Ridiculously busy day mucking about with new server. In the middle of it, went out for some spicy noodles. At the next table, poetry student & teacher were discussing the esthetic theories of Wallace Stevens. Imagination this, reality that. Eventually, Deleuze & Guattari came up, 'Becoming Animal' if you can believe it.

Going to walk the dogs.

Stayed out too late watching art.

Stupid, stupid.

Had to drive across town to buy a few things for work, really hot in the car, really cold in the server room, feel funny, almost dizzy.

Before that, broke into the admin account of a friend's computer on my lunch break, easy peasy, got some pizza & coffee for my trouble.

Sipping a grape soda, would like to be sitting on my red sofa.

This morning, waiting for coffee to brew, drinking yesterday's cold coffee, not as cold as has been usual lately, watching the dogs in the yard, thinking about intellectual laziness as a method for avoiding stress, about how authoritatively L. advises the kid on interpersonal matters, so unlike anything I'd ever do.

Anyway, on to the hot coffee, shower, etc. Running late for work, wanted to sleep & sleep & sleep, cool breezes through my windows.

Long day of driving in the hot, hot, hot. Got surprisingly delicious bbq in Brimfield, hurray.

Been working on remaining hydrated, seems to be paying off.

Been a fun weekend hanging with kid, need to take him back to his island later. May try to check out Brimfield bbq spot en route.

Been busy being a busy bee.

Work, shopping, dog care, toilet seat installation, etc., etc.

Then met wife & kid for dinner & a sweaty, stinky punk rock show.

They're downstairs watching Snakes on a Plane, I'm resting quietly with Peretz.

Getting home from work yesterday, flopped down on couch & zoned out, stayed that way, pretty much, while L. made a nice light supper, stayed that way while watching The Departed, stayed that way while I forgot to feed the dogs, etc., etc. Finally went to sleep.

Trying to figure out whether Pickles was funnier with his cone or (as now) without it.

This morning- dealing with broken mail server, replacing parts, worrying over it, seems OK now.

On my way to a sandwich at Serio's, "Coney Island Steeplechase" came on the radio, it's a song I sing to myself a lot, but hadn't actually heard it in years.

Lots of horseradish sauce on my sandwich, like horseradish sauce. Like dogs better than people.

Just finishing up first day back at work, wacky lot of catching up to do as per usual.

Most of the day was gray & damp, now it's pouring again.

Want to get home to the wife & pups.

Most of day spent driving in torrential rain, during some of the heaviest, climbing into the mountains of Pennsylvania, my driver's side windshield wiper suddenly flew off. Almost stopped in Frackville for a replacement, but thought better of it & stopped at the next town. Stopped for gas shortly after that & my gas cap blew away across the lot, managed to chase it down. Only other stop of note was so L. could get some sweets from the Alexis Diner in Newburgh.

Earlier, wet, wet, Gettysburg. Saw the recently restored cyclorama, pretty amazing, though we weren't allowed enough time together, lunch at a pretty OK brewpub, walked the dogs through sodden fields by the North Carolina monument, briefly visited a drenched Little Round Top, took pictures of tour groups' clustered umbrellas.

Anyway, home again, home again, whiskey & ginger ale.

Decided to stay in Nashville another day, saw more music & friends.

Now in motel in Gettysburg, planning to visit historic sites in the morning.

Between there & here, learned that one of Virginia's hallowed traditions, apparently, is not using the left lane to pass, but rather to cruise in at as close to the same speed as the vehicle in the right lane as possible.

Peretz finds the motel room strangely fascinating.

Hard to overstate what a beautiful day it is today, could use more vacation.

Could use a shower.

Decided late yesterday, that if we were in fact going to do so, today was the day to visit the tourist attraction formerly known as Confederama.

So- headed out a little before 11, stopped by the post office, started driving toward Chattanooga. As we neared Monteagle, L. expressed a desire for food. Tried to find some in Monteagle, finally spotted a bbq place behind a gas station, went in, sat down, started perusing the menu. Some minutes passed. More people arrived, sat at counter, table, still no sign of waitstaff. Some minutes passed. Eventually a middle aged lady emerged from the back & started chatting with the guy at the counter. Then she did some organizational things by the register for a couple of minutes. When she started taking the drink orders of the other people who had arrived after us, we left.

Tried to find another bbq place in South Pittsburgh, home of the Pirates. Couldn't find it, L. called, number disconnected. Returned to downtown South Pittsburgh, observed Mexican place, Italian place, people sprucing up the old movie theater for the coming cornbread festival. L. asked, "Do you live around here?" Man painting trim said, "Nope." L asked, "Do you know of anywhere good to eat in this town?" MPT said, "What are you in the mood for? You like Mexican, Italian?" L. said, "We saw those, we want something else." Other man painting said, "The are a couple bbq places up around the corner." L. said "Walking distance?" OMP said. "Yep."

We quite liked the Dixie Freeze, waitstaff friendly & attentive.

Before leaving South Pittsburgh, we acquired a couple knickknacks & learned that 60-80000 people were expected at next weekend's cornbread festival.

From there, a short trip to Lookout Mountain, L. had learned of the existence of the Incline Railway yesterday & as it would deposit us within easy walking distance of the former Confederama, I had no objection. In the front of the car, very loud Indian family, phones, cameras, a lot of loud friendly talk.

On the way up, someone dropped a camera & the people below kindly recovered it & its battery & passed them back up. "Still working?" "Yes, thank you."

OK, so, Confederama: went into the gift shop, no one behind the counter to sell tickets to the spectacle. Walked over by the theater, staff lady poked out of the utility closet. "Show's about to start!" L: "Could you sell us tickets?" Lady: "No!" & disappeared into the utility closet.

After a while, she emerged & sold us tickets & we went into the very dark auditorium, the show not yet having started. Occasional speaker pops, eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, could vaguely make out a profile of a much scaled down Lookout Mountain.

Older southern man behind us suddenly asked, "Where you folks from?" Wondered if he was talking to us until some lady, also behind us, responded. She had a young boy with her, who when asked if he knew what this was about by the older gentleman promptly answered, "The Civil War." "The Late Unpleasantness, can't see that there was much civil about it." & on & on. More speaker pops. The house lights came up revealing the large battlefield diorama, which, with the addition of sound, light & narrative, constitutes the attraction as such, then suddenly went out again.

Voice from the utility closet, "I've already tried resetting it eleven times!" "I don't even know if these breakers are on or off!" And so forth. Lights on and just as suddenly off again, speaker pops, hum from a different speaker.

Older gentleman to family, "If you're going through Atlanta, you ought to see..."

Young boy, interrupting, "I know, the Golden King, I've already been, you don't get to actually see his body, just his stuff..."

Older gentleman, "That's not what I was going to suggest. I was going to suggest seeing Cyclorama, much better than this, life size figurines of Civil War soldiers, there's one scene where a Union soldier is holding a dying Confederate, you see, they found out, it was his brother..."

Lady, "That happened a lot."

Older gentleman, "Yes, and you know if a soldier from one side wounded another & then found that he was a fellow Freemason, he would rush & tend to him, there's a lot to be said for Freemasonry..."

Lights on, off, pops & hiss, dim light on the profile of Lookout Mountain.

Staff's voices from without, "Yes, I've already tried turning it off & leaving it off for a few minutes." "Couldn't some of this stuff be moved to the back?" Lights on, off. Etc., etc.

Eventually the cost of our tickets was refunded & we took a walk around the nearby park, taking in the scenic views.

Back in Nashville, we went & saw a band do pretty competent renditions of some nice Burt Bacharach, then had some extremely fancy & delicious sushi. Good times.

Day turned out nicer than I expected around 5, when I had a violent headache.

Before that, did a little work in the morning, checked out a Chinese place I was interested in (not so great), L. found a bunch of nifty clothes at a big thrift shop.

Then headache struck, took a longish nap, woke disoriented, we were going to go see more bluegrass but Chris called & told me of an indie rock show in a warehouse owned by anarchists off 4th, so we went to that. Also featured an informative slideshow chronicling Willy's recent trip to Indochina.

After that, late night biscuits & gravy. Lovely.

Just back from big birthday do, lots of Indian food, red velvet cake, feeling a bit done in.

Dogs want to know: where's their Indian food, red velvet cake?

In further dog news, either Pickles or Berkeley smashed a small window in the door to the deck in an effort to get at each other, seems like only my dad ended up getting cut, but Pickles's protective cone was badly damaged & needs replacing.

Went & got fed hot dogs & such by Ben & Molly, tasty, tasty, potato salad with bacon, etc., etc. Nashville was derided, I mocked the skill set of catalogers, we were shown a spinning wheel & how to work it, asked about the latest fiction, as if any of us would know, made some vague suggestions anyhow, we did.

After that, L & I went out to a lousy show, left pretty quick, was free, interesting to see what had become of the Cannery.

Before all that, we all went out & got my dad a new imac. Helped set it up for a while, hopefully it's all set up.

Last night, Station Inn Bluegrass Jam, low key, pleasant. Development of high rise condos in the area somewhat unsettling.

This morning, thinking about Nashville, wondering what it would've been like if that had had a sitcom spinoff too.

Finally feeling mostly recovered from drive & eye incident.

The balmy spring weather is quite remarkable.

Need to do some birthday shopping.

Pickles seems to be bouncing back nicely, happily trotting around, banging into things with his cone.

Last night, though, sedated post-op Pickles was a pretty pitiful sight, lying on the couch, red eyed.

Peretz is enjoying digging up my parents' yard, just tracked mud all over a blanket.

Anyway, recovering from long drive, wanting more danish, etc., etc.

In Nashville.

Pickles is at the emergency vet hospital, having lacerated his eyelid in a tussle with my dad's dogs, he'll need to wear one of those cones for a while, poor dumb dog.

Head hurts.

Pretty disrupted sleep, Pickles agitated by the hotel noises.

Going to load some stuff out to the car.

Long day of driving, got an early start.

In Wytheville, lying on a hardish king sized bed looking at the pebbled ceiling, Peretz is grooming his forelegs beside me while Pickles stalks about & L. plays with the whirlpool tub.

Maybe there are good things on TV.

Left work a bit early, went & got some snacks for drive, came home, did some tidying, did laundry without injuring myself, etc.

Ordered in Chinese. Vacation, vacation.

Set up a new drive for photo archiving yesterday, failed in the night, just set up another.

Spam subjects more whimsical than usual this morning, I'd give examples but have already deleted them.

Peace & love.

Had the sun been visible, might've recited the Birkat Hachamah, as it was, eh.

Trouble falling, staying asleep. Double eh.

Very friendly & eccentric man I've known since I was but a pup has been arrested on kiddie porn charges, sad.

Woke up with a still splitting headache, decided to sleep more, that helped. For those of you worried whether I have a concussion, though, note that I managed to forget my cellphone at home once I finally went to work.

Should really change banks, heard on the radio while driving to work that they're changing their name again, then stopped at an atm to deposit some checks & there were no deposit envelopes. Change your name all you want, fuckers, I know where you live.

OK, back to working on workity work.

Feeling like I walked head first into an iron pipe, probably because I did.

Ow, ow, ow.

Just back from Sedaris thing, L.'s happy he attracts so many people, makes her feel like people aren't such a bunch of ignorant sheep as she's worried they might be, I guess. I mostly wonder what about him draws in ignorant sheep.

Anyway, pretty funny, bit of political cheerleading toward the beginning that bored me pretty badly, funniest bits tended to the grotesque. Great thing about wanting to fry potatoes in his fatty tumor to find out what it would smell like.

So, weekend of big C culture, or middle C anyway. Sort of fun.

Leftover coffee, started making curry butternut soup, realized after starting that butternut had gone south, disposed of it, went to co-op for another, co-op had closed at 5, went to Big Y, got more butternut, made soup, more coffee.

Nice, silky, spicy soup. Quiche & soup & cake & c. Well stocked.

Going to go see David Sedaris compliments of the Advocate shortly.

Looking forward to going south myself, hopefully not all moldy & wet.

Day trip to Troy proved something of a gas, beautiful bit of a snowstorm along 2 to & from, mini hotdogs with Zippy sauce from Famous Lunch since 1932, overwhelmingly overfunded EMPAC with highly concentrated small sounds within. Fun, fun, fun.

Slept very, very late; made quiche; doing laundry.

More coffee, I think.

Been bopping around the house to the first Love record while L.'s been making another red velvet cake.

Later, going to Troy to see the BSC.

Between now & then, need to do some work & shopping. Weekend, weekend.

Juvenile humor is the best kind.

Wish it would rain more, hard, so I could listen to it.

Peretz loves his yellow crayon, every picture he draws has the sun in it, at least one, even night scenes.

Was going to spend the evening being social, spent it making stir fry, watching TV & eating ice cream instead.

Beginning to feel imminent vacation coming at me like a train, rather looking forward to it. Splat.

Keep getting lost in thought, then being surprised by my actual surroundings.

Another rainy day, looking for a bluebird.

Mostly thinking about music, endless string of songs, "Who Loves the Sun?", "September Gurls", "Dark Globe", etc., etc.

On the way to work had the Subway Sect song "Johnny Thunders" stuck in my head and was wondering if Sal had gotten into the Dolls yet.

A little bit more work, then fancy lunch, hurray for Fridays.

"Don't Fear the Reaper" on the radio just before I got to work.

Meanwhile, more suicides, the wife had a tale of death while institutionalized on yesterday's sunset dog walk, just recommended a pc tech to somebody at work whose former one overdosed on pills in the woods.

Makes me want to give everybody a big hug, not that it would help, of course.

Looking this morning of a photo I took over a year ago of some fabric printed with owls, thought about how much what seems beautiful and significant to me varies one moment to the next. Not what they seem.

Have spent much of the workday refreshing myself on sed & awk, the sort of thing I should probably do a lot more of, if only to preserve sanity.

Cold finally seems more or less shaken.