quinoa in slightly spicy sauce

rolling out of bed
with a silent kind of groan
don't want to wake them

5:15 a.m., Liza and Sammy sleeping in the big old bed, he comes in every morning in the middle of the night, they're both in their little worlds, chilly because the windows are open, turn on the shower real hot, piss, strip, jump in the shower, shower, dry, shave, select clothes, don underwear and pants, downstairs, get out irony board and iron, iron, put on shirt, put on socks, eat weird organic cereal with a banana chopped into it with soy milk, drink juice, upstairs to brush teeth, locate keys and wallet, select CDs for the day, gone, 6:00 a.m.

air whipping my hair
conducting early traffic
with my thought patterns

6:00 a.m. Aaaaah. Mory Kante whipping some lovely African acoustic pop into my ears, dig that balafon. No one on the streets really until I hit University, then there's a little buzz, a little bustle, people trying to merge. Nowhere near as crazy as it'll be in an hour, in two hours. Traffic's all messed up down here since they took Highway M down to two lanes so now no one can go over the lake, we're all shoehorned in. Man I love Highway M in the morning, that job's interminable, everything is, here. But me and Mory, we're tight like that, he sings something I don't know but I'm loving him all the way. 6:27 a.m.

pulling into work
first car in the parking lot
TAKE THAT YOU SUCKAZ

6:29 a.m. I love being the first one in. It used to be better when I drank coffee, nothing's like a solitary pot, probably go back to that soon. But it's awesome man, no need of headphones to crank up Banda el Recodo, no one to hear me if I burp once daintily, just me and this old-ass I-Mac and some stories to write. I still have to finish Country of the Week, done by 8:00 aw yeah. Whip through Campaign Ads, done by 2:00 boo-ya. Faces & Places, 3:15 blammo. Start on Darfur, get almost a whole frame done by 5:15. Only J. and J. are still here with me but I beat them both out the door, jump to the car, pop in Skye Sweetnam's disc that I got last night from Tommy, it rocks like igneous, head home through horrific traffic, home to the family. I am a working man.

walk right in the door
someone's crying, someone smiles,
someone hugs me tight

New Post to Replace the Old Post

To explain further.

My new job is in the editorial department of our company, writing a news discussion program that goes into thousands of schools and nursing homes on a weekly basis. We summarize five or six news stories in every issue, giving historical background and context for each, on three levels, salting every story with thoughtful questions for teachers and activity directors to ask their people. There are only two and one-half people in the department. Last week I wrote about the Olympics and the Najaf standoff and Hurricane Charley, as well as mini-features on Ariel Sharon and the new overtime regulations and the Munch heist and this thing they're doing where they're trying to use modern technology to re-create what George Washington looked like when he was 19. Three different days I was in before seven o'clock. Oh and I forgot: each story is done twice, so that the second one can be published online with links to each of my sources. This stuff ain't no joke, people. This week I get to write about the Sudan genocide and about political advertisements and some other stuff. One down, thirty-three more to go for this school year.

So if I haven't been the most diligent blogger, or if I haven't read your stuff this week too much, please to be forgiving me. I'll be better soon.

I've also been detoxing on caffeine (down to just one cup of green tea a day, down from three cups of coffee and two or three cups of tea and a Mountain Dew daily) and we had Sammy's birthday party last weekend, a Harry Potter theme, so I led a few games of "Dumbledore Says" in the backyard and "Red Wand Green Wand" which sucked and then we hid some cool looking "sorceror's stones" in the backyard and kids had to find them and then I'd look carefully at each one and tell them what part of the dragon the stones came from. In my own little way I'm a genius. Two kids left early, one was distraught the whole time because this other little boy wouldn't be his friend, another burst into tears because he could only find one of the smaller stones. Oy.

And at the end of it, when we told Sammy that he had to clean up all the stuff he got, he spits out, bitterly, "It's my birthday party and I just got all these presents, and this is the thanks I get?" He is six years old.

And kids back to school next Tuesday, and Liza starts college classes next Wednesday, and I have to work all day on Labor Day because that's the life of a newsman.

But I have IM on my new computer now, my handle is TheOverstander, it's all good.

And if you don't start checking out The Daily Seventeen, I'll be forced to remind you again.

And if you wanna read a pretty good review of the new Triple Seis album, you'd do worse than to check out PopMatters today.

celery, salsa, bubbly water

Quickly quickly moving lightly

A. Once again Mr. Caleb Crain must be paid attention to. I love that even when Caleb is full of shit, at least he admits it up front, and then proceeds to invent some stuff that is all like blowing my MIND: "In their affect, rock songs are composed of loss, fight, and sugar." I remember the day Caleb tried to get us all excited about Electronic and we wouldn't bite; I also remember the night we taught Craig Ewington to vogue. Highland Ave WHAT! Get Whitey WHAT!

Sun is up it's burning brightly

B. I really admire the folks at Freaky Trigger a lot, especially their NYLPM subsection, cause it's always good, and their T.M.F.D. and Do You See? subsections, because I've started writing for them. Or at least I will soon. Anyone who doesn't underestimate the power of cheese is okay in my book.

Everybody praying nightly

C. The other blog alluded to earlier (and now below) is The Daily Seventeen. Here I will post a haiku every day from now until I don't. Sometimes it will be a senryu, don't be mad about that. After a while I might accept guest submissions. Or maybe I won't. Trying to keep it simple you know.

Future looking so unsightly

D. The secretive project alluded to earlier (and now also below): still secret. Oh mama.

Get yr stuff together tightly

E. Apparently a review I once wrote has been translated into Swedish Chef. Enjoy. Not sure if I'm loving the new one as much, but you have to kind of love a record that begins "Oh, no, what can we do / Daddy lost his head in a coup", don't ya? Just a little?

Check your hair it looks a frightly

F. Music-critic is suddenly publishing like millions of my reviews: L.Lynn, Heart, Jonny Greenwood. Apparently I just like every single record now.

See them rabbits skip so sprightly

G. "Football, it is sometimes said, is a cruel mistress. She ties us to the bed, puts clamps on our nipples and spanks us with wooden paddles. She chains us to the wall and thrashes us with a leather whip." John Nicholson, again proving that not all Middleborough fans are, well, Middleborough-ish.

Conspirators let's indictly

H. Ooh, Anne-Marie, look: Olympic drama. Why should he get to keep that medal anyway, if he didn't earn it?

Not all things are black and whitely

I. I love how suddenly Scott McLellen seems to be all FOR campaign finance reform. Except he's not, so I don't love the reality, just the perception. And I definitely hate how he's trying to tie the Kerry campaign into these so called "shadowy groups" when it was the Bush campaign's own shadowy groups themselves that went and got caught out like Watergate plumbers.

Spread yourself and soar all kitely

J. I sincerely want to move to another country and I'm taking suggestions. Comment or email me, best suggestion might win.

Quickly quickly moving lightly

brief announcements

New job: started.
New project: secretive.
New blog: sorted.

That's all...FOR NOW.

The Top Ten Things About Last Night's Brewers/Marlins Game at Miller Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

10. The fact that the tickets were free. (My officemate earned them for filling up at a local gas station a certain number of times, the friends who were going to go with them couldn't go, aw yeah.) Total cost: $6 for parking, $3.25 for an okay-sized bag of peanuts, $3.25 for a bottle of Aquafina water, $3.25 for a bottle of Pepsi. The Pepsi made Sammy too hyper for words, but Emma can handle her caffeine, because she's almost nine.

9. Our seats, five rows from the top in foul left-field territory, afforded us an excellent view of the game. Amazing sightlines all around the park, it's a Lutheran Church of Family Baseball.

8. Sammy, age 6: "Probably when our guy won the hot-dog race." The kids and their uncle Jeff picked "Bratwurst," who came from behind in the last few yards to outstrip my choice, "Italian Sausage." What a loser, Italian Sausage.

7. Wes Obermueller's amazing pitching performance: seven shut-out innings, two walks, two hits both to Conine. Apparently, Ned Yost didn't tell Obermueller he was starting until 90 mins. before the game, so as not to freak him out. Wes gets nervous. Jack McKeon knew, but Ober thought it might be rookie Jorge de la Rosas.

6. Lyle Overbay confounding my fantasy baseball predictions by smacking a two-run job to right. (I benched him on both my teams. I have switched his name from Lyle "Too Cool for a Nickname" Overbay to Lyle "Inconsistency Itself in the Second Half" Overbay.)

5. The fact that everyone there looked SO WISCONSINISH. Oh man, it was amazing. Lots of middle-aged Danes with brushstaches, many towheaded tween girls, ah my state, I love ya.

4. The awesome music. Hair metal and nu-metal! Geoff Jenkins on the outfield scoreboard saying "I want some R&B," and then his head doing a bobble-dance on top of a cartoon body, accompanied by Usher & Lil Jon. It totally worked, as did "Let's Get It Started," which is unfortunate.

3. The fact that no runs were scored by Florida until we were on our way out of the stadium. The game ended up 6-4, but we didn't see any of the four. Awesome, because last year we saw the Crew play the Reds and we were winning big until the 6th, whereafter we gave the game away. Sammy cried.

2. Emma's out with her mom right now but I'll answer for her: "Tied between watching Bernie Brewer slide down the slidey thing after the home runs with the fireworks going off, and when we were going to the game and we made up Goosey the Talking Flying Burping Goose and all of his evil action phrases like 'Shut up kid, I got problems of my own'."

1. Everyone sleeping on the way home. The PT Cruiser humming through the chilly night air. Uncle Jam Wants You on the stereo. The lights from other cars receding, appearing, it's like a video game, the lights defeat the darkness outside. The game defeats the darkness inside. Not feeling tired or sad. Knowing that after we drop Jeff off and get the kids into bed (still wearing their clothes, barely waking up enough to walk upstairs), I can sprawl out on the couch with Liza and watch Fox Sports World and talk about stuff. The horizon is home.

haibun: gleanings

last night's steady rain
makes the streets glisten blackly,
someone's dream come true

TIARA?

early morning walk:
break into a little run,
surprising myself

I didn't hear anything homophobic there either, Tom.

found my old black shoes
tried them on and they still fit
but they hurt SO BAD

Eddie Hazel should be higher, Mark.

colder than last year
which was hotter than before;
what will next year bring

Oh it's true, it's so true. I vote for the Microhouse Pederast.

hungry all the time,
wish winter was here so I
could justify it

Okay, this is funny.

this picnic table
with sandwiches, coke, apples:
it's kind of holy!

an august haibun

chill of the morning:
rabbits and their daughters stop,
listening waiting

Up there as I walk is a big fat half-moon, just like she always is. It still shocks me after almost four decades on this planet that the moon is visible in the blue sky of morning and afternoon. It's also shocking how bright she is up there, with her reflected wisdom and kind stewardship of the sky. I know the moon isn't a woman nor is it kind but indulge me. She's watching over me this morning, she guides my path, she helps me where I need to go.

crunching of my feet
on the new Junction Road sidewalk
marks my lonely way

The songs they played at Tom's funeral: "Rainy Days and Mondays," "Dance With My Father," "Sail Away." The expressions on people's faces: every shade of the emotional rainbow. People kept disappearing to grieve privately then popping back up again as though they weren't just sobbing in the bathroom. It was the pictures that hit me most: kid Tom, teenage Tom, Tom and his wife looking hippieish and impossibly young, Tom on his sailing trip from earlier this year, the water so blue. I realized that I don't have enough friends. It hurt. I cried but I don't think I was crying for Tom.

ambient highway
noise whispering in my ear,
turn up the headphones

I am listening to Aldo Brizzi's Brizzi do Brasil, a rather brilliant piece of work, a neo-classical composer constructing and then deconstructing Brazilian pop music. As I come around the corner, Margareth Menezes and Arnaldo Arnauth are dueling over who gets to be the coolest-sounding person on the planet. The Gateway Computer Store parking lot, the Outback Steak House parking lot, the maxi-strip-mall parking lot. At what must be 6:00 a.m. there are three Target employees outside smoking, bullshitting, steeling themselves for the day. I keep walking right through the lot, Virginia Rodrigues' beautiful operatic voz like the moon in my ears. I have somewhere to be.

tiny bold sweat beads
forming on my forehead now--
it must be August

My brain keeps trying to think of other things, but I'm trying to stay focused on what I can see, what I can hear, what I can smell, what I can feel, what I can taste. These purple flowers pop up out of nowhere, what are they, just thistles probably, but still they're something, they grow, what right to I have to judge a thistle? It's holy too. These dandelions are holy, the people driving in these cars are holy, they all have dreams, if they're good dreams I hope they come true. I am currently floating somewhere in the atmosphere, I think I can see you from where I am. You look like ants, little wonderful holy hardworking social ants, you all carry hundreds of times your weight on your backs, truly a marvel. Me, I carry no weight at all this morning, I and Caetano and Tom Ze and Aldo Brizzi, we all levitate, look up, look up, maybe you can see us

[insert song title or name of recently-eaten food here]

Learning how to write in the blogosfeare, we [not the royal we but rather the collective, recent events having convinced us to remain in first-person plural as if afflicted/gifted with the multiple personality syndrome] now know some stuff. Like you're supposed to link to stuff you like in an offhanded way. Or to discuss when a certain person has written his masterpiece. Or to nourish and flourish your interest in and knowledge of some relatively obscure subject. Or maybe just to say heyhihello to the growing number of people who stop by.

Confidential to Mark D. of Minnesota: Thanks for asking, but it was all so sudden that we had no idea what was happening until it was over. We found out, and before we knew anything (or before really almost any of us had the chance to visit him), it was over. Devastating. The funeral is Tuesday. I almost lost it over a card my wife bought at Target yesterday.

Confidential to Anne-Marie D. of Oregon: Chelsea is going to beat Arsenal this year. Unless they don't.

Confidential to Al of Canada/Baltimore/wherever the hell you are: It's a really great album, actually, much housed-up by Masters at Work, spunkier, lighter, geekier. I'll review it somewhere, sometime.