THE MISADVENTURES OF AN ESOTERIC INVESTIGATOR

I found this old picture of Ethan and I from the spring of 2001.  He & I would be about five and twenty-three, respectively.

Oh, Twothousandandseven, is it time for you to leave so soon?  I've not tired of scribbling your name on my checks and paperwork!  We have unfinished business to attend to!  What is that you say?  Your baby brother, Twothousandandeight is coming over?  Sweet.

I don't have the words for a post so I'll post some pictures instead.  Mostly of Christmas loot.  I received Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on DVD from Ethan and The Ralph McQuarrie Concept Darth Vader from brdgt and strangedasein, which rules.  My father and his wife are coming over on Sunday, so I'm not sure what they've gotten me.  Hopefully no more candles.  Jacquelyn got me some lovely things which will be chronicled in pictoral format below.


We're going to grab some brunch and run to the yarn store.

Since Jacquelyn and I aren't spending Christmas with either of our relatives, this is the first year, we've been home, and thus, our first Christmas Generic Solstice-Derivative Gift Exchange Ritual tree.  It's a balsam fir.  It's smells delightful and covered my hands in sap as I carried it indoors.  We decorated it with wooden beads and lights and owls and birds and penguins and pine cones and candy canes and Yoda and the Bumble and a big brass star.  Pagan heathens, we are.

To quote Arthur Dent, "This must be Thursday.  I never could get the hang of Thursdays."  Which in no way applies to me, but it's the only pithy quote about Thursday I could think of.  In fact, it may be the only quote about Thursdays in existence.  If you can think of any other literary or cinematic quotes pertaining to Thursdays, please write it in reverse in lemon juice on a sheet of papyrus, seal it inside a tennis ball, dip it in rooster blood, bury it in your back yard during the first full moon after the equinox, then chant, "I never could get the hang of Thursdays." five times.  My agents will be in touch.

After much deliberation over the past six months, Ethan finally picked a Halloween costume.  Earlier in the year, it was a werewolf in a suit, which was later changed to a Roman-style warrior a la Gladiator or 300, which evolved into an Egyptian pharaoh.  The final decision seems to have been inspired by this bit of Photoshopping, hence his decision to go as a zombie skateboarder.  Jacquelyn and I shredded some clothes and doused him in blood.  Wanna see?


Wasn't that a nice little pictorial story?  I thought so.

Today, I got a hair cut from Stephen at HAIR, stopped at Trader Joe's for some yummy groceries, and bicycled home.  It's definitely getting cold enough to make me consider putting the bike away for the season, but it's not quite that bad yet.  I just keep forgetting to buy gloves, as my hands are the only unbearably cold part of my bod.

Oh yes, NaNoWriMo starts today.  Since Ethan is too young to read my first novel (and he regularly asks when he can) I've decided to write Ethan a novel and I'm going to use NaNoWriMo as impetus to do so.  Ethan has asked for a sort of apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic adventure.  We'll see how it goes.

I'll leave you here, dear reader, while I eat some Trader Joe's BBQ Chicken Pizza and do some laundry and think of a starting point for an apocalyptic novel.  I suppose I should start with an apocalypse, huh?  Yet I can't seem to get around the fact that apocalypse is Greek for revelation.  What, oh, what, shall I reveal?

Another roll of lomography photos have been developed. Walk with me as we journey through crowds and buses, along highways & byways, and Buddhas on my bicycle!

( Twelve photos of quarter-frame beauty and oddity. )

(Guess which one Jacquelyn calls my "pouty, gay-model look.")

Here are six more photos from my lomo, taken mostly while riding my bicycle sometime last month.

( Does anyone even use dial-up anymore? )

Blah blah, blickety blickety blah blah blech.  You heard me, damn right.

Ethan has one last week of school and then it's oh-glorious summer vacation.  Thus, starting next weekend, he will only be here on weekends for the next three months.  I feel like I'm sending him to the Dursley's for the summer, exiling him to Watertown instead of #4 Privet Drive, Surrey.  Occasionally I have issues with his negativity and laziness that I feel stems from his mother, who is both extremely negative (to the point I am pretty sure she is chronically depressed) and lazy. As far as I can tell, they mostly sit around and watch television.  I'm hoping it doesn't get worse over the summer as I don't look forward to a conversation with his mother about her attitude and parenting style.  When I tried to talk to her about some things concerning Ethan last week, she screamed, "I'm tired of being the bad parent!" and then hung up on me.  I didn't get the opportunity to say, "Maybe that's something you should think about."  Perhaps that's for the best.

This next section of the post will be a pictorial tutorial.  Sort of.  I just like the cadence of "pictorial tutorial."

On Saturday Ethan, Jacquelyn, and I went uptown for the Farmer's Market and Ethan's appointment at Hair.


For those of you who read both Jacquelyn's and my journal, you may see some repeats as Jacquelyn took most of the pictures.  It was a pretty enjoyable excursion.  We ate quite well and played Settlers of Catan and Star Wars Monopoly before dinner and then watched Witness for the Prosecution afterwards.  Excellent old movie.  I don't even care for old movies much, but we've hit of a good streak of courtroom dramas and mysteries lately, like The Thin Man and Anatomy of a Murder.

I also threw together a pre-flyer for a Labor Day camp-out rave festival.  This year, it's called Camped Out.  I'll be doing the next pre-flyer around July and then the final flyer in August.  I should try to think of something clever to do since there isn't much one can do with a name like Camped Out.

I'm off to make tea and dinner before Jacquelyn goes to her book club.  Speaking of books, I just read all six Harry Potter books in a row.  There is such a wonderful thread to be gotten from reading them consecutively and I've got a billion theories now and I can't wait for the seventh book now.  I'd be depressed about what to read now, but Jacquelyn handed me Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, which is literally-laugh-out-loud hilarious.  If I wasn't dating a scientist, I'd say science shouldn't be this funny.

That's all for now.  As you were, soldier.

Eris and Loki,
Sitting in a chair,
C-U-D-D-L-I-N-G.

Ask me to take a picture of any aspect of my life that you're interested in or curious about - it can be anything from the house I live in to my favorite book. Leave your choice here as a comment, and I will post the pictures as a later entry. Feel free to make your requests as mundane or creative as you like!