Earth Is the New Goth

Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer, which means my favorite season is drawing to a close. Luckily, summer is a close second. These times of the year are favored because of their pleasant familiarity. The weather's warm, sun dresses appear, being outside is a joy, I will cook meat and vegetables on my big charcoal grill, and I will be vexed and bouyed by baseball. These are familiar pleasures, but now I have new ones. These new pleasing activities stem from previously hated chores. Now that I have my own yard, I love being in it and working on it. A lifetime ago as an idiot teenager, I hated yardwork. I had better things to do, like listen to The Cure and Depeche Mode while brooding or simpering around in black clothing. What use was sunshine? Pulling weeds, caring for grass, or planting anything was enforced on my weekend agenda. Now, I look forward to what else I'm going to put into my piece of earth and the feel of grass between my fingers.

What the hell is wrong with me? It's warm, It's sunny, and I can't believe the things I love now.

As I get older and more verbose, I see constant reminders of time slipping away, so I'm learning that it's best not to overanalyze the contradictions with my past, especially with the happy stuff. Essentially, shut up and enjoy.

So screw it. When I'm crumbling away in my later years, I'll have a few affixed times in my head of happy yardwork as I still listen to the Cure and Depeche Mode, but now outside with soil blackening my skin instead of my corny outfit. My back yard now fills my goth needs. Getting older does have a few perks.

I'm About to Get Lyrical on Your Ass

I've never trusted myself to write anything poetic. So, in a bit of switch, my best friend Mike and I collaborated on a song; him with music, me with lyrics. He sent me the tune and I whipped up some words. I like the tune he wrote and I tried to compliment it with words we both like. We're stretching ourselves a bit with something new, and while the finished tune is still in process, here's some initial lyrics (subject to change if either of us don't like 'em):

“Summer Girls” Lyrics

Let the sunlight bring out your skin
It’s been cold, frozen, wrong
The heat will begin, sun will come in
Light your bare legs, long
Show your sun dress, let your hair down
Shake yourself out, strong
Throw your neck out, feel the wind
Air cross your chest, song

See, I see, summer girls
Summer girls

Wipe my eyes off, clear my face
This sight is much too fine
Colors lovely, never replace
This piece of you, mine
You dance, you romp, my heart it stomps
You boil my blood and mind
My eyes run races across and through you
Sun and air embrace you, divine

See, I see, summer girls
Summer girls

[Breakdown]
[Instrumental verse]

See, I see, summer girls
Summer girls
It must be, summer girls
How I love summer girls

[fin]

Home and Atomic History

Last year, I put up (in several parts) a piece I wrote for my graduate studies about one perspective on my hometown of Los Alamos, New Mexico. Recently, a TV crew was let into a bomb site in Nevada where over 900 nuclear bombs were tested, which led me to vce.com or atomcentral. This website details the history of atomic weaponry, which was central to the creation of Los Alamos. Sure enough, Los Alamos is prominently featured on the site.

I have a very strange relationship and mixed feelings about my hometown. These emotions led to my research and writing about Los Alamos during my grad studies. I guess something feels unresolved. I feel both pride and shame in my association with Los Alamos. While partly a place of great scientific accomplishment (and the origin of many of my memories), the city is also responsible for the deadliest weapon yet created that was used with horrifying results. While it could be argued that the atomic bombs prevented the loss of many lives by ending the war with Japan sooner than expected, there was still tremendous loss of life in Hiroshima and Nagasaki plus the terrible effects of fallout that were felt in Japan and in the United States because of some nuclear tests. While I believe the city added to my development in many ways, it has always been a place that creates hard questions.

The VCE website is terrific. It has a great deal of well organized info plus some rarely seen photos. I wish I could have used it in my paper, but luckily, I had many other sources. Los Alamos will remain a place of conflicting emotions, but it is an integral part of my childhood and the subject of my first "play," although if you take the time to read what I put up here, you'll see that it's hardly a "play." It's not so easily defined, like the city itself. One thing I can say for sure is that I do not glow green at night. Yet.

Bipolar Baseball Fandom

After the first week of the baseball season, I wrote that there would be some Baseball Bipolar Disorder to come. Dan Bernstein, one of my favorite sports commentators, recently said that Cubs fans look for reasons to be worried and White Sox fans look for reasons to be angry. I was already in agreement with that statement before the Cubs bullpen started looking awful and Carlos Zambrano went on the DL. Now I'm seeing lots of injuries, the Cubs two supposedly best relievers walking everything in sight, and the friggin Pirates in first place for a couple of days. At least the Pirates slid backwards as expected, but I had a feeling all of the prediction of the Cubs running away with the division was premature. It's not acting like 2004 yet when the Cubs were supposed to waltz to the World Series and all the silly entitlement went to their heads and they peed on their hands (literally, in Moises Alou's case). At the moment, I'm just agitated, mostly because the bullpen is shaky. There's other issues here and there with hitting and a few coughs in the starting pitchers, but I have faith (at this moment anyway) that those things will even out, but a bad bullpen is a killer. I'm including Cubs Baseball as part of Anxiety Mondays. A balm for anxiety, outside of Jack Bauer, is consistency; so far, White Sox fans are still angry and the Pirates are still going backwards, so that helps. Plus, I still get instant relief thinking about Reed Johnson's defense and looking at Kosuke Fukudome's April stats. Now can we get some more relief?