Strange Pulse

Really want to know?

Summer did a post so I figure I will too. I think it does tend to show you a lot about someone’s personality, what they carry around with them. Summer mentioned having no make up because she wears very little. I wear none.

The bag which currently functions as a purse for me:

Got it for free from my old work. (I used to work for an ad agency that had Playstation for a client. We got a lot of swag.) It’s the right size, it’s free, that’s all I ask (apparently).

Right size for what? Well, carrying cameras around, of course. I just got home from a trip, though, which means no cameras in my bag—they’re all packed in a backpack and need to have film removed and developed, so no use carrying them in my purse at present.

In the front pockets I have these:

Keys, chapstick, a digital voice recorder I use for recording shows, a lollypop in case my blood sugar drops, and various ticket stubs.

In the main part of the bag I have these:

I don’t usually carry a book around with me, usually it’s more likely to be an iPod or a PSP, but the book is still there from my trip to the desert—never cracked it, but I’ve already read it. The white box is Symlin, a medication I’m on for my diabetes. (Actually haven’t been taking it lately which is why it’s unopened.) Some Kodak B&W film, and a roll of 120 slide film, exposed, that I haven’t gotten developed yet. I’d usually have a couple more rolls in it but I just used them up.

No wallet, you’re wondering? See the flap on the front of the bag that has the Playstation logo on it? It has a zipper along it. I stick anything I’d put in a wallet in there. Which means cash, coin, driver’s license and cash card.

I’m like Thoreau. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!

I’ve been acquiring a bunch of new music and haven’t had time to listen to it all. So I burned a mix of new stuff to take with me on our roadtrip to the desert. Discovered some pretty cool stuff.

I’ll post it all to the radio.blog to the left.

“The Hanging Heart” - Howlin’ Rain
Howlin’ Rain is sort of one of those bands that make me think, “Where have you been my whole life?” Actually, the only time I can really remember thinking that was when I discovered Todd Rundgren a few years ago. But I feel like I should’ve known about this band and been listening to them for a long time, and I haven’t.

It’s a guy from Comets on Fire. (Who knew they broke up? I didn’t.) What’s it sound like? Very 70s rock, but that could mean lots of things, so just check it out in the radio.blog. I don’t even think this is the best song on the album, just the one I randomly chose for my mix.

“Corpse Paint” - Ladyhawk
Ladyhawk are an indie band I fell in love with when I heard their first album. They have a second album out now. I’ve never seen them live and would really, really like to. I’m not sure quite what it is about them. They describe themselves as campfire rock, or something like that. I think for me, what I love is the way the vocalist sings. Sort of reminds me of Husker Du. Sort of this emotionally-laying-it-all-out-there quality.

And who could resist a song called “Corpse Paint”? It’s one of their slower, darker tunes. A lot of their stuff is more upbeat than this.

“Superrunner” - Mammoth Volume
Mammoth Volume are one of my fave stoner bands, but calling them a stoner band isn’t really accurate. They’re way more sophisticated than that. With a lot of progressive rock elements. Just so good. Very talented. They went on hiatus years ago because some of the band members were living in different towns, going to school. I’ve missed them. They’re working on new material now. This is an old song, recorded live in the studio, which I just downloaded from a friend, who probably got it from the band directly. They’re a Swedish band. I used to email the singer for awhile—he’d get drunk and send me random mp3s, like Accept’s “Balls to the Wall.” And send me pictures of his car.

“Blumma Apt” - Candlemass
Candlemass are a doom metal band I’ve never really spent any time on, and boy do I feel stupid now that I have. They’re an oldie—been around since the 80s. Keeping the Black Sabbath doomy stuff alive, dude. I love this song.

“A Bottle of Buckie” - Ted Leo
This is recorded from a radio show, a friend who is a fan of the show sent it to me. Ted was on the show for their fundraiser. I think the show is called The Best Show? Something like that. On WFMU.

“Fink for the Man” - Datsuns
OK, when this came on in the car, I could not remember who it was. I decided it had to be Backyard Babies, a side project of a guy from the Hellacopters, because man does this guitar player sound like him. But no, it’s the Datsuns. The singer sounds a lot like Jack White of the White Stripes, and also a lot like Robert Plant, which makes me wonder if Jack White sounds a lot like Robert Plant and I never realized it. Still, I really like this.

And if you like it, you have to hear the Hellacopters.

“No More Sad Songs” - Clay Aiken
Yes, that’s right, Clay Aiken. Someone I know (who shall remain nameless) loves Clay Aiken, so I decided to check him out. Hey, I love cheesy music. And this is better than I thought it’d be.

“Experiment” - A Frames
You know how so many indie bands today sound just like all the stuff I listened to in the 80s? Sometimes it drives me insane (Shiny Toy Guns). Sometimes I find it irritating but still like it (Interpol). And sometimes I’m just grateful to hear something new that sounds like the stuff I used to listen to (Film School). The A Frames fall in the last category. They sound a LOT like Big Black—only with less distortion. And if you like these guys and have never heard Big Black, do yourself a favor and check out Big Black.

“God’s Children” - Gutter Twins
Is it possible for Mark Lanegan to do anything wrong? Or Greg Dulli, for that matter. That’s who this is.

“Don’t You Want Me” - Human League
Always loved the Human League. Decided to try out a full album. But of course when it came time to make this mix, I stuck on the one song I already know.

“Hatchet” - Retribution Gospel Choir
RGC is a side project Alan Sparhawk of Low and Mark Kozelek of Red House Painters/Sun Kil Moon. This is actually a song off of Low’s most recent album, but performed by RGC. It sounds like it might be a live recording.

“When Cold Air Goes to Sleep” - Radar Bros.
Someone sent me this song, and I love it. 60s garage type of stuff. Really great. He told me they’re a local LA band, but I’ve never heard of them. It’s rare to discover an LA band that is actually good.

We went camping for a few days out in the desert.

It was a bit of a trek—we left about 8 or 9 pm and got there at 2:30 am. The first night, I only got 4 hours sleep, which I cannot operate on. I was a zombie. It’s actually kind of dangerous for me to get that little sleep, because my body and brain is just sort of constantly buzzing, and it’s hard for me to feel if my blood sugar is dropping. But I didn’t end up having any trouble. The second night I managed to get more sleep, and Daniel remarked the next day that I was like a totally different person. I actually don’t remember too much of the first day.

We went with some friends from church who have 3 teenage boys, a huge RV, a sandrail, and misc dirt bikes, including a small one all the kids could ride. Daniel brought his dirt bike and our friend Dave’s dirtbike, and Dave met us out there the second day. Daniel was in heaven.

We also brought our drum kit and a guitar and small amp. The kids jammed a little, it was fun. We had a camp fire the first night and roasted hot dogs. Someone brought a bunch of bottle rockets too.

Our friends have two boys about Elijah’s age, and then two other boys from church also came along—it was a big group. Cat was the only girl, which didn’t bother her a bit—she’s used to that at home. Before we left I stopped by the dollar store and picked up a My Little Pony coloring book and some crayons—you’d be amazed how popular coloring My Little Ponies were with a bunch of teenage boys. At first it was just me and Cat coloring, but as soon as the younger boys saw Nathaniel join in, they decided that could do it, too.

The sand rail was a big hit. I want to get one now! It’s really fun. The picture above is Elijah driving with Daniel in the passenger seat.

The minibike was the biggest hit though. All the kids could ride it, even Cat (below). Above is Nathaniel. It was in constant motion.

I was too tired to try it. I was worried I’d dump it and get hurt and then have to deal with being super tired AND hurt. No good.

It was hot. Not unbearably hot. But hot. It might be our last dirt biking for the season. Gets too hot out there. Time to hit the beach instead!

My son did this to his Easter bunny and left it on the table for me to find:

There’s a couple stories behind it. First and foremost, it’s a reference to Emo Philips, one of my favorite comedians. The Easter bunny bit is at the 4 minute mark (in the middle of a bit about Emo going to a shrink as a child—start at about the 3 min mark for the full bit):

Second, I have this thing about people staring at me. It’s a family joke now—me saying, “Stop staring at me!”

Leaving for the desert in a couple hours, back sometime Friday.

Spaghetti.

He and Catherine got into an argument over whether songs were better with guitar solos or without. You can guess which side Elijah was on.

Cat eventually got sick of him insisting he was right and yelled, “I don’t care!”

I said, “You can’t argue with Catherine. She’ll just say, ‘I don’t care what you say! I’m right! SHUT UP!’”

She laughed and said that’s right.

Elijah said, “I know, it’s annoying. It’s like talking to a wall. A wall that yells at you!”

We’re heading to the desert tomorrow night for a few days, staying with some friends who have a giant RV. Should be fun. Hopefully the weather stays in the 80s and not the 90s.

To the grocery store.

Usually Nathaniel likes to go grocery shopping with me. He likes the one-on-one time, and he can be sure I’ll get the food that he wants.

This time, Cat came along, too. I figured awesome, two extra hands to make it go by even faster! And since the kids are home for spring break, we need extra food around, and she can let me know what she wants.

Argh. See, I have this thing about personal space. My kids do too. Except their thing about personal space is the *opposite* of my thing about personal space. And they love to drive me crazy with it.

My thing is: I don’t like my personal space invaded. I don’t like being touched. And for some reason, when my kids start invading each other’s personal space, it drives me crazy. Makes me get all tense, like they’re doing it to me. And they do it to each other all the time. So there we are, walking through the grocery store, and they’re jumping around and slapping each others’ hands and pulling on each other and bumping the cart into each other and DRIVING ME INSANE.

Everytime I said “Stop it!” they laughed. So I got suspicious and asked them if they were counting how many times they could get me to say “stop it.” They laughed even more. And began counting.

In the check out line I’d had enough. I waved my hand between them, cutting off their hand-grabbing INSANITY and said, “Discontinue!” Which totally set them off. Now Nathaniel won’t do anything except wave his hand in front of me and say, “Discontinue.”

I said, in an attempt to get him to feel some sympathy, “Listen! I put up with your car-stereo-volume-weirdness, only allowing the volume to be in multiples of five!” (One of Nathaniel’s OCD-ish quirks.)

He waved his hand and said, “Discontinue.”

You can go ahead and laugh. It was the only picture I could find quickly that had our old house in it.

That’s me waiting for the school bus.

In S’mee’s post on dying Easter eggs with natural ingredients (which is really cool, you should check it out), someone commented about having chickens. It reminded me of the chickens we used to have.

We lived on two acres in a suburb of Seattle, in an old farmhouse, with a barn, and some other outbuildings (carport, root cellar). It wasn’t a working farm where we grew crops, but we did occasionally have livestock. No cows—my dad was raised having to milk cows and he vowed never to have a milk cow again. My dad did plant raspberries one year, and I ran a U-pick raspberry field in our back yard one summer. (Boringest summer of my life.) We also had U-pick strawberry fields, but my dad rented farmland in the valley for that.

So what did we have? We had chickens. They were cute when they were chicks—I think we had about a dozen or two? They were stinky and mean when they grew up. I hated gathering the eggs and I don’t think I did it more than once—too afraid of getting pecked. They came to a sad end when we went to our grandparents’ for a weekend and returned to find them all gone, and only feathers all over the yard. And some kind of large animal paw prints all over the chicken coop.

We also had sheep. I think we had 3 or 4. My mom got into spinning wool (she still has a spinning wheel or two). I used to do it, too. It’s fun. Sheep are stupid, though. One time they got loose and went up the hill and gorged themselves on raspberry bushes. One died from overeating.

At some point we had pigs. Two were ours and two belonged to a family from Laos that we knew. My dad had ours sent out to be butchered. I think the Laotian family butchered their own. I remember going over to their apartment and the daughter told me to look in a big black garbage bag on the kitchen floor. So I peeked inside to find a severed pig’s head looking up at me.

I remember naming the pigs and trying to become sentimental about them but honestly, they weren’t much fun so I never got attached to them.

We also butchered some of the chickens. I spent most of that afternoon at a friend’s house. My dad chopped off the chickens’ heads, but the Laotians would slit their neck and then drain the blood into a bowl. They ate the chicken head. (I had dinner elsewhere that night.) They put the blood in our freezer. I could never tell if they were joking about stuff like that or not. (They also used to pick and cook dandelion weeds.)

My grandparents bought us a pony once. What little girl doesn’t want a pony? Problem was, I was scared of horses. First time I got on it, it bucked me off. I don’t remember having it for very long.

I think of all the farm animals, the goat was the worst. It wasn’t even ours—my dad knew someone who asked us to watch it for a week or two. That thing could get loose from anything. It was always running off. I’d have to babysit it constantly. My dad finally tied it up with wire because it wouldn’t be able to chew it’s way loose, but the stupid thing would get tangled up in it and I’d have to go unwind the wire from around it’s ankles—which wasn’t easy. My mom laughs because she can remember coming home one day to find me sitting in the yard next to the goat, reading a book. That thing was a menace.

I finally developed my last roll of film from our Vegas trip. (I think it’s the last, anyway.) Here are some pics.

Actually, only part of it was from the Vegas trip. The rest was from our trip to Vasquez Rocks:

This is a restaurant we drove past when I was trying to find the town of Boiling Point, CA, on the way home:

Weird huh?

• Having a kitchen full of food. When I get home from the grocery store and have everything put away, I feel really happy. We’ve had years where our kitchen was mostly empty. It makes me happy to have it full.
• Music. In particular, doom metal. A good live doom band will make me feel euphoric. (Middian is playing a FREE show soon but we’re going to be camping in the desert, I’m gonna miss it.)
• The desert. There’s something magical about it.
• Daniel. There’s something magical about him.
• When my kids crack jokes. Jokes that are funny or sarcastic. When I was a kid I was never funny, so having kids that are funny makes me happy. I especially love it when my oldest says something dry and totally biting, usually about me or Daniel. He’s making fun of us and all I can think is, “Good job!”
• When my son will ride along with me somewhere just to spend time with me.
• Two words: Corner Gas. (See below.)

Oscar’s allowance:

Hank ruins a bird bath:

His factory tour for Transworld Snowboarding Magazine is finally up on their website. They mentioned it in their March print issue and had a couple pictures of Daniel in the magazine. He works as the head engineer for a snowboard company.

You can view the video here.

He’s the guy in the red shirt acting goofy. When he told me it was online, he said it was embarrassing—or would be, if he were a person it was possible to embarrass. He’s not.