The Last Day of the First Month of the New Year

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Yes, folks, it is that time of year again. Of course, only an Exclusive Few know what I am referring to, but if you are one and are concerned about your pending reception, please contact Lady Steed or me with updated snailmail information.

Feel free to leave it in comments and then erase--it will still be emailed to me.

If this post seems snobbish, I apologize. Feel free to demand explanations if necessary.

Love.

When you cook Spam on a clean, hot griddle, it dances for joy

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I like flipping through Next Blog. One thing I don't do as much as I once did is flag spamsites. I don't, because after looking closer, I can no longer be sure whether they truly are spam or not--I simply cannot tell what the purpose of the blogger is. Are they trying to sell me something? Are they just using Blogger to keep track of their expenses? Are they mad ramblers stuck in a frighteningly commercial stream of conscious-like activity? I can't tell! And the disease isn't just attacking blogs--it has spread to the once sensible-if-evil email-spamming population as well!

In the interest of spammers who don't have a decent role model, I hereby present a thmazing list of rules for spammers:

1. Have some idea of what you are selling--any idea at all.

2. Learn the proper use of the keyboard (hint: to type the letter P, hit the key that has a vertical stroke with half an oval attached to the top right--if you can see the reasoning behind this, you will swiftly discover the use of each key).

3. Be sure that the words you use make sense in the order you have placed them and somehow relate to what you are selling.

4. Send your thmazing spam to your fellow stupid people and LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!

Unexpected change

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I have never found it easy to get out of bed in the morning. Each time the snooze goes off, I wake a little more until I am finally rational enough to sit up and stumble to the shower.

When I got married, the difficulty of waking intensified. The idea of leaving Lady Steed alone in bed, sleeping in her beautiful, peaceful way, was heartbreaking. And if she happened to throw a leg over me between hits on the snooze, forget about it.

The last two mornings Lady Steed has been out of town, but instead of finding it easier to leave bed, it has been even harder. I think I know why.

I don't enjoy holding down a job. This whole sweat-of-the-face thing is horribly overrated in my opinion. The only reason I would do something so hateful as leaving sleep for work is for the benefit of my beloved. And now, without her physical presence reminding me why I do this, how can I be expected to rise?

And yet here I am, at Bedrock High.

It's all for you, baby.

High school was a long, long time ago

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I see my kids doodling in their notebooks, making grandiose and well-shaded versions of their favorite bands' logos.

Today, in my university class, I was shocked to catch myself doing the same thing. But I wasn't sketching HIM. I was doing Project Muse.

Best of the best

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These are the best sentences from today's posts by bloggers I currently link to (one per person--don't you wish you'd posted today):


On the other hand, I fear this is a bad thing because I read somewhere once that girls' perception of themselves is highly influenced by their fathers, and I don't want S-Boogie to grow up believing that her worth is dependent upon her appearance, especially when twenty years from now she is overweight or plagued by horrible acne or hunchbacked.

There'll be no butter in hell!

I have spent the last 20 weeks in mortal fear of going to the bathroom, so I'm hoping this makes my life easier.

Google gives over a thousand hits on "secret-agenty" and 2,800 on "Jennifer Anistony"

And, my comfort in my own masculinity aside, I really would rather none of my peers know that I’m grinning from ear to ear listening to those immortal words from Aida: “A dress is my strongest suit.”

Some people call it soup.

by Stupidramblings at 12:10 AM

I don't know where the rest of you are....

Despite of fluff

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My credentialing classes this semester are 98.67% busy work. This week I turn in my first lengthy paper (Self Reflection & Analysis & Philosophy of Education). I have turned on my spiteful version of Tolkers's Rule (see D) and basically just spun a bunch of nonsense.

The thing is, I doubt the professor will read a word. And if he does, I think verbosity will impress him. I say this because he just makes his lectures up while we watch a fifteenyearold video--you know the type.

Here are a few choice sentences:

The beauty of the world can be wrapped in words and repacked in ways that creates new paradigms for even casual thinkers to apply.

I find it easy to respect all people, even if their actions would not tend toward the recipience of respect.

I am not easily bothered by others offensive actions, whether intended for offence or not--and if I were to be offended, I do not hold my bile long.

It was well understood among the high school studentry that to get an A from Anderson required gifts of candy or other inexpensive but, in my mind, groveling gifts.

But if I want to be the teacher they look back on and think, yes, that was someone who made a difference in my life, who created out of me someone I would not otherwise have been, then I must be willing to make them grow--no matter the en route pain.

Second, I must demand of them all that they should demand of me and, not to get into overly complex semantics, I must demand that they do demand of me all that they should demand of me.

And not only understand, they will feel it in their heart and desire to incorporate.

Vote on your choice for Worstest Most Crappiest!

Note: the two nonces were recipience and studentry. I like that Word's spellcheck offered to change the latter into stud entry. Heh heh. Stud entry.

Let. It. Die.

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I'm sick and tired of a certain grammatical gimmick that has been overplayed and y'all have got to stop what I'm about to talk about because it has become even more annoying than overitalicizing.

Actually, it's been a while since I last saw the stylistic quirk I'm about to complain about. I waited for it to die down so before griping so no one (I hope) will take offense. But there is a certain, once-effective grammatical cutesy that has been overused in blogdom to the point where I feel that self-respecting bloggers everywhere must abandon it.

This. Is. It.

It works. It slows the reader down and gives strong emphasis to each word in an important sentence, but when everyone everywhere uses it every post, it certainly gets old fast. Trite even.

So I am glad to see that it seems to have passed out of favor. Someday I may even be able to bear using it, when appropriate.

I'm glad to say I don't see any other effective tools on the verge of becoming obnoxious and I encourage us all, as a community, to see that none do. After all, shooting all the passenger pigeons in 1850 means no messenger pigeon for Thanksgiving 2006. And that is a very sad thought indeed.

Moral: Don't. Shoot. Passenger. Pigeons.

Zero-gravity bunnies

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For this first time in his life, the Big O has attended a movie with his parents without them desperately hoping he will sleep through it.

(For the record, his first flick was LOTR:ROTK and his most recent had been The Incredibles.)

On Saturday, we took him to see Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. We thought this would be a safe choice because he has seen The Wrong Trousers approximately five billion times and loves it.

We fled the pounding bass from the apartment above on Friday night and went to the dollar theater to buy tickets, but they do not sell them the day before. But O had seen the poster and he knew we what it meant and he was anxious.

The next day, all he could do was insist we leave home and get to the theater.

We arrived in good time for the 11:20 show and settled in.

For those of you people I don't respect anymore who have waited even longer than us to see this movie, you don't know what your missing. Rabbits will be vacuumed. Cheese will be eaten. Arrrrtichokes will be kissed.

Isn't it beautiful that in a Hollywood of artificial perfection, something so unabashedly artificial can be so incredibly good? I mean--you can see thumbprints on people's teeth!

(Question: is blogging more Aardman or more Industrial Light & Magic?)

We haven't seen Corpse Bride yet (anyone--can we take a twoyearold to that?), but at this point, I don't see how it can be more deserving of this year's animated-feature Oscar.







#150

Behold! Monkeys!

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Actually, sorry to disappoint, but there will be no monkeys in this post. I, as much as any of you, long for more monkeys here at Thmusings, but alas, not today. Instead there is just me me me and more me. This is precisely what fate I was repelled by when I first began work on this blog (that it would be all about me).

But the way I see it, your blog is all about you, and reading about me must be a refreshing change. I know I certainly get a kick out of it.

Filling the cistern

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I hate that expression, filling the well. Who fills a well?

Ridiculous.....

My limited opacity

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While at the Cerritos Sheraton, I had occasion to visit the bathroom and to be reminded that my own existence is not as corporeal as it sometimes seems.

The bathroom was controlled by electric eyes, their beady red lights watching the patrons and flushing for them.

Or, in my case, just flushing all the time.

I can only assume that the e-eyes have a hard time seeing me--why else would they flush seven times while I am sitting on the toilet, stationary?

Obviously, my opacity is at fault.

Is there some sort of vitamin I could take?

Laaaady Steeeeed?!?!Where aaaare you?!?!

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I've been in LA the last two days and in that time have managed to get on freeways going the wrong direction only four times. This is neither good nor bad for me, it just means my navigator was not with me.

Incredibly, I was always able to correct my errors without getting lost, shot, or anything!

All the same, next time, Lady Steed, please come with me?

Like a bobble in the bootle

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Lady Steed has been complaining voraciously about the book she's now reading which is full of absurd and obnoxious metaphors and similies like the following:


- Each morning, including Sundays, the sun rose with a golf tee in its mouth.

- She rolled in like a peach basket that had swallowed a hoop snake.

- ...like a barnyard orchid, like a meat bubble, like a saline lollipop...

- ...that lay like a freshly ironed pillowcase atop the TV set.


And for good measure, this fun thing was said by one character:


- All the show here ever shows anymore are bear-poop-in-the-trail movies put out by the Mormon Church.


Yet she can't...stop...reading it.

Perhaps this is why:


- This sentence is made of lead (and a sentence of lead gives a reader an entirely different sensation from one made of magnesium). This sentence is made of yak wool. This sentence is made of sunlight and plums. This sentence is made of ice. This sentence is made from the blood of the poet. This sentence was made in Japan. This sentence glows in the dark. This sentence was born with a caul. This sentence has a crush on Norman Mailer. This sentence is a wino and doesn't care who knows it. Like many italic sentences, this one has Mafia connections. This sentence is a double Cancer with Pisces rising. This sentence lost it's mind searching for the perfect paragraph. This sentence refuses to be diagramed. This sentence ran off with an adverb clause. This sentence is 100 percent organic: it will not retain a facsimile of freshness like those sentences of Homer, Shakespeare, Goethe et al., which are loaded with preservatives. This sentence leaks. This sentence doesn't look Jewish . . . This sentence has accepted Jesus Christ as its personal savior. This sentence once spit in a book reviewer's eye. This sentence can do the funky chicken. This sentence has seen too much and forgotten too little. This sentence is called "Speedoo" but its real name is Mr. Earl. This sentence suffered a split infinitive — and survived. If this sentence had been a snake you'd have bitten it. This sentence went to jail withCliffordr Irving. This sentence went to Woodstock. And this little sentence went wee wee wee all the way home.


Whew! How can you turn down a book like that?

Counting down....

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In our last place, I tried to get up early enough to have a decent shower (read fifteen minute minimum). However, sometimes the devils o' sleep would crowd in and I would run late. At these times (if I had time to shower at all), I installed a countdown rule: From when I stepped in the shower, I would begin counting down from 100. When I hit zero, I had to turn the water off. That was the rule.

Our new place makes this more challenging. The proper countdown method requires one thing we lack: Serious Water Pressure.

SWP is needed for everything, but is especially important for rinsing hair and ears.

Ears.

Now, I haven't had the opportunity of seeing many of you shower, but I have been led to believe that my earwashing borders on the neurotic. I must wash them thoroughly everyday with vigor and verve and lots of soap. I will not have greasy ears!

Of course, who am I to complain? I have lived in apartments where you start the shower drizzling into a bucket an hour before showering so there will be enough to spoon over the vitals.

Interestingly, there was never a need to countdown in those days, as represented by this hastily drawn graph:

Blog II--The Sequel!

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(Note: I started replying to the comments to my last post but it got rather long so I decided to just pretend it was a new post. If you haven't read "So is this blog a good or a bad thing?" or its accompanying comments yet, you might want to skip ahead, then come back.)

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First, may I set Edgy's fears to rest: These are thoughts I've had for a long time--possibly even before I jumped into blogging--and Edgy's comment merely made me decide to point out how sometimes my blog features ideas that might not ever be of sufficient worth to go through the expensive paper publishing process.

Second, may I say it's a delight to finally be hip.

Third, the sexual story on the News site will be gone for people who don't read this post until Monday.

Fourth, Master Fob should not be sad that his imagery was less explicit than mine. Although I assure you that I chose that metaphor because it seemed most fitting, not to pollute your minds.

And next, thank you, Mandi. I'm glad you liked that one. One reason I don't write more posts like that is because I hate to do a shabby job on interesting stories and I don't want to take the hours of polishing it would require to make a story shine just to put it on my blog. Perhaps I should.

I've often thought that maybe I am wrong about this. Musicians are trying to adapt to a digital paradigm and perhaps it is time that I, as a writer, did too. Although Curse my html lack of savvy! because I don't really know how to proceed from that supposition to some sort of reality.

Now let me pause because I have mentioned in that past that there are bloggers in my acquaintance whose posts strike me as fit for publication as is. But with all of them, they are people whose writing I only know from their blogs. I wonder.... Do you think that, for instance, when I read Tolker's novel, I will then be less impressed by his blogging? (No stress, Tolkien Boy!)

And now I am arriving where I did not expect to arrive--although I might have hoped I would. Perhaps blogging is of professional value to me. Even if it increases my fan base from a mere five to a mere fifteen, that must mean I have a 300% better chance of success, right? right? right?

Could one of the oldtime fobbers please tell me what it was that brought about that Fishing for Compliments running gag? I can't remember at all....

Perhaps I am just in sick, desperate need of compliments. I don't think so--I don't feel particularly untalented at the moment, or anything--but what other egocentric motivation could be driving these posts?

Could it be that I'm just back to the metanonsense I started out with? Perhaps I'm in a Blogging Spiral of Doom!

Yes. I think that's it.

(What a relief.)

So is this blog a good or a bad thing?

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I have a post I've been meaning to write a long, long time, and Edgy's "Okaaaaaaay . . ." comment seems to suggest that time has come.

For better or for worse, this blog has nearly entirely replaced my notebook-filling. It may be better because this way throwaway comments get immediate feedback and I can determine just how much they suck. It may be worse because practically all I write are throwaways--haven't finished any novels since Thmusings (née Tehachapiltdownman) started up. And worse than that, since these throwaways have been published online, I would feel a little plagiaristic if I later incorporated them into a book. The wonderful thing about notebooks is that ten years later, a little idea on a scrap of paper can become a witty thing just said by David Them. On a blog, it's something I've already shared and don't I have enough creativity to come up with something new?

Of course, even Charles Schulz and Shakespeare copied themselves. But I am better than Charles Schulz and Shakespeare.

(Aside: Since my blog does not go through forty-seven rewrites, severe thediting, or cruel fobberation before being published, it is also creating a sense of "Theric as Hack"--most of the world outside the reach of my former employer only knows my blogwork, and it is second rate indeed. So a question: is any exposure good exposure or would I be better off not blogging until after paper-publishing, thus retaining fans of my "good" work without polluting minds with poor writing? After all, I'm not sure anyone wants a book of Thmusings, and if they think this is all I write, why would they buy any book o' mine?)

Anyway, back to my first whine issue, most of the writing I do now is here, on Thmusings. And of course, it is good to write always and not faint, but am I spilling my seed on the ground, so to speak?

It's a hard question.

Perhaps I will return to it sometime....

Never shave. Never surrender.

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I haven't shaved in, oh, a couple weeks. It doesn't look too bad. But I still don't look my age.

With the new semester has come a switcharound of students--about a third weren't with me last semester. One of the new ones told me yesterday that he and his friends (who had seen me walking around in my necktie) had assumed I was a student transferred in from "some Christian school."

When I was subbing (unless I was at an elementary school) (and even that was no guarantee) kids would ask if I was a new student.

I'm wearing a tie! I haven't shaved! I've even given up my backpack! What else can I do?

Signed,

some kid

Tick tock

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and, boom!

Two new nominations

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The good news is I will never be a serial killer. Because you can't cut off and keep a woman's voice which makes the whole enterprise an appalling waste. I have mentioned before that I find the female voice, mm, alluring, and I dream of someone like Sony BMG saying, "Mr Thmazing, you're the expert--would you compile a cd of terrific female voices for us?" In preparation for that day, I now mention two voices that have recently come to my attention.


The first is Imogen Heap whose new album features an incredible track I have heard a few times on KCRW, an LA NPR station that features some of the best music programming I have ever been blessed to hear.

I knew of her from this and that but honestly do not pay that much attention to new music so although I had heard her on Garden State and here and there, she had not really made an impression on me till this song simply blew me away. I wish I could tell you the name of it, but the high school blocks all access to music sites in order to preserve the Edenic state of musical innocence here on campus. (All Sousa, all the time.)

Anyway, impressive though that song was, it was only once song. Then I heard a really crummy song that featured an incredible female vocalist during the chorus and when they announced that voice as Imogen Heap I was sold. This woman is the real thing.


Also new to the Hall of Incredible Pipes waiting room is one Peggy Lee (we like you too, Peggy!). I'm not up on my crooners B.Th. (before Theric), so Peggy was beneath my radar. But then, this Christmas season I heard her sing some Christmas song on the radio that I had never heard before. Now nevermind the fact that this was a feelgood tune about making the world a better place and nevermind that she was backed by children: I have never heard such carnality coming through the speakers of my automobile. Never. Now, like Joseph before Potiphar's wife, I should have turned off the radio, but, well, surely the Lord will justify us in committing a little sin, right?

I have since picked up a compilation (somewhat by accident, but that's another story) that features Miss Lee and alas, these three new songs don't quite match the first, but the memory of that "innocent" Christmas carol yet lingers....

(Besides, she played Peg in Lady and the Tramp--and if that isn't hot, I don't know what is.)

Back in the saddle

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My unspeakable dread has passed and the first day back at school was just another day teaching at school. And so it goes.

And as of tonight, we will be all moved in (although there will be mountains of boxes yet to be dealt with. And a 5' cube of unshelved books. And unassembled furniture.)

In other news, I read in the paper today that gory horror movies are back. Which reminds me of a story.

I once dreamed that I was the victim in a slasher flick. But when the monster-in-human-form finally caught me, my brain hit a wall, and I had the distinct, conscious thought that I could not dream my messy demise because I had never actually seen a slasher flick.

True story; saved my life.

Now I'm headed to the apartment to empty the Lapper and go back to Tehachapi where my wife and child yet linger.

Whoopy-ti-yi-yo
Rocking to and fro'
I'm back in the saddle again

Here I sit

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It has occurred to me that these classes I have to take for my credential could be looked at as a dry run for grad school. Do I have it in me still to sit in class as a student? I don't know.

My first class of this process starts today. Thirty-five minutes ago, actually. (Professor hasn't shown up yet.) I was thirty minutes late myself and let me tell you why whilst I wait.

I was putting boxes into our new apartment, hoping to get the vanful deposited before class.

Crap. No time. Must run.

So I hurried to CSUB-AV campus and room 207 does not exist. Huh.

So I ask. And apparently, there is a second mini-campus here in the Antelope Valley. Just down the street from our new apartment. Huh. And so I drive back.

UPDATE!!!!!

One of my fellow students just went and talked to an admin and the class starts next Wednesday. Um, hoorah?

You know, maybe grad school wouldn't be so bad.....

Bonus: How many times did I use the word "so" in this post?