . . . the passages between tracks are often closed, the station houses a number of drug-addled street folk, and there's the ever-present smell of urine and feces; the dark warren of grubby shops is rather pathetic, there's a gross Dunkin' and a little flower and plant store (which our friend owns and runs; she finally had to call the cops because there's so much drug dealing and drug use right in front of her shop) and the railing all the way up the stairs to the southbound track is rusted, jagged, and coming out of the concrete—and New Brunswick Station is even more of an eyesore now that the multi-billion dollar HELIX (Health and Life Science Exchange) complex is nearly finished, as it's located directly across the street—but if you take a 17 minute train ride south, to Princeton Junction and then ride the two-car "Dinky" train for five minutes (2.7 miles) into Princeton proper—as we did yesterday—then it's like you've left New Jersey and gone to to a different country . . . the train station is beautiful and immaculate; you walk up a set of modernist stairs and past an enormous outdoor sculpture installation featuring 12 massive bronze animal heads that represent the signs of the Chinese zodiac-- and then we stopped at one of the best small plate and fancy drink places in the universe:The Dinky Bar and Kitchen-- which is in the old train restored station . . . we had espresso martinis and bao buns-- and then we wandered through the Gothic stone buildings on campus (some of which are hundreds of years old) and we then wandered over to the Princeton University Art Museum-- which is a Manhattan quality museum plopped down right in the middle of campus, and totally free-- and we saw the recent new exhibit, the mesmerizing and layered abstract canvases of Willem de Kooning-- plus loads of other stuff (which only represents five percent of the museum's holdings) and then I got some expensive sorbet at The Bent Spoon while my wife went to the consignment shop and then we met a bunch of friends at Triumph Brewery to listen to jazz and drink great beer in what might be the nicest bar in New Jersey (it took seven years to renovate the old post Office in Palmer Square into this space) and then we were lucky enough to catch a ride home-- Cat and I are the only people that regularly take the train to Princeton, I'm not sure why-- but everyone else drove-- and the next thing we knew, we were in South Brunswick, the North Brunswick, the New Brunswick, then Highland Park . . . and all that Laura Ashley preppy style was long gone and we were back in the Jerzee we all love and know.
It Is STILL Ugly Out There!
It's Ugly Out There!
While I know I should be appreciative of the fact that I am alive and healthy and the little things are the big things and good friends and family and meat on the table and all that bullshit, I'd instead like to take a moment and point out some of the ugliness I ran into today:
1) while driving my dog to the vet so they could collect a clean urine sample, I saw the world's dirtiest unicorn, hanging from the back of a trailer—it was so ugly I snapped a photo of it;
2) the photo of the world's dirtiest unicorn looks even filthier and grittier because the air in New Jersey today is quite ugly and smoggyy (due to Canadian wildfires)
3) while I was at the vet, waiting to pay for Lola's urine analysis, I heard some ugly, mournful wailing behind a door, which I surmised was a woman who just put her dog down . . . brutal to hear this, haunting—and made me remember this awful day;
4) and finally, an ugly ray of hope: I purchased something that looks ugly and has an ugly moniker, but despite the ugliness, achieves its purpose: the poetically named "Bike Trailer Hitch for Wagon Camping Rolling Cart Collapsible Wagon with 360° Swivel Joint & Shock Absorber, Quick-Release Clamps for Folding Wagons, Pet Carts & Garden Trailers" was an impulse Amazon purchase, a contraption I hoped would make hauling our beach wagon the five blocks to the beach quick and easy, and I hooked the thing up to my bike and our wagon today, and it works!
