If you're looking for a faster paced version of Donna Tartt's The Secret History, with all the ancient Greek allusions replaced with Shakespeare (which was far more satisfying for me) then M.L. Rio's If We Were Villains is the book for you-- it's intense.
Million Ants Man Sighting (Form: Amorphous)
My wife and I were walking down Second Avenue, minding our own business, when we came across a deconstructed superhero (Million Ants Man, of course).
We Might Have Been in the Catskills
Catherine and I spent the last few days so far up in the Catskills that it might not be designated as the Catskills-- near a quaintly dilapidated town called Stamford . . . our friends Ann and Craig invited us up-- Ann's family owns several houses on property surrounding a very very old house that has been in her family since the 1700s . . . but we stayed in her parents' modern house, across from the spooky cemetery where hundreds of crows congregated this morning; and we did some lovely hikes with spectacular views of the bucolic Schoharie Valley, drank some local IPAs and some Teremana tequila (endorsed by The Rock himself), played Bananagrams and watched the rain, drove the golf cart to get iced coffee from Stewarts, traipsed around town, and generally enjoyed the change of scenery and lack of humidity . . . and as a bonus, the kids didn't destroy the house or the van and the dog seems to have been taken care of . . . but now we are back in Jersey and it's a fucking jungle swamp outside.
I Am Too Old For This Shit
This afternoon, my son Alex snuck me into the Busch gym on Rutgers and it was packed-- probably because it's so fucking hot outside-- and we got into a game of three-on-three with an old student of mine and some random college kids and Alex made a couple lay-ups and the kid covering him-- who was shorter than him-- started hanging all over him and chasing him and elbowing him and then when Alex stole the ball from him and drove the kid grabbed his shirt, soccer-style, to keep him from scoring and we were all like "you're done" and he complained that Alex elbowed him and then he stopped playing but the kind of hung out shooting in the midst of us while we were organizing another game and at some point Alex and the kid bumped into each other and then we were about to start another game but this kid kept shooting-- he was trying to get Alex to start something and he eventually succeeded-- he pushed him and Alex took a swing at him and me and another guy had to break it up and my old student got hit in the nose while he was trying to break it up (by Alex?) and then once it was sorted out the kid still kept hanging around and then he got the gym supervisors to come over and at this point I was like "we need to get out of here because I'm not supposed to be here and you're not supposed to be getting in fights on school grounds and that's what we did-- we went to the Piscataway Y and played two -on-two against two really athletic kids and got our butts kicked, but it was physical and fun and there were no hard feelings.
Do It Geno!
While I did not climb, cut, or dispose of the giant dying tree that stood next to our house, menacing our roof (and our neighbor's roof) I did feel like I put in a full day's work watching this thing come down-- it was a very stressful for both me and the dog, the thumping of the logs as they swung down and crashed into the remaining trunk, the destruction in the garden, the denting of our siding, the general mayhem in our neighbor's yard (they had to take apart the chainlink fence so they could get the excavator back there to carry the giant chunks of tree to the truck) and the decision of just how high to leave the stump-- I'm going to sand it down and hit it with a couple coats of polyurethane to preserve it-- but though it was demanding, nerve-wracking, and costly to watch Genie Tree (highly recommended! they did it for $2800 . . . which was much lower than any other estimate . . . except JCR Tree Service) the threat of this tree falling on our house (and our neighbor's house) has been driving me mad for years-- the only thing I can compare it to is how Claudius feels about Hamlet, when he sends him to be executed in England . . . all I could think was "do it Geno, for like the hectic in my blood this tree rages and thou must cure me."
The Little Friend: A Southern Gothic Tour de Force
Donna Tartt's novel The Little Friend, a convoluted, meandering, and tangled Southern Gothic tale, inspired me to record a meandering and convoluted podcast celebrating this epic story: "Donna Tartt + Poisonous Snakes = Hell Yes!"
Milton Friedman Was (Kind of) Wrong
I played some pickle-ball with my wife this morning (for free!) and then I carted and spread a few wheelbarrows of free topsoil in my backyard, and now I'm enjoying a free beer-- some lady gave away a bunch of leftover IPAs from a fundraiser she had-- solid stuff: Night Shift Santilli and Lord Hobo Banger #6 . . . so while there's no free lunch there seems to be free other stuff, if you're willing to seek it out.
She Got Her Butt in Gear (After Being Probed in the Rear)
My wife got a colonoscopy this morning (she passed!) and then-- after a nap-- she got her butt in gear and hosted a book club reunion this afternoon (but she did not drive a car, drink alcohol, or sign any important documents-- all of which are strictly prohibited after being under anesthesia).
Gross Stuff
My wife is in the midst of colonoscopy prep and I played pickle-ball so hard in the heat that my scalp started peeling dead skin (or maybe it's just sweat residue or stuff from the inside of my new hat . . . I don't know, it came off in the shower).
My Children Are Conspiring Against My Inner Peace
Despite yesterday's post-acupuncture clambering, my back was feeling pretty loose this morning . . . until I noticed that the minivan's back driver-side tire was totally flat-- it turns out Ian ran over a nail on the way home from life-guarding last night (at least it wasn't Alex again) and after the usual mallet pounding and yanking (and some standing on the lug wrench) the lug nuts came loose and we changed yet another tire (it's getting tiresome) but hopefully, they'll be able to patch this one on the cheap-- and next summer my kids need to get jobs they can bike to because when they drive the car, it costs more money than they make.
Almost Therapeutic
After some three-on-three basketball this morning, my calves and back were pretty tight, so I told my acupuncturist to go to town on them-- and while there was a bit of pain right when she poked the needles in, then the muscles started to loosen up-- and after lying there in the liminal sleep state for twenty-five minutes, I felt much more relaxed . . . until I went into the parking lot and saw that the fucker that parked next to me wedged his car so close to my driver side door that I couldn't my door more than an inch or so-- I had to get into my car on the passenger side and climb over the middle console like some kind of middle-aged gymnast vaulting the ol' pommel horse (I'm not sure if that's what gymnasts do but I don't feel like googling it).
Straight From the Cardiologist to the Cheesesteak Joint
Catherine and I spent even more quality time together-- we accompanied my mom to her cardiology appointment at the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine (and I drove my dad's boat of a car into the city and down into the bowels of the parking deck, which was slightly unnerving because the Lincoln Nautilus handles like an overweight blue whale) and while we had to wait quite a while to see the doctor, the news was fairly good-- no rush on fixing the valve in my mom's heart-- she just has to monitor things and get a new electro-cardiogram . . . and so we celebrated the only way you can when you drive all the way to Philly . . . we got cheesesteaks at Tony and Nick's Steaks (and I got sharp provolone and long hots on mine . . . amazing).
Quality Time with the Ol' Ball and Chain
Catherine and I went and played pickle-ball this morning and then we biked to the Rutgers pool, swam a bit, ate some sandwiches together, and then fell asleep poolside (we were at a fun birthday bbq last night) only to awaken to some very dark clouds rolling in, so we packed up, leapt on our bikes, raced home (sort of-- she was racing, I'm pretty slow on a bike) and beat the torrential downpour by a minute or two, then we went grocery shopping together, and after that we watched TWO finales-- Season 2 of From and Season 1 of Red Oaks . . . and we didn't bicker, not even once!
Potpourri
I went to acupuncture Thursday (because I'm a very lucky dad . . . my kids have gotten into the pick-up basketball scene and I'm just good enough to play with them-- I've got to take advantage while I still can, but it's slowly killing me and acupuncture helps to loosen up my back and calves . . . I played for two hours with them this morning and then I planted a shrub on the side of our house . . . a yew, which is supposed to thrive in the shade-- I built a really nice bed with all the stones I've filched from the park and a bunch of topsoil that got dumped by accident in a friend's rental property driveway-- trapping a car in the driveway-- and the police say there's nothing they can do so my friend who owns the property is telling everyone to take the free soil-- and I only live two blocks away, so I've taken six or seven wheelbarrow loads of dirt from the pile-- which has not put a dent in it) and I was hoping to just lie there and relax while Dana stuck some needles in my sore spots-- but Dana is a talker and she had a lot to say-- which is coincidentally and ironically related to my new podcast episode-- there was a horrendous car accident at the edge of town two weeks ago-- my wife saw the wreckage on her way back from Costco-- and it turns out the accident was right in front of the acupuncture office and Dana was right in the midst of the accident, pulling bodies from a car and trying to administer CPR and getting one of the license plates of the two cars that were racing, at 85 MPH in a 35 zone, and it turns out the victims of the crash were the parents of a local family that Dana and I both know and there was a third car that was on fire and one of the cars that was racing was mangled and they had to pull that guy out with the jaws of life-- so that's the story I got, in graphic and gory detail, before Dana stuck some needles in me and knocked me out-- and so I had some very weird and scary dreams while I was in the acupuncture dream-state.
Autopocalypse Now (Carmageddon Later)
Autopocalypse Now (Carmageddon Later) is certainly my most impassioned episode of We Defy Augury . . . I get pretty worked up about the book Carmageddon: How Cars Make Life Worse and What To Do About It by Daniel Knowles (a guy who hates cars even more than me) but to balance things out, I was able to dig up a very rare monologue by The Boss himself . . . and you know how that guy feels about automobiles.
Red Oaks and Roxy Music
I don't know how we missed it, but wife wife and I are catching up on the nostalgic, funny, and wonderful Amazon show Red Oaks-- it's Caddyshack and The Graduate and Ferris Bueller all rolled up into one delightful '80s comedy-- that's set in New Jersey!-- and the eternally stoned valet Wheeler has got me listening to Roxy Music . . .. and while I love the show, I'm not certain that I love Roxy Music (but like Steely Dan, it might grow on me).
Ian . . . It Is Your Graduation
Ian graduated from high school today and the ceremony was lovely-- the speeches were short and sweet, the weather was breezy and temperate, and we had a delicious lunch afterwards with my parents at Wu's Shanghai Dumpling in North Brunswick-- and while the only mishap during the formalities was the fact that Ian tripped on his ascent up the stairs to receive his diploma, my wife suspected this had something to due with his designation as "Class Clown" in the Yearbook-- and she was right, he bet a friend twenty dollars that he would stumble on stage and then he followed through (and got paid) but we also had a minor mishap BEFORE the graduation got underway: Alex drove Ian over to the high school while Catherine and I were getting dressed-- a half-mile drive-- but there was a bunch of graduation traffic and he was trying to squeeze between a truck and a parked car and he hit the parked car's mirror with the van's mirror and broke the other car's mirror-- and he didn't have his license on him and I think there was a bit of conflict between him and the other driver-- but we sorted things out right before the kids walked out in their robes (of course, this guy was sitting right behind us and he was pretty indignant-- with good reason-- but I gave him my information and hopefully it won't cost that much to fix it) and now both my kids have graduated high school . . . but one of them could use another semester of Driver's Ed (and my wife will finally "graduate" tonight from Project Graduation-- she's been working her ass raising money and recruiting volunteers for the all-night event-- once she rides over there and sets things up, she's free at last free at last).
Bedtime Stories
I don't know if this is a common experience, but it happens to me all the time-- when I'm reading in bed, at night, and I start to fall asleep, I'll nod off for a moment or two, but I'll dream that I'm still reading-- and my brain will invent the text-- so I'll still be reading along, but not really, my eyes are actually closed and my mind is making up what comes next in the book-- and then I'll start and wake up and I'll reread whatever I was reading and it will be totally different than what I just "read" in my previous half-conscious state . . . I'm assuming this happens to everyone who reads before bed?
Things I Learn in the Car with My Wife and Kids Episode 74
Apparently the little metal button on the side of my OnePlus 8 model phone turns the phone's ringer on and off (so there's been nothing wrong with my phone or mobile network . . . I've just had the ringer turned off for a couple months or so).
Father's Day Excitement (with a Lady)
I biked over to Castleton Park this morning to play some pickle-ball and when I returned home, I saw a groundhog amble around the bend in my yard and head into the open door of the bike shed-- so I called for Lola, thinking that she'd scare the creature out of the shed but-- because of the other three bikes in their slots-- she couldn't really get in there properly and all I heard was some frightened groundhog squeals from the back corner; I used Ian's phone light but I couldn't see way back in there and Lola was now obsessed with the situation and I didn't want a repeat of what happened with my old dog (Sirius) and a very unlucky groundhog so I had Ian take Lola for a long walk and I left the bike shed door open and vacated the area and now it seems the groundhog has hightailed it out of the shed, because Lola is no interested in the bike shed and has returned to her usual chill lady-like demeanor.
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