NoMoNaBloPoMo*

It was a relief not to feel like I was obligated to type anything this weekend.  That being the case, I did feel an urge a time or two.  I suppressed them.

Now though, Sunday evening after the boys are in bed and my wife is home from nearly a full (frustrating) day of craftification in pursuit of eventual remuneration, I don't feel it so much.

Random weekend ejaculations:

-There are very few things as irritating as the occasional hang nail.  Except when you've picked at it and then peel a couple mandarin oranges for lunch and the citrus juice just gets right in there and stings like a sunovabitch.  Man, I hate that.

-I bathed both the dogs on Saturday.  Interestingly, this has gone a short ways to, if not endear them to me further, at least increase my inclination to pet them.  For now, they don't smell like dog, and that's really something for me.

-I have yet to put up any Christmas lights but hope to do so this coming weekend.  The cold snap that had us in a stranglehold until a few days ago caught me off guard and dampened my decorating spirit.  (Fun fact: when it's hovering around -40 outside you don't need a slurpee to get a brain freeze, just open your front door and inhale deeply through your nostrils.)  Even if it's warm enough in a few days, I don't think I'll be terribly inclined to wrangle an extension ladder in two feet of snow to put plastic clips and strings of lights up around our eaves.  I probably still will, since my wife will give me 'that look' and then slyly promise sexual favours that, as her husband, are my God-given right anyway.  Merry Christmas.

-My wife doesn't read all of what I put up here.  So sometimes I feel like I'm playing Russian Roulette.  My money's on Odds right now.

-Soon as I start thinking of Christmas, I immediately think of the 25th of January when I get to go to the annual Burns Supper.  Scotch and haggis and octogenarians wielding claymores, all wrapped up in a psychedelic display of kilted tartan excess.  Wha's no to love?

-Speaking of scotch, I'm reminded of my favourite toast ever, learned and inculcated during my liberal university days at the hands of my fraternity brothers who sometimes, really, do such a stellar job of living up to stereotypes:

"Here's to honour -- gettin' honour, and stayin' honour."

-I'm in the midst of reading Moby Dick (was that a Freudian segue?) - less than a quarter of the way in.  The Pequod - Ahab's whaling ship - recently set sail from the port of Nantucket en route to warmer climes and, in his first address to the crew - of which Ishmael is a member and the first person narrator of the book - , Ahab set the goal of a certain white whale and, as incentive, nailed to the main mast a 16 dollar gold doubloon to the first man who sights it.  I am simply stunned at the prose with which the book is composed and am already casting my own sight to the future when I take the opportunity to re-read it several times over.  I'm reading the 150th anniversary edition of the book and just lovin' it.

-Speaking of Nantucket, I know a much lewder toast than the one above, but it's sort of in line with that famous Nantucket limerick and not really very fit for my own ears, let alone pretty much anyone who reads here.

-There are few areas in which I am not as much a geek as one would think, but digital music is one of them.  I only this weekend started ripping (that there's the fancy technical term) my CD collection to my hard drive.  One of the victims of our early baby-proofing runs through our house was the music collection.  Two small tower shelves stacked with CDs just begged for wee hands to do some ripping of their own.  So relegated to the basement they were.  As part of a Christmas project I've set myself, I reintroduced myself to my music and the experience has been like being sweetly enveloped in the arms of a familiar and forgiving old lover.  I've been humming, singing, whistling and randomly dancing all weekend.  Badly, all, to be sure, but eminently enjoyable.  (I fear I may soon acquire the urge to get an iPod or something.)

-The urge to write something without the whip of obligation leaving red weals down my back and buttocks is oddly refreshing.  Something I'm glad to have culled from November.

Random haiku to start the new week off right:

Why the bloody hell
Does it have to make sense, eh?
Hippopotamus

*****************************************

* -- Props to Mark for the post title.

Comments

[TerriTorial]

Our Death Grip of arctic weather kept us from decorating outside as well. Hopefully today MAYBE hubby will put some lights up...if I nag..I mean ask him.

The inside of the house though is as festive as they come!

[Moksha Gren]

Glad you decided to come back. I was worried that the marathon would make you shy away from posting for a while.

I've never been an outside Christmas decorator. We throw some lights on our hedges and call the whole thing done. We're overly festive on the inside. And as you remember, we go overboad outside for Halloween / Hallowe'en. So, we figure we've already proven our holiday spirit to the neighborhood.

We got an ipod a few years ago since our parents live hours away in opposite directions. Lots of road trips for the Grens and the pile of cds sliding around in the back seat got old. However, your comments are timely since we had some friends out this weekend and they brought their 1 and 3 year olds. I took special note of what their little hands went for and the cd rack was an immeidiate draw. I'll be thankful for that overpriced harddrive all over again once our cds are banished to the basement.

I'm happy to hear you've reintroduced yourself to your music. It's good for the soul.

[Moksha Gren]

Oh, one more thought. My wife rarely promises sexual favors for my efforts. She jokingly threatens to withhold...but as new parents, it's sort of already being withheld, so the threat doesn't really work. I think I'd probably get more done with positive reinforcement than negative.

Note - My Wife reads most of what you post here...so my money's on Evens ;)

[Mark]

I'm with you on the hangnail, man. Them thangs is murder. I must admit, however, I've never seen peel'em and eat'em Mandarin oranges, and only a picture you posted a while back made me believe they are available to the average consumer. As far as I know, I've only seen the canned variety. Maybe the fresh versions have always been at the grocer, but I haven't noticed. Now I'll look.

Our Christmas decoration, generally done the Sunday after Thanksgiving, was passed over in favor of adopting a dog and worrying about our minivan's engine. Maybe we'll get to it soon. Your wife seriously needs to advise my wife on the joys of using sexual favors as an incentive to complete a honey-do task.

I've never read Moby D. Somehow, when I transferred back and forth between towns every 1.5 years of high school, it never appeared on any syllabus, and God knows a University's English department wouldn't stoop so low as to assign a classic. Just a few years ago I "discovered" Great Expectations, a great Dickens book that had my dog-earing several pages in each chapter because of a particular way he expressed a thought or feeling. Just great stuff, that.

Go music, go! Now I can't so much as vacuum the living room without my mp3 player on my hip. It's bulky compared to the svelte offerings of late, but I love the SD card slot and the lack of a proprietary rechargeable battery. That means it should last as long as there are SD cards and a double-A battery to be had!

Sorry to be so verbose in your comments area. You covered so many topics that I went a little crazy.

[Mark]

Almost forgot. I put -40 in Converber to get it in Fahrenheit, and found it to be a rare point of convergence in the two popular measures of temperature. It's exactly -40 Fahrenheit, too. I've concluded that it's way too cold where you live.

[rna]

After you've survived The Whale (a book that'll last you through the holiday season and carry you a good distance beyond into the bleaker months of winter), you might ought to look into some of his short stories-- Billy Budd, Bartleby, The Lighting Rod Salesman. Melville's my one-book-for-the-desert-isle-guy, and has been for far too many decades; not much of a surprise there.

It was good to find you back here this morning despite November's toll on your shattered blogging nerves.

Only 52 shopping days to Burns Night.

[Simon]

Moksha, the iPod urge is growing; I don't know how long I can hold out. Before you know it I'll be out buying a MacBook too. And my wife really only uses sexual favours as a verbal lure. We both know it's just a little game we play. But yeah, those post-baby months are, umm, hard on a guy.

Mark, there are few men who would feel so comfortable as to flaunt the fact they vacuum the living room, let alone with an mp3 player on their hip. Rock on you southern stud! (I normally have a toddler cowering on the couch, an infant flailing in an Exer-Saucer and two dogs running circles while I vacuum. Fun!)

Oh, and I intentionally used 40 below as my temp because it is the same in C and F. Truthfully, it hasn't dropped that low yet, but it has been below -30 on a few days and, with the wind chill factored in, has FELT like -40 and colder.

Rick, I'm already bemoaning the fact that I'm not reading The Whale with a pencil in hand to mark all the passages that grab me and shake me bodily about with the level of understated insightfulness. I needs must do that the next time around and will most probably take you up on more short stories.

[Paul]

I'll never own an iPod, never having owned a Walkman, Discman, or even a pair of headphones to hook up to a home stereo system. I just don't enjoy listening to music that way. I am, however, warming to the concept of hooking my computer up to my home stereo, and using iTunes as a home jukebox.

[Moksha Gren]

Paul - I agree. I can't remember the last time I had headphones on my iPod. I use it as a component on my stereo, have an input to my car stereo, and have some computer speakers on my desk at work. Headphones...bleh. It's a mobile cd collection, man.

[Linda]

I just blew out aboot 42 hundred brain cells trying to read and comprehend everything on this page. Criminy. Why can't I have a freakin' job where I can sit on my ass for an hour every morning reading blogs???!!! Do you have any idea at what a disadvantage I am? I will say everything I had planned on my way down here, it just might not all be in one place. Please don't post again until I say it's ok.
For starters, this has been one of your funniest and my favorites to date.
I have to go rest now...