likethebeer | Entries tagged with mda

mda thinks that he looks like Tim Buckley. I thought yes on the black and white photo, and maybe on the color photo, if you stand away from it and don't look too hard.
( Read more... )

Yesterday I e-mailed mda at work and told him that "Ballroom Blitz" was going through my head for reasons unknown. Actually, not even the entire song--just "Balll---room blitz!" and a few surrounding notes. Anyway, so I was reading on the couch last night and mda comes in to his house computer, from his garage computer, types a few keys, and "Ballroom Blitz" starts playing through the computer speakers.

awww.

(he tends to like to do these things w/out uttering a word, you know. Part of the overall "timebomb" mentality.)

'Cept now mda wants to know who "the man in the back" is. "The man in the back/says everyone attack/and it turned into a ballroom blitz."

In addition, we got to hear "(Everybody was) Kung-Fu Fighting". It's such a hopeful song. Sung by a black dude, he's talkin' 'bout a funky Chinaman from a funky China town. You totally know that that black dude thought the Chinaman was coolio. Racial harmony in the 70s, man. I can just imagine the really foxy black women w/their huge 'fros. Black is beautiful. Paris Hilton is not.

We talked about his trip. I talked about my job. We both equally geeked out. It's all normal stuff around here.

I have mentioned before how much I love the fact that I can talk to this guy about this stuff, haven't I?

I do.

No one else can sit there while I talk about stuff from 1936, 1922, and photos he can't see (although I provide examples when I can) and not glaze over.

Due to our discussions, he is really an expert about the place.

bed now.

It was beautiful yesterday, actually warm, and cold today. THe high tomorrow, last I heard, is supposed to be in the 60s. Welcome to May in WI. I feel for those people who are on tour, though. Especially the 4 hour (which is actually not 'til tomorrow). Still, unless you're familiar w/the May weather-pattern in this area, you're going to be in for a shock. Shit. I forgot how damned cold those buildings get. Cold, damp. So depressing.

I also just remembered about 10 years ago someone taking a Walking tour in May who wasn't a local, and she had these gold-strapped sandals on. So she insisted on sticking plastic bags over her feet (I have to say, she wasn't taking a tour w/me). Then there was the person who bought a fleece sweater then returned it after their tour. We should have a sign "no returns on clothes/umbrellas that people buy to use/wear while taking a tour--we're watching you!"

Oh, crap, I lent my digital camera to someone yesterday in order to take photos of some boring they were doing. And I didn't get it back by the end of the day; meanwhile, someone else has had to move a bunch of cr*p around for me in a room so that I could take a picture of it today. But what if I don't get the camera back? Seriously, this is the first time I've ever offered that camera up to anyone b/c one of the other cameras that we had just, basically, disappeared. "Have you seen the digital camera?" "I don't know, Judy had it." "Judy, have you seen the digital camera?" "I had it a while ago, but I gave it to Doug." And around, and around, motherfuckers. Shit, that's why I used to keep the digi camera I use in a "secret" drawer for like, a year, when it wasn't needed. Anyway....

So, I was in the shower yesterday while mda was getting ready to get in his car and go to work; from there, going to the airport. We'd said our g-byes & such. I came out, and there was a "love ya" note [initialled, like I wouldn't know who it was from :) ] on the computer monitor. And then a post-it on the back of my pack of cigarettes: "See you soon" [also initialled]. Then, I was getting coffee stuff ready last night for this morning and so I opened the can of coffee and there was a post-it note sitting on top of the grounds: "Love ya and miss you." That made me smile & laugh.

I've been trying to sing "Tangled up in moo" to my satisfaction. I have to work out the desire to go higher than I can and stick w/the 2-3 notes that go w/the song.

I had a moment, Sunday, w/mda. Him being his geeky self. I'm trying to remember exactly which moment that was. But I know it carried on into last night, when I saw him festooned with his miner's light, just figuring out our telephone lines. We had a storm with just enough intensity on Sunday night/Saturday morning that it brought two wires into contact w/each other and shorted out (something). He was able to figure that out with his testing equipment, miner's light, and some screwdrivers. Or so I assume, b/c I only came on the tail end of the solution (I was off to Swiss Miss).

Hence, our phone lines/internet were fixed.

Anyway, between the previous night, and last night, I thought about how lucky I am to see this guy the way he really is. There are scant times when someone gets mda being purely himself, as opposed to what he thinks they want him to be. When he's totally happy figuring out something, and his head is all abuzz. And he can do so many amazing and interesting things.

Most other people only see him in bits and pieces. I get to see him all the time. I get to witness the daily life of this man. Only me. I get to see his ins and outs, and hear about all of his life. And it strikes me how lucky I am in that case.

Other times, we drive each other nuts. :) :\ :/

Anyway, I want to say that I had thought about this post before he took off for CA. I wasn't even thinking about it.

From mda
Sure, Jordan is in the news.
Jordan's King Abdulla II is in the news (recent convo with the chimp).
But what about the totally babely Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan!!!

http://209.41.172.238/index.cfm

(she also is involved with some charitable, educational and progressive
initiatives. i.e, she's smart, too.)

:-)

From me
DUDE--

SHE LOOKS KIND OF LIKE

YOUR SISTER

from mda
EEEEWWWWW!!!!!

From mda:

WASHINGTON -- A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting here Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water.

The scientists, Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, told the group that they have submitted their findings to the journal Nature for publication in May, and their paper currently is being peer reviewed. [Basically they found Methane, which gives me ideas for 'Heroic Trio III']

Google news search: 13 results

However--
“Too ill to fly” Jennifer Lopez cancels Europe tour
Google News search: 301 results

[Michael] Jackson recovers at home ahead of restart of child sex trial
Google News search: 1076 results

Sigh.

My reply:
WWWWOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!!

I actually stopped breathing for a second. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. WOOOOOO!

I'm going to do the socially responsible thing and put this on my BLOG. THAT WILL MAKE IT FAMOUS.

just thought I'd mention it.

mda gave me a card w/a monkey on it holding a Valentine's heart. He personalized the picture by writing, "melee" on the heart.

MONKEY MELEE!

Me to mda:
"I did go to the house, and my feet weren't as cold as my hands. I brought along a floor plan so I could take a rough estimate of the red stones on the floor. There weren't as many as I thought, but there were sections where there was a lot of red. It's certainly not consistent. I also tried to note any noticeable masonry breaks. There aren't that many either. I took a xerox along that was taken by the *Tsuchiuras after the fire and tried to figure out what I was looking at from the photo. Problem is that there's what looks like a stairway in the photo that shouldn't be there. At least, as far as we know. It could just be some pop-out stone that looks like a stairway. I don't know. We might have luck if we coordinated it with the downstairs.

so, that's my day.

K.
"Illegitimus non carborundum"

mda to me:
"I really liked "the Tsuchiuras" in that episode where Odo and Dax have to find the missing Bajoran mediocrity crystal!

:-)"

*The Tsuchiuras were Kameki & Nobu, a Japanese couple that worked as draftsmen for FLLW. They were at Tal. from April 1924 through December, 1925, and so they were there during Tal.'s 2nd fire (not the 1 that gets so much write up). They took photos of the immediate aftermath. V. confusing b/c everything's destroyed, so I have a hard time orienting myself.

J sent me some weird email he got from [my old job]. It was one of their sale announcemnts in PDF form and was seriously broken. I gave him some corporate inside scoop that basically said "typical." But the PDF was touting a new 17" LCD monitor for cheap. It got me drooling, hence the references to (geek) pr0n. MILF = "Monitors I'd Like to Find." Insufferable geek.

MILF. That slayed me. Only him, man.

I asked if I could copy this onto lj. mda replied, yes, as long as it's under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 license:
"Attribution. You must give the original author credit.

Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one."
I only changed information to protect persons or commercial interests in the public sphere.

Update from my 2-hour crying jag on October 23:
1) The guests who used the cabin were very pleased. Obviously, it went as expected for the man.

2) We've been left a 6-pack of guiness + a 6-pack of bass by the couple that used the cabin. mda thinks that's to make black & tans. Perhaps I'll try 1.

3) I came home on Friday and found a vase w/3 roses waiting for me on our dining table, w/a card from mda. They were for our 7th anniversary, which was actually last night (or at 1-2 am this morning; I don't know, but generally we say Halloween). That was v.sweet and thoughtful. I think last year we just e-mailed each other.

4) Friday night, we went to Le Shed (I suggest checking out the photos section for Le Shed. Pasty, corn-fed Wisconsinites at their finest). Anyway, I had the sense that WI-C wanted to talk a little about my emotional breakdown, but there was too much going on, and it was a lot more fun talking to his co-workers or sometime co-workers. My breakdown, I suppose, became the high point emotional drama of the week. Well, when you almost yell the word fuck twice at someone who is an acquaintance, and it's 9:30 in the morning, that puts out some emotional vibes into the ether.

5) Currently, my feelings regarding this are the same as they always are, although the bitterness that I've been using the last, mmmm, 10 months or so to coat my sadness and disappointment has abated temporarily. Now I'm back to the sort of passive sadness. I noted this last night. It's a tradition, for some reason, at the end-of-the-season party, to go up to R&J (I say, "for some reason" b/c by the time people go up there, it's fucking pitch black). 1 guy stayed behind to propose to his g-friend. She said yes, of course. laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa (the sound of me sticking my tongue out and allowing it to loll around).

Got a call yesterday from a friend of a friend for a friend. The FOAFOAF wants a "rustic cabin" in which to propose to his g-friend. mda's cabin came up. I believe I said something like, "well, might as well have someone proposed to at the fucking cabin, as it's certainly never going to be me." The word fuck was further used in that sentence but I can't remember where. This led to about 2 hours of nonstop crying. It was just a shock. I have to deal w/people I know getting engaged and I'm happy for them, and I hide my bitterness and disappointment. Now I have people I don't even know getting engaged, and it still hits me. When mda came downstairs when I was about 1/2 hour into it, he said, "is there anything I can do?" That led to some major wailing. "is there anything I can do..." yeah, bub... It was actually quite funny as I stood there crying at the door, coffee in hand. Him, totally confused and just waking up, and me just a sopping, snotty mess.

I told him (between the crying) that had I known 7 years ago... I don't know what I would have done. I told him I do the calculations in my head of my chances of ever having a kid. That the answer I gave my mom 2+ years ago when she told me, "you're running out of time," was, "it's too late." This in part because I've done the equation in my head of how long and what it would take if he and I broke up to get over him to even start to think about another relationship, let alone what kind of chances I would have of loving somebody else and possibly getting married (you think some guy's going to really be up for a serious relationship--or any relationship--w/a woman who's never been married in her late 30s? It's the classic scenario that every man in this culture knows to avoid.) I told him a lot more things that I don't really remember. I said, "1 of the great things about you is that you know me. But you don't know this."

Talk, talk, talk. There were some things we talked about improving. And he was actually very sweet, sitting down next to me and holding me while I cried some more. ~~Sometimes~~Most times when this has happened, he gets defensive and moves away, letting me sit there and wail on my own. Still, there's no marriage in sight. sigh. Please don't tell me just to get married, or just to leave him. It's never been that simple, apparently. At least not for me.

I fell asleep on Friday night on the couch awakened by mda at around 12:30. I like when he wakes me like this; I'm all sleepy, and he's all sweet. He untucked my shirt from my pants to give me raspberries on my stomach, trying to wake me up. I swam in and out of consciousness until he warned me that he would leave me asleep on the couch. He held out his hand, I took it, and rocked up to standing, then hugged him around the neck. Then he told me he loved me. It comes rarely, and lord knows I wish for it more, but when it comes, I'm always happy to realize he remembers it.

What's the other thing? I barely remember. Oh, yes, I thought the other day that 1 vision I had from the presentation on Thursday, I think I've dreamed about before. I couldn't hold onto the deja vu moment long enough to identify.

I do have those moments, sometimes more than others. I know I've said to people at points, "I had a dream about this... last winter. January or February." We can fool ourselves, and I'm no exception to that thought, but it is odd when it's so clear.

[Actually, it was the 3rd e-mail of the day] He was at the hotel room after being asked to search for a chihuahua named Taco, and counting the 7 stars in the sky. He also met a lizard and was weirded out by the realization that it doesn't snow in that part of CA. I was, too, when I went there. Well, there was this feeling like, "there's something wrong here." It turned out to be the amount of houses on the hills. It is a risky proposition to build on a hill in a snowy climate. Most people don't b/c of the hassle during the winter.

Unless you're Frank LLoyd Wright, then you build your own damn house down from the crown of the hill, nestling it on the brow.

He forwarded this link from JI, a guy from the area, asking, "what keywords does he search on to get hits like this?!?!"

Last presents bought for mda. He said don't go too crazy, such I just got him 4 (or maybe 5--I don't know whether #5 is something we could both use or not). Then I went on a bra-buying hunt. Ah, yes, me and bras. Such a complicated relationship. I bought 3 in January, but only 1 I like, and I had even tried them on and did twists, turns, and bows.

I bought mostly practical things this time around, and tried them on again. I don't like the bras that have that pre-molded look, which are the 2 bras I bought in January that I don't like. I thought they would make me look shapely and proper, but they cut at the edge of my flesh in the front and, yep, 4 boob-look. I like things that are stretchy and move w/you, and have lace. I tried on 4 and only 1 fit even though 3 were the same size. So I had to trudge out again and thought I'd try different sizes. Turns out I'm still too big for 34 C, a little too small for 36 C (which I've been for close to 20 years if not that), and too big for 36B (thank god. I have nothing against B-cups, but I might as well get the gravitas along w/the hunched shoulders). Bra buying has got to be one of the hardest things around in the clothes buying world. You can go Playtex, but even those might not look right. As an example, I did get 1 of those--$9, yeah!--and it looks just like the other ones--fits me fine around the ribcage, leaves just a taint of ripply fabric at the top. Sigh. I had my favorite styles, which I lost and then found again years ago (possibly during the bra-buying trip I wrote about for my 30th b-day). Why didn't I buy 100 of these things? I haven't seen them in a while. Maybe I should start shopping on line, and find the bras at the manufacturers I know. Oh, Olga, I love you. You pretty much have it going on compared to Vanity Fair. Although, now that I come to think of it, I did buy 2 Vanity Fairs.

Then, on a whim, I bought tap pants/boy shorts, whatever. "Boy shorts" is incorrect for these, b/c they're lacy. I've always been reluctant to buy them b/c they look just cutey sexy as anything, but I know I do not have a butt or thighs like the ones shown in the ads. But they were on sale and, fuck, I need something to bring a little joy to my life right now (I know spring's here, and the longer days are definitely working, but not enough). So, shoot, I brought them home, put them on, and they're cute! Yeah, i can still see the cellulite in all the usual places, but I had this fear that these cute shorts were going to squeeze the cellulite out and emphasize it. Like buying what looks like it will be a great bathing suit and it just highlights the ripples under the skin. No, they make me (or actually, my mid-riff and the top of my thighs) still look like me, but cute! They're seriously about as good looking as I could have hoped.

"There's something about the holidays at this time of the year that makes me think of the end of the world," mda said to me the other day. Monday night, to be exact, the night before he set off for his parents house in Grand Rapids. That means that this is the first holiday that I can ever remember where I will not be with family members or mda, who is like a family member. Overall, I'm finding it to be an interesting situation. A tendency towards bachelor-pad eating habits mixed, this afternoon, with a frenzy of "spring" cleaning. I wish that I could discover the particular combination of mood, hormones, and amount of caffeine, that goes into these rare cleaning bacchanals (if there could ever be such an oxymoron). I believe the last one occurred 9 months ago; included in my gathering of recyclables to the curb (and leading me to wonder if the neighbors think I'm under the impression that the garbage would be picked up tomorrow), and doing laundry, I cleaned the inside of my car, broke down cardboard boxes in our garage and fussed with the depressing Christmas lights on our bushes near the front door. They had gotten quite sad. Plaintive, almost, and buried under leaves, stuck in the frozen ground in a few areas. Only half of the lights still work. I removed one whole string and tried another, but that was completely inoperable. That's what you get for $2.

Additionally, I find myself wondering what to do with the Christmas presents that have arrived inside my door today from my mother. Do I open them by myself? And that leads me to the other realization: not only is this my first Christmas alone, but, if I were to open these presents, this would be the first time I've ever opened presents alone. It is like a tree falling in a forest with no one there. What is the semiology of unwrapping a present when no other person is there to witness the interest, and possible excitement, of such an act? Is it still a present if the act of exchange is not apparent? If the emotions attached to the objects are not conveyed from one person to another, even if the other person is not the giver of the object?

Of course, I will not be completely alone tomorrow. N&M & I have a standing date at 11 am to watch the DVD of A Christmas Story, their x-mas present to me (I gave them the DVD of It's a Wonderful Life, which we watched last night). And my friend, ML, has already written me that her door is open to all foundlings. I'm looking forward to that (maybe I should bring my flute!).

( same ol'relationship stuff... or maybe not )

I received a call from mda at my parents' house on the crazy Friday night w/the 2 friends, 2 kids and a dog. V.strange, since I'd talk to him the night before. Well, it seems that right after we'd finished talking to each other the night before, we had a chimney fire.

The first time I'd heard the term chimney fire, it didn't seem to be such a bad thing. You have a fire in your fireplace/wood stove, so big deal if you have a fire that goes up your chimney. That's what it's made for, right? Obviously I was wrong. IT's the creosote that catches on fire, and if it's really bad, the flames will come shooting out of the chimney onto your roof, or it can burn so hot that all the mortar in the chimney burns away, the chimney collapses, and your home is toast. Anyway, mda heard the fire going up the chimney, the smoke alarm went off upstairs (we must get another 1 for the downstairs), and he called the fire dept. The guy on the phone told him to get anything valuable out of the house, so he put Gila my cat in her carrier, and brought her & the boys out to the garage so they all wouldn't be running around away from the firefighters.

We were lucky: flames never came shooting out of our house, but a lot of smoke came out of the chimney. The firefighters stuck a big spiny thing down the chimney and knocked out the creosote, while a guy down in our basement hauled the stuff away. So we finally got our chimney cleaned, and for free (with the exception of tax payers' dollars).

We're bad chimney owners, and we knew it at the beginning of last winter. So right now, we're trying to think about a chimney sweep & more importantly, a liner (which costs a lot of money).

Now for the depressing news of the week. ( Read more... )

Said by mda after he sat up last night in his sleep and looked to the right. Then: "I'm just going to use a hand grenade," which he threw, in slow motion with sound effects.

One of the boys, Big Spot, was sitting underneath the window in the room and meowed at his mama. mda looked down and said, "Yeah, you, too," then threw another hand grenade in slo-mo towards BS's general direction, then went back to sleep. He did this all very calmly and gently, so the war must have all been slo-mo.

I wish I had a pen that glowed in the dark. It's hard to write this stuff down, and I don't want to get up to do it, b/c then I forget what he's said, and I wake up too much.

That means--my 6th anniversary w/mda. Mr. Anderson. Monkeyboy. I think my present to him this year will be "I stacked some of the wood [that still stands in a big pile in our front yard!]"

Actually, speaking of wood, that reminds me of another topic I brought up last week--the flute. ( Read more... )

Now, the reason I brought this all up when I started off writing about our anniversary, is that it's a demonstration of one of the really great things about mda. Often when I talk to him about things, I really get a clear sense of which direction I should go, and he seems to be one of the few people that I talk to who can take me to that place. Maybe that's due in part to the fact that in a lot of ways, I'm supremely comfortable and confident around him. So, yay! Anniversary! But, really, I'm just hoping for a little nooky tonight.