THE MISADVENTURES OF AN ESOTERIC INVESTIGATOR

Today, I dug three years of crap and old clothes and boxes and blah blah blah out of my bedroom closet. It is beautiful and clean and organized now and it's like an angel is humming celestial perfection in there. While digging and clearing, I found this old Polaroid of Ethan at about the age of three, standing on a chair at the turntables.



( Bridget caught me drinking all the wine. )

Ethan and I took a long walk today, partially to run errands, but mostly because it was just an absolute perfect day and we definitely needed to get out of the house.  We were ridiculously exhausted by the time we got home, but it was worth it.  Here's our photographic documentation of our trip, plus a few other random pictures:


Father & Son Start the Journey

( Click for More! )
So that be it, my peoples.  I have to get some sleep.  5am is much too early for me!

According to the Urban Dictionary, yesterday was Christmas Adam and today is Christmas Eve. I was awoken at 5am by the cats going crazy. Turns out they couldn't wait to open their gifts, new catnip sacks particularly.

Since I have to work tomorrow morning, we're going to open presents today sometime. I still have one gift for Jacquelyn to get, which means shortly after I write this message, I'm going to sneak out of the house and leave her and the boy to scavenge breakfast. Everything else is already under the tree, as we no longer have any Santa-believers in the house.

One day when Ethan was in fourth grade, on the way home from school, he says to me, "Dad, I don't think Santa's real."

"Oh?" I replied, "What makes you think that?"

"Well, I was thinking about it and... it just doesn't make any sense. I'm right aren't I?"

"Yes, son, you're right."

"And the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, they're not real either, are they?"

"Not that I know of, son."

He raised his fists in the air in mock anguish, "EVERYTHING I KNOW IS A LIE!"

Here is the tree with all the loot. You can click for a high-res version full of lotsa details.


Have a happy holiday, whatever your particular solstice-inspired holiday. The days get longer from here, as we move back toward the light. Much love to you, dear readers.

Warmly,
Jeremy
a.k.a.
Jack Shoegazer

P.S. Jacktopia has grown so large it now need people to visit it to make a transportation system. I still have no idea what the point is.

Ethan only has two weeks of 6th grade left and he broke out with a lovely case of chicken pox.  Apparently the medical community is finding that those kids who got the chicken pox vaccine when they were young are fine for several years, but then develop it around age 10-12 and it's much worse than if they'd gotten it when they were younger.  So far Ethan's been fine - none of the flu-like symptoms, just some spots on forehead and chest and quite a lot of spots on his back and scalp.  However this does mean he'll miss one of his last two weeks of school.  Rather than being happy about missing school, he seems pretty upset about possibly falling behind on his homework so close to the end of the year.

My application to UW was rejected.  They suggested I take some classes at MATC first since I've been out of school so long.  I'm looking into taking a creative writing course for the summer, then starting on their liberal arts transfer program in the fall.  How I'll fit school into my schedule I haven't quite worked out, but I'm sure it will all land in place.  In the meantime, my job continually provides me with endless writing fodder.

For the Harry Potter fans out there, you may find it interesting that 12 Grimmauld Place  is on Google Maps.  It's even better if you zoom all the way in and put it on satellite or hybrid.  For being Unplottable, I'm a bit disappointed.  We'd better hope Voldemort doesn't have teh internets.  Something tells me he's no l33t h@xx0r.

Before we noticed that Ethan had contracted the dreaded pox, he, Jacquelyn, and I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which was exactly what it sold itself as - a giant, action-packed summer blockbuster.  It also contained probably the most surreal five minutes of film ever seen in a major motion picture.  We also hit up the mall, Borders, dinner at Chili's, and a trip to Target before we cabbed it home.  While Jacquelyn went shopping for new undies, Ethan and I hopped into a photo booth.  Thus are the results:


That is all.  You are dismissed.

For those who didn't know, Ethan won the XBOX360 and picked it up last week.  Thank you to all those who helped us out, you've made a young pre-teen monkey of a boy very very happy.  We took some pictures to commemorate the occasion, so thus I present you with the tale of...

• Ethan poses with an innocuous green box.
• He realizes what it says on the box.
• By the power of Greyskull, he has the power!
• And them immediately hoardes it like a troll.
• He's in shock.
• But manages to get his act together long enough to play it.

Thank you again, my friends.  Jacquelyn, Ethan and I sincerely thank you!

My son, Ethan is doing one of those annoying fundraising projects for school, the kind that are catalog-based and where you can earn prizes depending on how much you sell. I was always awful at those, living in rural Indiana with no neighbors and having parents who didn't look at my homework let alone anything exracurricular.

It's time to make up for my prepubescent captitalist deficiencies! I'm helping Ethan pimp out his wares, because in this particular case the prize for 120 points is an Xbox 360. Ethan wants an Xbox 360 more than most things, but it's honestly out of our price range until well after Christmas, so for the hell of it we're going to try and get one the old-fashioned way: win one!

Here's how you can help: If you're interested in ordering any of the following, send me an e-mail at glacialerratic@gmail.com. For every candy item, Ethan gets one point. For every magazine subscription, he gets two. If you've been thinking about renewing a magazine, consider doing it through us- Cherokee Middle School in Madison, Wisconsin, will thank you. And so will Ethan.

I'm listing items of potential interest to my reading demographic, but if there's something you don't see that you'd like, just ask! We only have two weeks to participate, so think fast!

The website is up, so you can go to www.4schoolsonline.com, enter school code 143400, and when you check out click "PARKER, EHTAN" for the student to credit (yes, his name is spelled wrong!)

Magazines

The've literally got just about everything (even the obscure hobby titles, like "Armchair General") listed, but here's a tiny sample. Ask and ye shall receive!


SNACKS

These are all $5 (usually 6-8oz)

Good morning.  Ok, so it's almost one in the afternoon, but I just finished breakfast so it's still morning to me.  Later I will head out for some errand-running and laundromat-visiting, but for now, I am procrastinating to the best of my ability.  Like playing around in Photoshop to make this portrait, this self-aggrandizing picture.



So now what, you ask?  What's going on?

I haven't been around much, I haven't even turned on my computer this week.  My power supply is all fucky so it takes upwards of a half of an hour to get it started.  Ethan started school this week and between family time and dinner and whatnot, I don't have the energy or time to sit around and get it up and going.  I've been checking in here and there with certain journals, but I haven't time to read everyone right now.  I've got my weekends to try and catch up, but it's just too much.  You people will just have to stop posting.  Not.

Everything has been great, actually.  Ethan is adjusting to his new school quite well, in fact it seems to be his favorite school and favorite batch of teachers yet.  His main teacher sent a note home informing me that he is an excellent student, very smart and quite creative.  I had a revelation about middle school as I dropped him off the other day.  There was a trio of girls walking down the sidewalk, obviously 8th graders  in the midst of puberty, appearing much more like high school students.  Directly behind them was another trio of girls yet to be pillaged by adolescent hormones.  They were small and looked like young children.  MIddle school is this strange place they put you for those most awkward years when we transform.  The middle school chrysalis, the junior high cocoon.

Jacquelyn has overloaded herself with coursework as usual, so she's sufficiently challenged and fretting.  We made a brief appearance at the Geography Department picnic.  I mostly talked with her advisor's wife about child-rearing.  I don't know jack-patooty about geography.  Most of the people seems to be broken off into little groups talking shop.  I felt sufficiently silenced by that, uncomfortable in the way of a family reunion where you barely know anyone and feel like you should talk to people but can't bring yourself to do so.

Afterward, we went to kiwikat and shevus' place to get caught up as we haven't talked to them in quite a while.  I had a headache from hell on top of major sinus congestion, so add that to a week of waking up at 5:30am, we didn't stay too long, but ties have been sufficiently reconnected, reconstructed and now I've seen some good videos of a guy juggling to music.  All is well in the world.

I just finished Oh The Glory Of It All by Sea Wilsey which was excellent.  I've started Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.  I've been a book devouring fiend.  I'm pretty much on schedule for my FIFTY BOOK CHALLENGE.  I'm going to shower and get motivated.  There's alot to be done before Ethan comes back from his mum's place, wo I must bid you adieu!