Errata

How I’m feeling:
It’s still way too hot here, but we have at least reached the point where night comes early enough that it cools off and is comfortable and I love to drive around with the windows down and play music loudly and sing along loudly, even at the risk of totally embarrassing myself. Doing this always reminds me of evenings during college and makes me kind of sentimental. Fall is coming, even if slowly.

What I’m listening to:
My favorite songs of the moment (which you might catch me singing along to, loudly) are: On the happy side, The White Stripes’ The Denial Twist. "If you think that a kiss is all in lips / Come on, you got it all wrong / If you think that our dance was all in the hips / Well, then do the twist." Kicks my ass. A more mellow tune is John Butler Trio’s "What You Want." You may have heard John Butler’s "Zebra" as pre-show music at movie theater’s all summer, and you’ll remember he’s the one who named his daughter Banjo. This is a very different sounding song. Also in HBO ads at the moment. Love it.

What I’m watching:
Corpse Bride was wonderful. Strangely, I thought the weakest part was the songs. And yet I’ll probably buy the soundtrack anyway, sooner or later. Lots of movies coming out in the next weeks and months I’m excited about too: History of Violence, Wallace and Gromit, Harry Potter, RENT, the new Cameron Crowe ... and other stuff I’m not remembering.

What I’m reading:
Lots of random stuff all at once. Technically I’m about halfway through Until I Find You, but I can’t even remember the last time I picked it up. Also am midway through The Effect of Living Backwards, which is good but not enthralling. The new issue of The Believer came this week, too. The last thing I finished was The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Nighttime, and it was excellent. I would highly recommend that book to anyone.

What I’m doing online:
LibraryThing is my new favorite way to waste time. Way fun times. Thanks to those you who know me well enough to have excitedly sent me the link. And, I also really liked this article.

What I’m looking forward to:
Many full weekends and fun activities ahead, but California beckons at the end of the month. I don’t think I’ve even been to the state since our trip last October. A year is too long. I have so many happy memories of California in the fall.

What I need:
I am in need of three letters of reference. Who wants to pretend to be a former professor of mine?

One more thing:
This girl's death has been on my mind. How can 50 Cent get shot about a hundred times and live to make a movie about it but this girl - an athlete even - can have her heart just stop? I talked to her a couple of times when she was around the newspaper office and you'll just never meet a more down-to-earth, happy to be herself person. Sad.

an example of something that isn't exactly laziness

I’m a writer above all but if you really pin me down, I’m a novelist. I like novels more than short stories or poems, partly because I see the world as one very complex novel and partly because, as much as I am awed by a great poem or short story, I think a good novel can contain all that and more. Still, sometimes something just sneaks up and grabs you.

I was going through the bookshelves tonight, trying to actually get some kind of list of what I have and what I want to keep, what I want to get rid of, etc. And I found a book of short stories that I’ve read some stories out of, but not all. This is true of a lot of collections I own, actually.

Only because I was bored I happened to open to the last story, which is called “The Best Girlfriend You Never Had” by Pam Houston, and I read it and it was one of those stories that just makes you remember why you want to write. It’s easy for me to think about short stories and remember the absolute misery of workshops and how little fun I had achieving a degree, even in a field that I love passionately. But then I read a story like this and wonder why anyone ever bothers trying to write a novel.

Actually, the story is nothing spectacular or life altering. It’s just one of those GOOD stories. I found myself underlining sentences and putting exclamation points next to paragraphs and loving and hating the author, which is always a sign of a good story. Take this paragraph, describing San Francisco:

“I got drunk on the city at first, the way some people do on vodka, the way it lays itself out as if in a nest of madronas and eucalyptus, the way it sparkles brighter even than the sparkling water that surrounds it, the way the Golden Gate reaches out of it, like fingers, toward the wild wide ocean that lies beyond.”

And I thought: Wow! What a great paragraph because it is so true. That is San Francisco, it just takes you there, makes you forget entirely where you are, and what a feat to be able to write a paragraph that is just plainly true. And then I admired the writer, because I have been trying to write this paragraph in a story I wrote a draft of several months back. And then I started to hate the writer, because she has stolen this paragraph from the cosmos, and I wanted it and I want it, but now it can’t be mine and I have to find another way.

Envy is the most sincere form of flattery, and I found here a story I envy, which is good because it is envy that has always made me want to be a writer. Except here I’m writing a blog entry instead of a stirring passage for my novel, the next submission for which is due in two days. Damn.

I used to do this in college

Here, we see how Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., passed the long hours of the Roberts confirmation hearings. Sort of reminds me of ... well, almost every class I took. Of course, none of my classes were being broadcast on television.

Hot In Herre

I read somewhere that this summer was one of the hottest on record ... for Toronto.

You might think this would lead me to a rant about global warming and how the current government in this country is doing nothing to stop it, et cetera et cetera.

But, actually, I have decided that I am all for global warming. I am all for Bush et al to continue to do nothing about the problem. Let it keep getting hotter. When I move to Canada I will very much appreciate it.

(Yeah, I'm in a weird mood today.)

"Sorry if ... "

Something else from my trip to Denver a couple weeks back has stayed on my mind, though I don't think I mentioned it yet.

On our flight back to Phoenix on Monday morning, there was a girl sitting in the aisle seat across the aisle from Erin and me. I am terrible when it comes to guessing ages, but I would not think she could have been much older than 20. At the same time, given that she was flying on a Monday morning, she was also probably out of high school. She seemed like a small girl, though I didn't see her standing up to guess her height, she was very thin. She was also clealry exhausted. I mean, Erin and I both were fully engaged in a battle to keep our eyelids open, but this girl took looking tired to a whole new level. She seemed beaten down by the world.

Almost immediately, upon taking her seat, she curled around a backpack that she was basically using as a pillow, and fell asleep. It was then that we noticed she had something written on her arm.

She had clearly tried to wash it off, but it looked like it had probably been written with a Sharpie or some other permananet black marker. It was smudged and not very easy to read at first, but after a couple minutes Erin and I both came to the disturbing conclusion that someone had written on her arm: "Sorry if I fucked you."

Sorry if I fucked you? This phrase literally makes my mind spin with possibilities. Whatever happened, this girl didn't have a good weekend, I can tell you that much. But the word "if" at least seems to offer some hope. Maybe nobody fucked her at all. To be honest, I'm not even sure if that girl herself will ever know. I'd be very interested to know that whole story, whatever it is. It seems like a good story idea, but at the same time I don't know if I could ever write a fictional story about her without feeling like I was violating her even more than she had already been.

Still, I can't quite get it out of my head. I hope she's OK.

Don't Trust Your TV

(Special note: I'm going to totally spoil something that happens in the season premier of Nip/Tuck s3, which aired this week. You've been warned.)

So I'm late to this bandwagon, I know. But I'm hopping on now.

People, television today has become a scourge. A travesty. This medium once provided a happy diversion and showed us a better way to live our lives, to work out our differences. It proved that the nice guy gets the girl. It showed us that the good guys win. But no longer. Do not trust your TV.

Oh, you're going to want to. The scenarios your TV offers up these days aren't nearly as boring as they used to be.

For example: last night I watched (a day late, thanks DVR!) the season premier of Nip/Tuck. Toward the end of the episode, Dr. Christian Troy (you ladies know him as the "hot" one, I guess) found himself, rather improbably, being seduced by the darkly attractive British detective who is working his case. I thought, "I have never been seduced by a representative of law enforcement myself, but it's on TV so it must happen. Maybe some day that could be me." I felt I had something to aspire to. This is what makes Nip/Tuck a great show, you see.

But then Dr. Troy and the detective were interrupted mid-coitus by Dr. Troy's girlfriend, pornstar/porn director Kimber. She was, not entirely surprisingly, affronted at this discovery. Unabashed, Dr. Troy simply held out his hand to her in offering. And she accepted, initiating a threesome love scene that will apparently be a feature of the entire season. "Hot damn!" thought I, "What a world out there that I'm missing! I must commit to living my life more fully."

Unfortunately, this commitment to myself was interrupted by unwanted commentary from Erin, who - though she claims to be a "friend" of mine - in point of fact often interrupts my thoughts in similar fashion to what I am about to describe.

She said, "Uh, on what planet does this happen?"

And I started to think, *Ding!* Duh, Erin, the show is clearly set in Miami, which is clearly a part of this world. Except then Diana agreed with her.

I was shocked. Still am. Flabbergasted even. And yet, would you believe that I was assured solemnly by both women in my presence last night that if I were to be interrupted mid-coitus by my wife, that she would not join in the festivities. Do you get what I'm saying? It wasn't true. Nip/Tuck lied to me.

It's time that we put an end to this.

Over two seasons the show has made it quite clear that surrounding yourself with numerous beautiful women leads inevitably to sleeping with numerous beautiful women (another lesson from Dr. Troy). But it seems that too was false information. So what the hell do I have all these attractive female friends for?

This is not OK. We can no longer allow Hollywood to infect our minds with lies. If it's not going to happen for me, then it damn well better not happen for Dr. Troy.

Boycott your TV! Show those industry bastards we won't stand for their lies and propaganda! Let's end this now, before it's too late, before any more marriages end in ruin and any more men are denied what they only naturally believe is theirs.

No more!

Thank you for your time.

Some things I learned this weekend:

Red Rocks is too much. It’s too everything. Too beautiful, too big, too intimate, too special, too magical, too historical. I knew all this. But in the same way that words can’t describe Red Rocks and pictures can’t do it justice, memory cannot hold it, either. I remembered that it is an awesome place to see a show, but I forgot how literally I mean that word. Awesome: inspiring awe. When you are close to the stage, it is incredibly intimate – your are right on top of the band and the seats seem to raise straight up at an impossibly steep angle behind you The place feels huge. If you are farther away, the place feels small. Even from the top, even without video screens as it was this weekend, I still felt close to the performance. It seemed intimate. And the view of the Denver skyline and the lights of the city is one of those things that cannot be described but only lived.

( A view of Denver's skyline from a hill behind the amphitheatre. From the top of the amphitheatre they say you can see to Kansas -- but how would you even know?)



Dave Matthews Band is good. You might think, being a fan who in the past year or so has seen nine DMB concerts in five cities across the country, that I would take this for granted. And I kind of do. But I also appreciate their humanity, which is a kind way of saying that sometimes when you love something you love their flaws as much as their perfection. But I don’t know that the band has ever been as on or as damn near perfect as musicians as they were the three nights I saw them.

What a UBM is. As it was explained to me by the guy I sat next to on Friday night (when Erin shunned me and I was forced to go alone), the more UBMs per DMB show, the better the show will be. UBMs, he said, are not necessarily desirable in and of themselves, but they only tend to occur during memorable, quality moments. More UBMs = a better show. So, I said, “Ok. What’s a UBM?” And he told me. A UBM is an Ugly Boyd Moment. Here’s one now.



He may spend a lot of the show standing quietly in the background, looking freakishly chiseled. But when he steps out into the lights and you see those big white teeth and his hair going crazy and he’s leaning back while lifting one leg in the air, why that's a ready-made UBM. And any real fan of DMB is loving the moment. Because let me tell you: The man surely can fiddle.

Mmmm ... Taco Bell. If it’s 1 in the morning and you never even ate an actual dinner and have spent hours standing and rocking out at a concert and driving all over the city and you maybe have just faintest trace of contact high from all the people smoking (this is my dad’s term, which I love) “funny cigarettes,” then nothing and I mean nothing is quite as satisfying as a trip through the Taco Bell drive thru.

Erin a iongantach. I'm sure I massacred that translation, but I think that’s Gaelic for: Erin is the shiznit. The bomb. She’s bananas. (But she swears she ain’t no hollaback girl.) I’ve had some friends who have liked DMB and gone to concerts with me and been enthusiastic when news albums come out and whatever. But Erin is the only one who not only doesn’t look at me like I’m crazy for wanting to go to (Circle One: LA / SanFrancisco / Wisconsin / Denver) to see a DMB show, she wants to come, too.

I do really wish (probably Erin does, too) that Diana also liked the band. I would love to be able to share my excitement about all this with her and not only have her company on these trips (I promised: no more without you!) but also have her come to the shows. Sadly, this is her one and only flaw (though I somewhat doubt if she sees it that way).

So, I feel lucky to have Erin as friend. I probably would anyway, because she’s a pretty cool chick in general, but it’s especially fun to go to a show with her. I actually found myself enjoying Friday night’s show less just because they kept playing songs I knew Erin would have wanted to hear. Everything’s better with a friend, so thank you, Erin, for coming along. Holla!

I don’t miss people I knew in high school. At all. Not that I thought I did. But now I have proof.

I need to live in Denver again. I’m sorry for this one, Diana, but you’ve known it’s true for many years. Trust me, the winter is not that bad. I’ll buy you lots of cute sweaters and socks.



I’ll go back. (More bad news, sweetheart.) But I wasn’t sure I would after this weekend. The first time the idea occurred to me (that Red Rocks might just be the perfect way to “go out on top” as it were) was in July at Alpine with Josh. I had a taste then of how good the Red Rocks run might just be and I wondered. By the end of the second absolutely mind-blowing show of the weekend, it seemed a legitimate possibility. And, quite honestly, at points during Sunday night’s show I was certain. I thought: After this, how could I ever go back?

And maybe I never will see another show as spectacular as what we saw Saturday and Sunday. In fact, I doubt it very much. But that’s no reason to stop. Like I wrote in an earlier post, I am absolutely addicted to that feeling just before the show starts. There is so much possibility and anticipation. That moment is to me what being alive is all about.

Also, I’ll go back to Red Rocks. Whether they play there again next year or they wait seven years before going back again, I’ll be there.

Painful Secrets From My Past

Lisa wrote recently about a dance class she took in college, and it reminded me of this story, but I felt like it was too long and too embarassing to be posted as a comment on her blog. So here ya go.

Part of my fourth grade phys ed was a month or so of dancing. As you might suspect, I remember very little of the dancing, but I remember all too well the terror of lining up in single sex lines and then finding your parter across the way, in the line of girls. Of course, there was always shuffling and rearranging so that you wouldn't have to dance with that guy or so that you could dance with that girl if you wanted.

Fourth grade was the first time I ever had a crush on a girl and one day I looked over and realized she was set up to be my partner. I might have thanked the graceful hand of fate, or noticed that she had switched spots with a girl next to her so she could be my partner. I might have been flattered. Instead, I simply panicked, swicthed places with my friend Sean. The girls switched again. Sean and I switched again.

Naturally, the girl I had a crush on completely misunderstood and thought that I must not like her at all. She didn't talk to me for weeks, which sucked, and by the time we got to be friends again the school year was over and her family moved to Pennsylvania before fifth grade started.

So, as you can see, my skills with the ladies have always been consistent.

Consistently mediocre, that is.

Why I Went Away For The Weekend

Because this is where the concert was.



And because this is the view from there.



I did miss Diana a lot though. Fortunately, there's a solution so we won't have this problem in the future:



We can move to Denver!

Although I would definitely not want to live in this house. If we moved in here, Erin might never come visit us. This is her old den of iniquity, which we visited on a whim (i.e., we drove by at 1 am and took pictures while trying not to look too much like crazy stalkers).

Also, I played some golf with my Dad (Mom came along, too). This is the three of us in front of a hole that had a series of sandtraps arranged to look like a bear's paw.