so do me a small favor.

don't tell my family that i'm internalizing stress from work. because i am. and because my mother would have my head for doing it.

but i can't help it right now. i don't know how to do it differently. that's the real problem, truth be told. i don't know how to not be intense. i don't know how to take the weight of work off my shoulders. it's nothing super-major (but really, what is?), but it's enough to wire me up.

it's all ok; it'll be fine. i'm venting. and reminding myself that the important things in life are more important. i'm going in late tomorrow, because working 11 hours today means that i earned rolling in an hour late tomorrow. (i see someone outside smoking and i want a cig for the first time in years and years.)

i think back to the pack or so i smoked when my grandmother was dying. remember shuttling back and forth from williamsburg, in her old car, a sophomore in college, window down, playing a cassette, prob of nirvana loudly on a battery powered boombox since there was no tape player in the car. jetting back and forth to see her in the hospital.

its not the same stress, obviously. proving to someone that you can carry and deliver and do work is different than having a grandparent die after a long illness. i'm not comparing them, only linking them over the thoughts of smoking.

i'm sure ive smoked since then. i remember stumbling around a house party in richmond more than once with one hanging from my lips, not unlike dan ackroyd in ghostbusters, stuck to my lower lip with dried spit. but i don't think i smoke one then. i certainly havent had one since then though. 7 or 8 years.

when i first met r, when i was djing house parties in richmond, staying out all night, drinking shit drinks all the time and feeling alive.

arg. clearly im all emo and angsty about work. somebody punch me.

For that matter, add in piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. George Carlin died.

After being completely enamored with his stand-up as a late teen, early twenty-something, I found a Carlin renaissance of sorts, hearing him tell tales of Thomas the Tank Engine to my young children. I'd always have a little inner smile, half expecting to hear Thomas launch into some expletive-laced rant, and marvel at an altogether different facet of the man.

Wretched mole why can’t
I kill you? I am so soft.
To the park with you!

So I'm getting the mail when I spot some movement in one of my many flower beds. Moles have been tearing up beds and lawn since we moved in, but I hadn't actually seen one in the entire 4+ years we've lived here. So, manly man that I am, I put down the mail, grab a shovel and–with all the might you'd need to be a primary suspect in CSI, Bones or Murder, She Wrote–whacked the shit out of the mound in my mulch bead. 

The movement stopped.

Surely, surely I'd killed the little fucker. Ah, but what to do? Leave the little bugger under their to fertilize the plants. But no, I'd be putting in some plants in a few days time (I've got nearly a hundred impatiens raised from seed), so out he'd have to come. What a gruesome planting experience that'd be. So, I tip the shovel and scrape back the mulch to find … nothing. Hmm. So I dig down a little bit and uncover his furry ass. Only, I can see he's still breathing. The several inches of soil above him must have dispersed the force of the blow. I dug him out the rest of the way and pondered over his stunned self for a few moments. It's one thing to whack the crap out of a moving mound of mulch, another to squish a furry little mammal. Sigh. The part of me raised by hunters raised by hunters and farmers just wants to step on it and be done. The parent in me just doesn't want to deal with this at all. So, I scoop the little fucker up and put him in a bucket. Only, he flops off the shovel and back onto the ground. So I grab him and plop him in. Moles are surprisingly solid little animals. Most furry little things you pick up are soft and squishy; not so the mole. It's like a fur-covered rock.

I kept him in the bucket for a few hours while I went about my business and decided what to do with him. In the end, I showed him to Reed, we observed his physical characteristics necessary to his habitat, and then settled on relocating him to the park. 

Sigh. I can hear the inverse telling of The Grinch that Stole Christmas in the back of my head: "… and what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say that the Grinch's balls shrank three sizes that day!"

a bad way to start the week.

for the moment, an unsubstantiated rumor:

cris bruce died from heart failure sometime on saturday.

again: i do not know for certain this is true — it came to me from a phone call from ben who had gotten a text message from his sister. this could be a complete fabrication. i don't want to spread rumors, but i also believe this is legit, even for the shady friend-of-a-friend thing going on.

i'm not ready to talk about cris more than this, i'll leave it at this:
we went to high school together and, like everyone that i knew who knew him, my relationship seemed more complicated under the surface than the interactions we had over the years. i haven't heard from him in at least a year now, maybe longer.

i sincerely hope this rumor is untrue. he is young; im not sure he has hit 30 yet. if it is true, my heart goes out to his family.

if you have any news, one way or another about this, please let me know.

Internet browsing slows down on the weekend. I suppose everyone goes outside or gets drunk or something. So here are some of the links that popped up in my browser over the weekend that you probably missed:

• Cookie Monster looks inside himself to see if he is truly a monster.
• Food prices (and violence because of it) are rising all over the world. This reminds me of the 'those who control oil and water will control the world' article — it's terrifying to realize we on approaching a global water shortage. Of course, this forces me to recall Bush purchasing 100 thousand acres of land in Paraguay in 2006. Why? Because the land sits "sits atop the one of the world’s largest fresh-water aquifers." Yeah, the Bushies are already arranging to be the world's water suppliers, when they are done with oil. Yay! It's Monday and I feel sick already. (If you missed the Bush stuff the first time around, here is the Wonkette and Daily Kos postings. There are a ton more floating around too.)
• I'm a nerd, but I have not yet proposed marriage in a patent application.
• best. elevator. ride. ever.
• man with suicide victim's heart kills self. (note: he did it in the same way even — after marrying the original man's wife. which actually begs the question: did the wife have any involvement? seems more logical than blaming an implanted heart.)
• To end on an upnote, how about some of the best Amazon reviews you will ever read. Ever. One for the Best of David Hasselhoff album. And one for milk. Yeah. Read them. Milk is A-W-E-S-O-M-E.

Update: 2 silly videos, one of a super sharp shooter (threading a needle and the like with a bow and arrow) and silly gameshow moments. Both courtesy of Neatorama.

I got punched in the stomach today.

Figuratively, mind you, but I might have actually preferred the literal kind to this particular moment. Reed, Rebekah and I are driving back home and Reed is talking about his upcoming birthday. And then he starts thinking about the birthday after that.

"After five, I'll be six. And then seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen … [pause] then sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen and then twenty!"

"Yeah, buddy. What will you be after twenty?" I ask, finding this to be a great impromptu counting game.

"Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty nine…"

He goes silent for a moment, then:

"Daddy, when do we die?"

I wasn't going to post on this, mainly because every nerd in the universe already has a blog post up about it (and then a few more and more). Hell, my mom told me on the phone the other night. And nothing against my mom, but when she's delivering me nerd news, it isn't exactly breaking anymore. (On top of emails from various friends, spreading the news like nerdcore had lost one of the rulers of the 7 Kingdoms of Nerdonia*.)

But, like everyone else, I spent a good amount of high school playing d&d. And it delighted me when he was on Futurama years ago. The man influenced my life, indirectly and in a positive manner. I am grateful for his work. But the following cartoon is why I am making this post — I think it's pretty awesome.

And really, this cartoon says it better than I ever could (avoiding the obvious 1d20 jokes):

* I believe a history and details of the 7 Kingdoms of Nerdonia will be forthcoming.