"Jesus, everybody's dead!"

Her thesis statement about my second novel. We spoke* for almost two hours about the book and she said this several times. It made me laugh every single time.

* iChat video conferencing with her in Japan and me sitting on my futon. I never have a reason to do this, but man, it really does rock.

it's halloween.

so spooky halloween to you! i point you to this discobelle post of fun halloween music. i am currently rocking out to the halloween mix*. loudly, as i am the only one in the office right now.

(* track 15 on this mix: The Bulgarian (ft. Spoek) - The Zombie Door (Vox version) turns out to be rather filthy. the chorus seems to be 'jack it like a zombie' repeated. just letting you know so you don't, say, for instance, blast it in your place of work for everyone to hear.)

due to a miscommunication of sorts, half the team is working in san jose today, with two of us up here in the city. not a big deal, but annoying, as i had to buy a train ticket to get up here. goodbye 11 dollars it turns out i didn't need to spend.

also, mike sent me a list from the av club of bad horror movie villians. shockingly, i have not seen most of these films. more shockingly, mike claims to have. and triply shocking — morty, from 'the fear', jack frost (the evil snowman) from 'jack frost', or the gingerbread man from 'the gingerdead man' are not represented. i might have to call sheningans on the article now.

also, i need to tell you the taglines for 'jack frost': "He's chillin…and killin"
and for 'the gingerdead man': "Out of the oven… and into your heart!"
wow.

and i am in a funk. for a multitude of reasons.

but this morning, walking into the office, i passed an older, bald man with horns attached. i, myself, am wearing my old devil 'headband' which is an easy, lazy, pretend costume. but it was great fun to pass someone else in the street who had dressed up the same way. we said hello to each other and it made me smile a lot.

that made the trip up here worthwhile, i would say.

in other news, robert goulet died. this is not huge news and, sadly, i remember him most for his excellent emerald nuts ad last superbowl.

and if we want to really cheapen his memory, how about will ferrell impersonating him singing the thong song?

i don't know what to say about this. there is something here, something about the japanese schoolgirl fetish, when crossed with zombies. something to say other than 'ow, my head' — something about niches culture, trends overstaying their welcome, etc.

but really, im so amazed by this trailer, no logic is helping me assemble it in my head.

(and, even better, i got to use the zombiedanceparty tag)

of hating things today:
bratz, the movie.

again, i'm serious: can we string up the people responsible? is it too much to ask that i would never be aware of this? sadly, i had to sit through the preview on friday night when i saw ratatouille.

The Shining was on tonight on Sci-Fi. I’d never seen it before and what can I say: I got sucked into it. The long takes spliced with the quick cuts. The eeriness of big old hotels. Spooky kid. Grouchy writer dad…

I’m probably not supposed to identify with the Jack Nicholson character, right? Moving on.

So, I’m on the couch. All the lights are off and I’m watching as the kid is playing on the rug and a ball rolls towards him. He gets up. And there is Room 237. The door is open. The key is in the lock… “Mom? Are you in there?”…

Followed by a creak and a thump somewhere in my house. The cat was next to me, so I knew it wasn’t her. I turn the TV off, stand stock-still in the dark, but don’t hear it again. I creep silently upstairs. There, in the doorway to his room lies my son unconscious on the floor. I hurry over, pick up his limp little body and…

…promptly set him down on the potty where he proceeds to piss a torrent.

So, no clairvoyant little tyke channeling the dead. Whew, eh? Still sleeping, he lists to one side of the toilet. I hold him upright until he’s done, pick him up and tuck him back in bed. As he heads off to sleepy land, I ask him, “Were you out of bed because you needed to pee?”

“Yes…I needed to pee…forever…and ever…and ever…”

The boy had an end-of-the-year celebration today at school. The little guys sang songs and then got little certificates before plundering the snack table. It was very cute. Rebekah loved seeing the kids sing and joined in with her versions. When asked what he wanted to be when he grows up, Reed said, “A big brother.” Aww. He also announced loudly to everyone that “My daddy has no hair on top of his head!”

That’s my boy.

Later we went for Rebekah’s 12-month checkup. She’s off the charts, as the doctor put it. Twenty-six pounds, eleven ounces. Even crazier to think that at her six-month checkup, she rang in at 21 pounds, 4 ounces, so you could say she’s leveling off. She’s all proportional and healthy and happy, so that’s all I care about.

It’s been a good day to be a dad. Gotta go to sleep now.

realizing that today is friday the 13th now explains a lot.

like why rachael was wearing her hockey mask this morning.

what if for the first 25 years of your life you were blind. lets say you were born blind, grew up that way, were accustomed to not being able to see anything but complete darkness and maybe some blurry shades of light here and there. lets also say that you got married. and your relationship with your significant other was built on personality alone. what sensual, erotic things would you experience with your lover? your knowledge of that person would be on touch, taste, smell, hearing alone. you would never had ever seen them. you would have felt their face, but you would never know color their eyes or hair was.
now, lets say that one day you go into surgery and have new eyes put in. now you can see for the first time. you are for the first time in your life being given a new sense with which to judge how you feel about different aspects of your life. do you think that your perspective on that person might change after seeing them for the first time? or would that be completely shallow and superficial. most people would probably say yes, of course, that would be shallow and superficial. but what if, you see the person for the first time ever that you've spent the last 20 years with, and they are so god awful ugly that you cannot stand to look at them one minute longer? what would you do?