Yesterday was a tough day. Today I doubt will be any different. I'm not sure why, exactly. I was just slogging through Wednesday, dumb mistake after dumb mistake -all the while sweating furiously. At one point the whole thing just fell down, which rarely happens. (Don't worry, I'm fine.) Anyway, half the days of the week I come home and there are white rings of dried sweat salt on my blue work shirt. My blue work shirts, incidentally, have taken on this odd discoloration on the backs of them. It's a large blotchy oval of sweat stain that resists all attempts at laundering, no matter how thorough. Whatever do I do about it? It's embarrassing, and these shirts aren't cheap.

I have opted for the light brown work shirt today, instead of the dark blue. The dark blue one has an air of experienced foremanship about it, whereas the light brown one seems more of a grunting, meathead, hammer-swinging shirt. I don't know why this is. What I do know is that on a hot and sunny day, those blue shirts break you down until you are a grunting meathead, so, yeah, I'll just skip ahead and wear the brown one today. After all, it's not a million-dollar gated community or anything. (But it is kinda nice. Horse properties. Large yards.)

Now there's a name for a construction company: Grunting Meatheads, Inc. (GMI) Knock on the door: "Hi, we're the grunting meatheads? You called about some hard labor you needed done?" Or you could just pull up to the house, back over the mailbox, and drag your sledgehammers out like trolls, "Uggh. Ugggh. Nughhrphfmmph..." All of us in light brown shirts.

Speaking of meatheads, Summer Camp in just three more days! I have to come home early to spray-paint some hula hoops black. (Don't ask why. I'll post the video.) We're going with an Olympics sub-theme for the week, which should be fun. The real Olympics begins next Friday on August 8th. What's the significance of this? Well, to the Chinese, it's the eights. Check the date: 8/8/08. They're sure to sweep every event. Those Chinese think of everything.

One of our noble and dedicated camp directors made a podium:



I was so impressed, I made a video of it.


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Wednesday. Is it Wednesday? Sheez. I swear to Odin, this is the year of constant busyment. I've tried to do some honest reflection on it, and I have little to exuse myself. Clearly I've over-committed, for starters. It's my own fault. I should know better. Just because I'm capable of doing something, doesn't necessarily mean I can get it done. I made a list on the kitchen chalkboard and "Make Living" was on there, somewhere near the bottom. (I did get to check off "Back Fence" though. It was the only thing.) Then there's all the unexpected stuff: rising gas prices, smaller jobs, personal episodes of fate and frenzy. Money worries. And I seem to have spent a certain extra amount of energy on fear and fret this year. That slows down everything. Those of you that know my family, know I've got about another ninety days before my busy world gets dammed up again, so I better focus on some of these outdated commitments. And, of course, next week is my annual sojourn to summer camp. 7 days on an island with a hundred and fifty teenagers may come as something of a welcome relief, oddly.

That means the next couple days are filled with emails, phone calls, and wacky purchases -stuff I never had time for in the first place. I've got an interesting list of odds and ends I need for camp, and it includes all manner of technical gizmos for the computer-video setup, costumes, decorations, strange foods, and skit props. If you have any creative thoughts, send them my way. Somehow, the aluminum saps me of all my creative energy. It becomes a source of stress at times like these. Wait a minute... isn't the aluminum always a source of stress?

And we have a sullen disaffected teenager coming to live with us. He'll be around for a few weeks AND I INTEND TO PUT THE KID TO WORK AROUND HERE! Just kidding -he's actually a good kid. We're sending him to camp (as if that would knock some sense into him) so Mrs. Ditchman has had her hands full with the transport of said teenager to and from said camp. He doesn't have parents or reliable guardians or even -get this- a cell phone, so it's been something of a challenge. Also, his name is Sean -so we'll put him in charge. And he knows how to work a lawnmower.

So if it doesn't burn down or tumble into the sea from the earth quaking, camp will be fun. It's all hard work, but it's a different kind of work, where you're laughing a lot of the time to make it tolerable. (I'll try and do a remote post or two.) So I've been busy. Again. These weekend getaways are kind of funny with my bag only getting unpacked for laundering, and it's tough on the garden. The fish seem to be holding on while the tank is in the shop for the next few weeks. And the tortoises seem happy since I moved them outside to their new (makeshift) pen. Also, the ants seem to be in check. I saw a few out there the other day and the man with the plastic on his shoes and sprayer on his back says just to call if I see A ONE and he'll come out and get it. Best news I've gotten all summer!


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Well, I admit I was a little nervous getting out of the car and moving across the parking lot. I brought my sunglasses, even though the sun had nearly set (and it was cloudy anyway), and I think the question Why am I doing this? went through my head twenty times. My wife looked terrific, and she had that this oughta be fun grin that one gets at an amusement park entrance. I figured, Well I've got nothing to prove -but I do have a pretty wife. Ten seconds later: twenty people whom you haven't seen in twenty years looking twenty years older greeting you enthusiastically. Like out of a fast-moving dream. With 80's music.

You just start chatting away, eyes open. I learned fast not to try and guess people's names and to just go ahead and ask for help. It's fun to see old classmates, but less so to be mistaken for one (you're not sure if the person you're talking to and the person you've mistaken them for ever got along.) One old friendly acquaintance after another crosses your path and it's the same set of questions, repeated endlessly: Where are you living now? and What do you do? and Kids? But I found myself genuinely interested. Then there are the moments of uncertainty when you're talking to someone you swear you sat behind in English, but it turns out to be that person's spouse from Illinois, but ah well. Everyone was smiling.

The first guy I saw, I knew in high school and wondered whatever happened to him. The second person I saw, I knew in high school and wondered what happened to her. And then the third, and then again and again, all together. It was like, let's go find out! I mean, what else are you going to do? At the check-in you were handed a badge with your high school photo on it, and no one complained when you approached them by leaning down to check the badge -as long as you laughed about it after. Everyone did, and it was like an icebreaker game at a youth group meeting, but we were all in costume, dressed as adults.

The party was held at sunset at the beach clubhouse of the prestigious and exclusive Jonathan Club, with all of us shuffling around barefoot in the sand and yet otherwise capitulating to the sternly enforced dress code. The hors d'oeuvres were of a veritable shwankness, served to us by well-groomed, attentive servants, and the lot of us stood around with champagne and cocktails, so the whole event had a Beverly Hills 90210 - Twenty Year Reunion Episode! air about it. A good number of people had made the event the cornerstone of their Southern California vacation, and who could blame them? But it could've been held in the old high school gymnasium and been every bit as fun, if not more so. (I mean, doesn't everyone want to live out the John Mayer song?)

Actually, there weren't really any of the old cliques -with the bitter caste system of adolescence that makes that regrettable impression you carry with you all your life. I was grateful for it. We all were, I think. Rather, it was just a group of about 150 adults looking for a good time, and having one. No one wore a letter jacket, there weren't any cheerleaders, and the last report card anyone at the party had seen or cared about was their five and seven year-old's. There was a slideshow of old photographs from pre-digital times, and God bless the hands that went through the torture of scanners and emails to make it, but few of us paid much attention. We were all showing off our own kids on our camera-phones. My, times they had a'changed.

At least a couple people had found me on the blog and complimented me on it, which was nice, and a few were wondering what happened to my film career, which I claimed I abandoned for the suburbs. "I have achieved normality -and it was a tough climb," I announced more than once. People found this both amusing and impressive. (For me, it is.)

The high point of my night was when I was reunited with a girl I'd had a crush on for years. She was happily married with a few kids now, of course, and I was sincerely happy for her. She smiled and introduced herself to Mrs. Ditchman and leaned in to tell her, "You're really lucky. You married a terrific guy." I was walking on air.

By the end of the night, most people gravitated to those they were closest to in high school, and stories old and new were shared until the Last Call. Mrs. Ditchman (who was patient and charming, God bless her) and I stayed to the end, catching anecdotes on the old hometown and those who didn't show. One was in prison, another killed in a car accident, and another taken by that unpredictable cancer. One jovial old friend was in the Air Force flying gliders and training cadets. Was he in the war? Yes, but the first one -the Gulf War. (Seems like ages ago.) Yet no one talked politics, no one talked religion. It was just families and jobs and you-can-never-go-home-again type stuff. Most of us never can, having been priced out of the village we were raised in -a place where the average property is now valued in the multi-millions.

I think a big reason people avoid their class reunions is the I've got nothing to prove mentality, which assumes that everyone there is trying to prove something. Perhaps some are, but those two groups tend to be the same people, and so wouldn't materialize at such an event in any case. What I saw was largely a group of otherwise ordinary folks who enjoy life, who enjoy other people, who wanted to entertain that enduring curiosity, that American tradition of the Class Reunion. There's nothing else in life like it. Weddings and funerals, maybe, but those are people who know you well. These are people who, well, know you. Weddings and funerals are in honor of you, whereas a class reunion is in honor of... what exactly? You take a group of people, raise them together, disperse them, and then bring them all back again every ten years. It's one of life's few legitimate benchmarks. You go to the reunions and you see life actually moving along beside you. Where else can you get that kind of perspective?

I regret not having committed to going to the family picnic that was held the day after the reunion. Other obligations and commitments -they weren't as important, I should have known better. I was with my own family -and I loved it- but these other people seemed so new again... Other people, whether family, friends, or forgotten classmates, are the source of the only lasting joy in this lifetime. If you don't enjoy other people, expect a slow dispassionate decay. Expect to die younger than those who do.

Anyway, it was a high school reunion. What do I have in common with these people? Nothing significant, really, we just went to high school together. But there is something... We all seemed to be people genuinely interested in life itself, wanting to watch it float gently past like the mighty and beautiful river that it is, and get swept up in it. And swept away not like in some unstoppable, calamitous flood, but rather as on a hot summer day at thirteen again, standing on a log, skinny and shivering, hooting and hollering, and leaping in.




~

Too busy.

The Ant Man cometh, among other things.


~

Got some water out of the Sparklett's jug earlier. Brought my cup up to my mouth and noticed something floating in the water: ants.

And there are ants on my desk, upstairs, right now. They're just roaming aimlessly. There's nothing here for you! Move along! And of course they do move along. Constantly. Cursory glances around the room reveal no spilled food or errant abandoned candies or sugars. I spy a dead fly on the floor, but the ants seem to be ignoring it (and why wouldn't they?) Last night I fell asleep on the couch and woke to a big orange spider crawling over my head. I had taken out the trash earlier and walked headlong into a spider web, and then probably brought the thing in to nap with me on the couch. It was pretty good-sized one, too. When I went to crush it, I heard a c-r-u-n-c-h as its tiny exoskeleton splintered beneath my hand. It was a tad disturbing, and I felt even a tad guilty for snuffing out the little life of the hapless bug, the unwitting wayfarer who hitched inside. Some dark place inside of me wishes I could feel the crunch of the bones as I snuff out the ants on my desk. I would get a gleeful satisfaction out of it, and I would do it mindlessly while reading the news. Pest removal as bubble wrap.

The concrete guy on the job site told me the other day that if you have a nest of ants living in the frame of your house, it's a good thing. Expecting some Feng shui superstition, I was surprised when he told me that the ants love to eat termite eggs. He said they'll eat every single one of them. "Yeah, but then you have ants."

"True. But your house doesn't fall down."

I suppose I should be grateful. We had inadvertently hosed a nest of ants and they were evacuating up a wall, fanning out, carrying their eggs. After a few minutes it was quite a sight -they covered the wall for yards. At one point someone pointed out "The Queen!" and you could see her engorged abdomen, surrounded by attentive drones. I leaned in to take a look, as I had never seen the Ant Queen before. There was nothing particularly unusual about her, but the small glom of ants tending her on this broad, flat, white surface meant there was no mistaking her. I stepped back a few paces and checked the wall again: there were about fifteen queens, each one covered with her adoring ant-minions. It was a disturbing sight. Disturbing in that third-act, Aliens 2, sort of way -where they discover the queen alien laying alien eggs. Sorry if I ruined it for you.

Something inside of me wanted to kill each one of the ant queens on the wall, but that seemed antisocial at the time, so I resisted the urge. But I thought, perhaps I could flush them out of my own house and find the queen that way... But then it occurred to me that there's been enough flushing out my house lately.

When I lived at Dantean Point we had ant problems, too. It was a bachelor pad, so the ant problems were much more impressive and even profound. At one point, Carey, unable to defeat the ants, decided he would embrace them. The New York Times Book Review had recently covered a book titled simply, The Ants, which was a massive, full color, tome that claimed to be the most exhaustive, definitive work on the, well, ants. We didn't buy it, (the thing cost $100) but we did sit in the Barnes and Noble with a latte one night and move through it a page at a time. Did we learn anything about the ants? Not sure. The book ended up winning the Pulitzer Prize, though.

I shouldn't complain. My sister lives in Hawaii and the ants there are tiny, swift moving yellow little things that number in the billions -and they're nothing compared to the helicopter-sized roaches. I believe my sister keeps all the food Ziplocked in the refrigerator or some nearby bank vault. But when I think about how I'm going to be living in this house on the mainland with the ants for the next thirty years, I just get kind of depressed. I may resort to tossing raw candy into the neighbor's yard to draw them away, or, worse, I may just make them all pets.

As if I needed ten million more pets around here.



~

NO JOKE: 11:45AM. The pest control guy rang my doorbell and offered a summer discount on their monthly ant removal service. His sales pitch reached an overpowering crescendo when he thumbed out an ant crawling up my door frame. I signed up. I didn't care what it cost.

~

Yesterday I saw a refrigerator in the back of a truck. I'm sure it's the same for you, but whenever I see a refrigerator in the back of a truck I think of this:



(Note: It will take nine minutes out of your day to watch this, but it's a good nine minutes.)

It's from Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, one of the greatest films ever made. (No, seriously.) At USC film school this scene was studied at great length. Did we discuss the pace of the editing? The composition of the shots? The juxtaposition of subjects on the screen? The use of sound to build tension? No. We discussed the refrigerator in the back of the truck. (I know it was bothering you, wasn't it?)

You see, Alfred Hitchcock liked to eat. Known to close friends as an often insecure and sensitive guy, whenever Hitch got bothered by something in life, he would eat. Food always saved the day for him, and, as we all know, he was not a skinny man. In the end of that scene you just watched from North by Northwest, how did Cary Grant escape? Well, (YouTube cuts off the last few seconds of the scene), in a sweeping symbolic gesture, he steals the truck with the refrigerator in the back of it. There. I just saved you an hour and a half of a boring cinema discussion period.

The truck never reappears in the film.

This is one of the reasons I left film school for the desert. Do I think Hitchcock put that refrigerator in the back of the truck on purpose? Well, yes, but I don't think that was the point of the scene. I believe I actually raised my hand and suggested that though Hitchcock may have purposely put that fridge in the back of that truck, it's possible that he did it more to entertain himself than to make some philosophical statement about food and the eating thereof. A film set can get pretty boring, you know.

The professor, and some classmates, just scoffed when I mentioned it. They went on to discuss other significant scenes with food from the Hitchcock filmography. I'm sure you remember every one of them, so I won't bore you by re-listing them here.

Funny, I thought the point of it all was to arouse and entertain. How exactly did he do that? Man, we could really discuss that for a few hours. College. It's when they started saying that movies don't have to entertain, that music doesn't have to have rhythm and melody, and that art doesn't have to be beautiful that they lost me. I'm just an unsophisticated heathen, I guess.

One day we discussed the distinct homosexual undertones of Casablanca for a few hours. It's funny, but now whenever I see a refrigerator in the back of a truck, it's symbolic of me dropping out of film school.


~

The invertebrate aquarium has been stabilized, you'll be happy to hear, with no loss of life. The 50 gallon breeder tank I have going right now has a lower profile, but is the same width. This happens to be a more preferred height for a reef tank. The corals are closer to the light source, thus giving them better photosynthesizing ability. Also, since the whole thing is significantly lower, I'm getting better ventilation from my fans which is keeping the temperature down. As well, the rock spreads out over the bottom and creates an even water flow over them, which the corals also prefer. Plus, a smaller tank makes the display look like it has more life in it, with the corals I have all concentrated together, and when the light trickles over them, the habitat actually looks like it would in the wild as if you were snorkeling over them! Mrs. Ditchman actually said she prefers the look of it, so go figure. Unfortunately, so do I, which kinda bums me out. Perhaps a new tank is in order, instead of just a repair. I don't know. Anyway, I can't stick with this one as there is no overflow, and no sump for the protein skimmer, so a nasty scum builds up on the water surface every few days, and water changes need to happen at least once a week.

Fascinating, isn't it? Okay, maybe not. How about this:

I've been somewhat forgetful lately, which means I'm either drinking too much, or not running enough. Researchers say that just about the worst thing you can do for your brain is smoke and drink, and that just about the best thing you can do for your brain is run and think, so if I keep plugging away on this thoughtful blogging and get a marathon in a year, I should live until I'm 185. Did you know that an MRI of an Alzheimer's patient's brain and an MRI of an alcoholic's brain are nearly indistinguishable? It's a sobering thought. Literally. Anyway, I heard this girl on Prager a few weeks ago and it sounded like a fascinating book. I may pick it up.

Also, I heard this guy on Prager the other day and his book sounded pretty good, too. He writes, among other things, that recent research shows that exerting yourself to the point of total exhaustion causes the body to release HGH (Human Growth Hormone). HGH is the stuff that movie stars and home run hitters are taking, but you can get it totally free and legal by just running a marathon. Count me in!

Meanwhile, I work with aluminum, which could be a problem. How do I deal with it? By only drinking beer out of bottles.

Seriously. Be smart.


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