Grammarsaurus

I am putting together a list of prehistoric grammar, writing and language creatures. Add to the list if you like.

Paleolipsis ...

Ptaragraphtyl

Voiceraptor

Languanadon

Pronountiodotus

Tenseratops

Gerundasarus

Colonyseus

Clausealacochis

Thesesasaur

If I weren’t so lazy I’d dig up some definitions … habitat, diet …

Soap Sunday

My to-do list is smallish. Read. Clean house. And ... I am going to cruise over to the Mustard Seed, our local organic food market (plus it has a restaurant) and try and find some rosemary body soap. Last year we went to Pittsburg for a weekend and at the hotel, the wee little bar of courtesy soap was rosemary and mint, and it was fabulous. So, off I go in quest of a bar of soap. High drama indeed from Akron Heights.

Way of the Peaceful Warrior

My father is forever giving me books he thinks I should read. A long time ago it was his entire Steinbeck and Hemmingway collection. He also gave me Dee Brown's Bury My Heart, he also tried to get me to read Grist for the Mill ... and here is one he bought and gave to me many many years ago. I keep in on my "active" shelf and read it every three or four years. Besides Of Mice and Men, it's the only book that has ever brought tears to my eyes. I recognized a lot of painful similarities between myself (the emptiness I can never shake) and the main character. No, I have not mastered the pommel horse.

Any else ever read it? Love to hear your reaction.

I was thinking again about the book because this morning I was mulling over the age old questions, where am I, where am I going, as I puttered around the house, weak with drunk sweats and from waking at 4 with a mean mo fo headache after tying one on last night with my Art Director friend. The house looked like a frat room - bottles everywhere - not just because of our mess but because I've been solo since last Tuesday with Myla, my heroic wife, and Whitman in Dallas ... 45 years old, and hung over on a Saturday morning? Feeling stupid. Ragged.

A Funny

this cracks me up ...

Lonely Old Dude Ramble

Where oh where are you tonight, why did you leave me here all alone? I searched the world over and thought I found true love, you met another and PHETF! you were gone. (A little Hee Haw for you old timers). So I am all by my lone now for a week and feeling like those sorry bastards from that awful old show singing about my hard luck. My wife Tillie and our son flew to Dallas this morning. Something about a Bowling for Soup song. Slow dances and fruit flies. I am supposed to be working on all my freelance projects but had to stop, drink some Lucky 13, and read about all the Glendale debauchery over at Valerie's Blog. She thinks nerds are awesome. I also wish Akron had "talks" like the kind Mr. Peake frequents. I am all about wanting and jealousy right now.

P.S. I am working on the Henderson report by the way. Veeeeery important. That's all I can say about it though. Hush hush, get me?

Up with Nerds

True, I got this second hand but I have seen it happen in other contexts. My son, Whit, went to a cartooning workshop at the public library today. One of his friends was there, another brainiac, and as the poor class instructor tried to get everyone to draw a quote "bug" and held up a picture of a spider, my son corrected him and explained that a bug in not a spider, a spider is an arachnid. My son's friend then raised his hand and gave a lengthy discourse on the anatomical and behavioral differences between spiders and bugs. Hands were clasping forheads and eyes were rolling in sockets according to Jeri, my wife.

What a dumbass, come on! Everyone knows spiders aren't bugs! What a freaking chuckle head. Just kidding. Can you imagine trying to give a presentation with these wonderful nerdlings in your audience?

ADDENDUM: As I was wrapping up this post, Whit came bounding down the hall past my office and he was making that "pew, pew, pew" sound that you might normally associate wtih pretend gunfire. I asked him what he was doing and he said, "Pretending I'm a light particle."

Leonardo's Pizza with Olives, Ham & Dolls

Last night we went out for pizza to a place named Leonardo's. Our first time. Small dining area behind the kitchen. Four or so tables. Television overhead with the Simpson's playing. And an older, delicate looking lady with a gold frilly hand bag at her side, sitting at a table wtih two big, little girl dolls propped up at place settings across from her. As we sat down, she was leaning over and positioning one doll's arms so she was leaning at the plate, a hand on either side, which had a slice on it. On a kid's plate no less. Then she leaned back and took a picture of the doll standing above its pizza. She left the doll like that and went back to her own pizza. Eventually she finished and put the dolls upright in a big mall shopping bag so that just their heads were poking out the top. As she was leaving, she asked my wife if she knew whether or not there was a Chico's in the Mall. My wife Chastina said she didn't think so, and the woman left. The pizza was good. Too heavy on the sauce for us. But we'll go back.

Friday Funnies

Back Hair and Mannish Things

I am always surprised by shit like this, but shouldn't be. Do you, like me, suffer from Robin Williams-grade back hair? Then the MANGROOMER is just the gadget for you. As the ad says, now I can shave my back in the "privacy of my own home". Like, who the !#$# would consider doing it anywhere else? Let's see, cut grass, trim hedges, embalden (my word) my back.

Cotton for Pres

The similarities are shocking.

Kobe's Lesson in Comebacks

Hey Kobe, here's a witty comeback for you.

Celtics down 24 in the 3rd but they comeback to win.

Off the Charts Witty

Definitely headline news. Kobe Bryant has a witty comeback. I have one for Kobe: "The Jerk Store called, and they're running out of you." (Thanks to GC for that one.) See, the cleverness of it is that Schilling plays for a team other than the Yankees. See? Get it? A rival team.

Let's Hear It

Up to my alligators in eyeballs this weekend with freelance writing, and I LOVE IT. Yeah, thank you busy Gods. Thank you for throwing a small measure of purpose and income my way. I went running today to take a break from work and listened to several songs, new to me, on the iPod. So, if you are an 80s music freak like me, please check these songs out - there is something in each that reminds me of 80's alt. I thinks you will be XXXXX happy.

Bitches in Tokyo - The Stars
Love & Death - The Stills
Love You More - The Hours
What a Waster - The Libertines
Speed Date - Arab Strap

Believe in ....

Gimme a break. McCain co-ops Obama's theme, changes a word, calls it his. How sad for him.


Obama
Change We Can Believe In

McCain
A Leader We Can Believe In.


Regardless, neither candidate is very original with their slogans. See below

Hot Chocolate
I believe in miracles, where you from? you sexy thing.

Fox Mulder
I Want to Believe

Dennis Rodman
Why should I try to make you believe the things I believe in?

Theodore Kaczynski
I believe in nothing.

Happy Birthday Rainer Walker Woodruff

Rainer, our first son, would be 10 today. What a big boy. Miss you dearly kid. Rainer Walker Woodruff, June 4, 1998 - July 14, 1998.

Sonnet Sequence, George Santayana

To. W. P.

I
Calm was the sea to which your course you kept,
Oh, how much calmer than all southern seas!
Many your nameless mates, whom the keen breeze
Wafted from mothers that of old have wept.
All souls of children taken as they slept
Are your companions, partners of your ease,
And the green souls of all these autumn trees
Are with you through the silent spaces swept.
Your virgin body gave its gentle breath
Untainted to the gods. Why should we grieve,
But that we merit not your holy death?
We shall not loiter long, your friends and I;
Living you made it goodlier to live,
Dead you will make it easier to die.


II


With you a part of me hath passed away;
For in the peopled forest of my mind
A tree made leafless by this wintry wind
Shall never don again its green array.
Chapel and fireside, country road and bay,
Have something of their friendliness resigned;
Another, if I would, I could not find,
And I am grown much older in a day.
But yet I treasure in my memory
Your gift of charity, your mellow ease,
And the dear honour of your amity;
For these once mine, my life is rich with these.
And I scarce know which part may greater be,--
What I keep of you, or you rob of me.


III


Your bark lies anchored in the peaceful bight
Until a kinder wind unfurl her sail;
Your docile spirit, wingèd by this gale,
Hath at the dawning fled into the light.
And I half know why heaven deemed it right
Your youth, and this my joy in youth, should fail;
God hath them still, for ever they avail,
Eternity hath borrowed that delight.
For long ago I taught my thoughts to run
Where all the great things live that lived of yore,
And in eternal quiet float and soar;
There all my loves are gathered into one,
Where change is not, nor parting any more,
Nor revolution of the moon and sun.


IV


In my deep heart these chimes would still have rung
To toll your passing, had you not been dead;
For time a sadder mask than death may spread
Over the face that ever should be young.
The bough that falls with all its trophies hung
Falls not too soon, but lays its flower-crowned head
Most royal in the dust, with no leaf shed
Unhallowed or unchiselled or unsung.
And though the after world will never hear
The happy name of one so gently true,
Nor chronicles write large this fatal year,
Yet we who loved you, though we be but few,
Keep you in whatsoe'er is good, and rear
In our weak virtues monuments to you.

Doot Doot Doot Lookin Out My Back Door

I spy Whit leaping around in a puddle he made with the hose. Mud lucious and puddle wonderful indeed.