– Nathan

We were a ragtag bunch of youthful musicians and, being of un-proven and uncivilized manners, were likely not worthy of the term at that age; but, inspired, led, and driven (kicking and screaming), we attempted a pseudo-mastery of the art.   The shiny instruments attached to our grubby hands and sassy mouths were shiny but fingerprint-laden, purchased by parents with not a little bit of trepidation, wondering if they were justified in placing such an incredibly expensive acquisition in the hands of a youngster who had not a summer ago spent far too much energy destroying childhood toys with bottle rockets.    And yet, despite the risks of finding the bells of our horns full of tapioca pudding out of a lark, they allowed us to play.

And play we did, whether in individual lessons or in group therapy, squeaking and squawking along with vim and vigor in the only way that middle school children can, stumbling through various compositions with all the energy and direction of a stampeding herd of psychotic wildebeests.   Whether we inspired anyone beyond ourselves was unimportant; it was the fact that we had bothered to attempt, to scale the mountain, to climb the height that stood before us – the pursuit of music.

We were impressionable children at the time; a conglomerate of those that were immersed deeply within the throes of adolescence, some who had benefited greatly (not necessarily to their advantage) from the process, and the smattering who had yet to justify the liberal use of underarm deodorant outside of it being a crowd participation activity – although they would be the last to admit as such.

Music might have easily taken a dusty backseat to all other issues of our hormone-soaked lives if it had not been for a particular, influential individual in our midst.   Without his guidance, we would have never thought of trying to make sense of the muddling of black marks, streaks, and brief Italian words spattered across the pages in front of us.    We were led, cajoled, even dragged sometimes, but ultimately shaped and nurtured by – The Director.

The Director was not an imposing man; he was not a hulking mess of meat nor was he a windy, waifish figure, but average in most respects that grown men adhere to.   This was not to say he wasn’t effective — his rumbling voice, flashing eyes, quick wits, and effective retorts and commands were issued with extreme efficiency, coolness, and with a sense of authority that few dared to question, and if they did, soon found themselves on the wrong end of a cold stare and disapproving lecture.   He bespake the hale years of a man who had already seen fourteen dozen of your kind before and don’t even try it because I’ll fry your ass and put it on a stick to wave in the breeze, buck-o.

It was into this I was thrust and at the mid-point of my 7th grade year, as the calendar was waning and the holidays approached, the band made up of my grade and the one above was hard at work in our usual fashion, honing the performance of a piece far beyond our previous skills and abilities.   This did not deter The Director; he often would slap something down in front of us which resembled a polka dot festival gone mad; I secretly think he had good fun in watching our faces fall and our eyes bug out at the prospect of attempting a piece 10 times harder than what we thought we were capable.   Just when we thought we might have the hang of this whole “playing” thing, along came the judgment and we were found to be wanting.

Difficult or not, we would be led carefully down the correct path, winding through all the pitfalls, and in the end, we’d emerge triumphant, more confident than ever in our abilities, and the Director would simply sit back and silently grin to himself, knowing that the bet paid off, just as he always knew that it would.    He always knew.

The holiday concert repertoire that year consisted of the various traditional pieces, jingle-this and holly-that, angels, stars, presents, and Rudolph in a snow suit, but as a change we were attempting to polish a rather rough diamond, a lovely piece entitled, Russian Christmas Music.

Alfred Reed writes instrumental pieces that make angels wish they had taken up something more than just a harp and light beer, and causes sane Swedes to weep in contrition at the sheer beauty and magnitude of the anthems and harmonies.  This jewel is no exception; a piece of over twelve minutes in length, it takes the players and audience through the quietest of valleys to the heights of the loudest mountaintops and everywhere on the winding paths in between, all to portray Christmas according to Russian traditional musical styles.   To this day, it remains a staple in the instrumental world and is rivaled by few in its majesty.

It is rather difficult; long, drawn-out passages are simply marked, “Don’t Breathe!” for a good few minutes, complex runs and scales of notes, odd timings, entrances, and mind-boggling dynamics grace the pages.    Usually reserved for later years in high school or college-aged bands due to the difficulty levels, Russian is not a piece for the light of heart.

Naturally, the Director would have us give it a go.

We pounded, we worked, we blew and tweeted and honked and whooshed.   Many days it no doubt appeared that we were attempting to make a trebuchet out of Popsicle sticks instead of a musical piece, but we made progress.   Eventually it started to form itself into a respectable presentation of sound, suitable for a discerning audience.   We moved from the band room to the auditorium stage for rehearsals in anticipation of the yearly winter holiday concert approaching rapidly.

As is many winters in the hinterlands of Iowa, the weather has a singular mind of its own and at best, is schizophrenic.   To say that it might change at any point is to far devalue the rapidity and ferocity with which it can go from calm-happy-bluebirds to raging-shredded-goose-bits.

The week prior to the concert proved to be one where the weather forecasters walked in front of their maps and then slowly started shaking their heads as if to say, “I’m very, very sorry, but you’re just screwed.”   Winter blizzards popped up with the frequency of hair extensions in Jersey and school got let out early several times.   As the weekend approached, we were rift with anticipation about how Monday would turn out weather-wise.

Our fears were confirmed and Monday, day of the concert, we were let go early.   Of course, the policy is that we could not hold a concert on a day that the administration had already determined was hazardous to our health, so it was rescheduled for the next Monday, the week before Christmas vacation.

This was GREAT news as far as polishing the song went!   Russian had really started to shape up but still had some long-term need for copious amounts of spit and a fierce rubdown with rags that only time could bring.   So we took to it with a new-found passion, determined to make the make-up concert one to remember.

And it was snowed out…again.    And again it was rescheduled — for Wednesday of the same week; the last whole day before vacation and, it was told, our last chance.

The day loomed with storms on the horizon but an uncertain weather forecast, so we had hope.   All through the morning we gazed nervously out the windows, watching for rogue snowflakes and angst-ridden clouds, willing and hoping the storm to stay away, to let us finish this – this one, single concert that we had worked so hard for.   The Director had impressed upon us each the significance of what we had done and we believed it to our core – the show must go on.

We were in the middle of rehearsal that day, just before lunchtime, and were hammering on a particularly difficult section of another piece.   The Director’s baton flashed in the air as he swished and jabbed his commands across the span of the band, highlighted only by the stage lighting while the rest of the empty auditorium, shrouded in deep darkness, listened.

On the edge of the pool of light thrown by the spots suddenly walked in – The Principal.

We got the cut-off and silently put down our instruments.   We all knew what this meant but our hearts protested with hope, pleadingly, desperately.    Nobody said a word.   The Director stood off to the side of his podium, arms crossed, waiting.   Waiting for inevitability.

The Principal was soft-spoken, kind, and grandfatherly-like, but an administrator, and was brief:   The weather was bad, yet again, and school was letting out early.    The concert, having been pushed as far as was possible before Christmas, was canceled and would not be rescheduled.    He finished, drew a calm breath and, casting a knowing glance across the despondent, upturned faces, turned and walked quietly off the stage.

Nobody moved.    The air seemed to freeze, deathly cold, as we processed this information.   The Director didn’t move, either; he simply stood there, head cast down.     Slowly his arms unfolded and hung at his sides, limp, baton dangling.    Defeated.

After a half of a minute that passed in an eternal time frame, he suddenly straightened himself up, took a deep breath, paused, and then gathered his arms upwards and his baton to attention and uttered the single phrase, “Russian Christmas Music”.

We all scrambled silently for our music, the only sound that of the sheets of paper rustling as we each brought the tome to the foreground and readied our instruments.  Everyone came to attention once they were ready, poised on the edge of their seats in the dark and lonely auditorium, bathed in white stage lights and dark, heavy curtains, a ghostly audience occupying the empty seats in the pitch-black house.

The Director found each of our eyes and then, with a confident swish of his baton, we began.

And we played.

The difficulties of that song, all that hard work that we had ached over, it all came to bear in the notes and passion that rang out that day into an empty room.   We had struggled for so long to produce something of beauty for our audience, our parents, grandparents, friends, and mentors, and they weren’t going to be able to hear it, so we did the next best – perhaps the best thing – and we played for nobody but ourselves.

I know for a fact that mistakes were made that day.    A fledgling band tackling difficult material will naturally stumble over the course of any performance, no matter how many times you attempt it, but that day – in that dark theatre – it simply didn’t matter.    The chords sounded angelic, the runs were perfect, the horns clarion.   The sheer amount of emotion and heart being poured upon that stage in a single span of time has rarely been met since; eighty-some adolescent musicians and their fearless, passionate Director attempted to touch something true and right and beautiful and that day, on that stage, in front of nobody at all — we did it.

The song ended, as all must, and we sat once again, silent in the glow of the emotion.   Not a few tears were shed from the beauty of it all or what we had done and The Director simply said a quiet, “Thank you,” as he lowered his baton.

And Christmas came.

Russian Christmas Music, Alfred Reed, Unknown Performance, 29MB MP3

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2010. | Permalink | 2 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Or rather, where I don’t.

The fact that this blog hasn’t been updated in 31 days is only a small indicator of the state of the entire system; a small window of view into the whole malaise.

It is difficult to state exactly how I feel, but I’m going to attempt it, because maybe by writing it down I can better align my mind to it, and perhaps find a way out of it.    That’s not to say this is a definitive list of what’s mulling around in my head, but it encompasses a lot of it.

I feel very Katy Perryish about almost everything — Hot/Cold, Yes/No, In/Out, Up/Down:

JOB – Best one I’ve ever had, or a stalemate?   Fulfilling or boring?

CAREER – Where next?   Should I be higher/better than I am, or am I ok?   Will I look back and regret this?   Am I fulfilled in what I’m doing or am I muddling around?   Am I skilled or am I just fooling myself into thinking I am?

MONEY - There’s never enough, of course, but have I got a grasp on it or am I still immature when dealing with it?   Am I invested correctly or am I screwing my future self into the ground?   Are my expenses justified or do I just think they are?

LOCATION – Is where I live and work promoting my life or holding me back?   Am I missing out on aspects of life because I’m isolated in the middle of nowhere, or am I avoiding things that would detract from it?

MARRIAGE – We are what we are, and we’re an old married couple.   Am I doing right by my wife and doing my best to promote what we have, or am I missing the boat on having more than we do and I’m just clueless?

FAMILY – Am I being the best at fathering my boy or am I going down paths that I’ll regret later?   Will he look back and go, “What a great dad” or will he shake his head and go, “Well, at least he tried…”?     Are my relationships with my extended family members healthy, too tight, or too loose?   Am I falling into traps with them or am I avoiding connections?

FRIENDS – Do I have the right ones or the wrong ones?   Are they helping me or hurting me?   Do I need more or less?   Am I spending enough time with them or not enough?   How do I best approach them and balance family life as well?

POLITICS – Am I wasting energy on believing that they matter or am I failing to make a difference?   Is it adding to my life and future to be concerned and involved in them or am I simply gathering more angst and bitterness inside?

BELIEFS/PHILOSOPHY - Am I developing my understanding of the world in a concrete, correctly-paced manner, properly taking in the truths and discarding the falsehoods, bringing my thoughts more and more in line with each other, or am I so jaded against getting caught in a bad perspective that I’m missing out on something significant?

HEALTH – Where do we go from here?   I have so much knowledge and so little motivation — will I find it?   Will I be able to decode my own body and mind so they work together instead of fighting against?   Am I simply destined to be a fatass for my entire life, or is there something I can achieve and manage?

HOBBIES - Do I enjoy my computer-collecting hobby?   Do I want to continue and, if so, how?   How do I both honor my hobby and avoid it overcoming me?   How do I fit my personal interests into my other responsibilities as a father and husband, without neglecting those?

MUSIC – Where is my music?   Where’s my pleasure gone in it, and why can’t I find it?   Am I being too nostalgic?   Too lazy?   Too resigned?  Too picky?

ONLINE ROLE – Where do I want to fall here?    I’m obviously not a blogger if I can’t keep updates going — but do I want to be?   Am I smart in keeping up with FB/Twitter or are they eating away at me?   Is it worth me cultivating friendships with so many people whom I’ve never met and likely won’t anytime soon, and whom I have NO idea of their opinion of me and for all I know, could be regularly laughing at me every time I reply or comment to them?    Or am I building up a wonderful network of world-wide peeps?

—–

I am directionless, dear reader.    This is one that there is no Google Maps for.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2010. | Permalink | 5 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

I am realistic.   I recognize the flaws in the country and the system and I may be vocal about them, or I may simply register them with a vote.   I may be very critical of policies and procedures but that doesn’t mean that I have less of it inside me.    It simply means I care.

I might grow teary at the National Anthem or I may not; sometimes even if I do not visibly react, I’m still thinking about it inside.    The song may do nothing for me and yet that does not make me less.

I may not willingly volunteer to joined the armed forces, recognizing that it’s not my forte to do what they do.   That doesn’t mean I’m less supportive of those that choose that profession and duty.

I realize that I can be both worldly and nationally; I am not limited by my affiliations to my country to be less than compassionate, understanding, multicultural, globally relevant, or charitable to the world as a whole.   My participation in the culture and nationality of another country does not exclude me from being tied to my own.

I understand that loyalty does not equal exclusivity; I am free to show my support for more than just this and yet not be considered to be neglectful.

What I am is unique and special, and it contributes to the whole.   So does everyone else, in equal parts.

I am an American and I am Patriotic — you just might not recognize me.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2010. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

The other day while shopping at Fareway (our local, Iowa-based grocery store), I stopped the friendly bagger-boy and said, “Hey — can I get paper for the produce?”   He looked a bit surprised, but responded in the positive and started bagging up the fresh things in some classic, heavyweight brown paper bags.

It’s at this point in this blog entry that any number of environmentalists and/or grocery store owners start spinning madly in their graves.    The tree-huggers are getting all teary at the idea of their main squeezes being turned into pulp simply so I can haul my Cheetos home and the store owners are fainting from the pure cost involved with paper vs. plastic.

It’s not that I don’t get it.   Yes, I understand, paper bags are less friendly to the environment vs. plastic (because they consume trees) and infinitely less favorable over cloth, reusable bags.   I have some of those, too.   And we use them…sometimes.    And plastic otherwise.   I get it.

And store owners, no need to fret; I doubt the paper bag will exist much longer and reusables will be come the de facto standard of the industry, saving you millions a year in providing packaging to your customers.   I know how much you welcomed the advent of plastic.   I get it.

But I lament still for the paper bag.

First you have the stiffness; oh god, the stiffness!   For all those who have ever bagged their own groceries, we all realize the same thing:  plastic bags are shapeless.   They fall into whatever configuration you force them to and they have zero ability to stand up against the items inside.    They become this shapeless sloth that sits in your trunk and, if you’re lucky, doesn’t spew cans all over when you turn a corner.   Paper, on the other hand, gives authority to its contents.    It provides the basic four walls of stability upon which you can neatly construct a solid stacking inside.

There’s a fine, fine art to bagging swiftly and correctly in a paper bag that simply doesn’t translate to plastic.   I’ve seen expert baggers place an entire grocery cart just so into two bags in such a precise manner that it would bring you to tears from the sheer beauty of it all.

Secondly, the SMELL!    Paper has this wonderful, nostalgic smell to it of the pulp and the glue that cannot be matched.    One of my favorite scents in the world is fresh peaches inside a paper bag.    Tell me that it doesn’t make you want to shiver and I won’t believe you.

The world moves on, much like it does for anything else, and not necessarily in a bad way.   Reusable bags are smart, they’re neat, and they’re efficient.    Plastic suffices in the meantime, despite its negatives.   But I shall always lament for the texture, feel, and smell of a real paper bag.

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© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2010. | Permalink | 9 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

I can see myself trudging up the relatively steep hillock covered in long, flowing green grasses, waving fiercely in the stiff wind blowing from beyond the rise.   Burdened, thick clouds hang close to the ground, their countenance not one of rain but merely a shrouding of the land in the dimly-highlighted gray of anticipation.   There is nothing else around this place except the grass-covered hills; if there is, my vision doesn’t lead me to see it.   The bottom is hidden beyond the threshold of sight.

The vision alternatively shifts between a bird’s-eye view of the situation and a personal detail; I am in a constant flux between the closeness of my warm breath and the soft ssssshhh of the grass and a perspective floating above, watching the play unfold.    I am dressed unusually — all in white; long, loose pants, a long, flowing seamless shirt, barefoot.   I can feel the dual nature of the grass, both soft and cool underfoot and yet harsh and sharp on the edges as it slides along the top and sides of my feet.

The wind blasts into my face, racing down the slope and nearly bowling me over; my struggle is prolific as I take cautioned breaths of an air tinged with the light smell of salt and water, catching a few molecules before they race behind me to some unknown destination.   I can barely see the breeze is so strong, but by squinting I can look around as I climb.

And I see her.

She is doing likewise; trudging slowly up the hill, leaning forward into the gale, her long flowing locks trailing behind her.    She is also all in white; a long, flowing dress of simple mediumweight cotton dances in the eddies behind her and presses against her barefoot legs as she moves, the bodice scooped and the sleeves long, yet simple; loose and comfortable.     A plain silver comb adorns her hair.

We are almost at the top now, maybe a dozen feet from the pinnacle and perhaps twenty apart but closing, as our trajectories are angled towards each other, when a brilliant light bursts on the peak for just a moment and then fades, and in its place stands a little boy.

He is perhaps two, maybe three years old, but I cannot see his face as he is turned away from us.    Brown, curly hair adorns his round head, punctuated by soft, small ears.    As we all are, he is in white;  a simple shirt, white cotton pants, his small bare feet poking out from the bottom as he stands there in the waving grasses, arms at his sides.

She and I reach the peak, stepping our last and coming to rest on either side of the boy, facing outwards as he is.   I feel a small warmth in my hand and I look down to see his short fingers entwining in mine; he has grasped each of our hands with his.    I look up and stare into the clear blue eyes of my son and he cracks the most innocent and brilliant of smiles.    At that very instant, a new energy like a slow, warm bolt of lightening runs between us and fills me from head to toe.

I look further upwards into the shining eyes and face of my wife who looks at me for an instant, then back down at our prodigy who is sharing his gaze between us.  I know she can feel the connection swelling between us, a bond stronger than mere touch, simple recognition; it is the shared connection of our family, our everlasting association with each other as parent, child, spouse.   I can feel him and her both and I know they feel me.

Our faces turn forward towards a rising sun that is breaking through the clouds, and we squeeze hands, pulsing this energy between us, ready to face whatever meets us, together.

We take a step forward towards the sun, down the hill, and forward into life.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2010. | Permalink | 3 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Pressure increases as the hill starts to rise underneath my tires.    My breath catches a bit as my body struggles to adjust.

“Don’t you puss out on me,” he injects harshly.

I look up, the bright rays of the late-afternoon sun splashing at the edges of my glasses, rendering the world into a half-washed-out landscape.   I gaze up the road to the top of the rise, several hundred yards away and far too many upwards.    My neck drops my head.

“It’s a damned hill.   ‘Tough’ is kind of the point here, I’m going to have to gear down,” I retort.

“Bullshit.   ‘It’s a damned hill’,” he sing-songs.    “Weak.    So it’s a hill.   One of, what, half a billion on the roads?  Suck it up.”

Brain negotiates contract terms with legs and they dig in harder, pushing the pressure gradient steeply upwards on the pedals, and causing my lungs to panic into a pant.  Teeth bared, silence pervades for a bit as we concentrate on the act of hoisting upwards, thoughts turned towards the effort being expelled and the aching of the muscles involved.   Sweat collects in my helmet band and beads down my face.

“Come on!   COME ON!”

I can feel myself faltering at the edge of potential.   “Stupid.”  I gasp, “Why am I doing this?”

“Because you need to actually move your nearly 300-pound ass for once in your life?” he cackles.   “Because you know you can and you just insist on being a wuss about it?”

I sigh.   It’s the same old story; the same inability to live up.    It’s like a record whose needle resets automatically, starting all over with the same message, in the same, crackly fidelity.

I gear down.   It was inevitable.   But not so much that he’ll complain a lot.    “So why bother, then?    I’m just going to end up where I was before.”

He’s suddenly fierce, right there, in my face.    His mocking has disappeared.

“Because it doesn’t have to.    You know you can change this, you have the ability.   You just need to be convinced of it.    Now, MOVE!”

I move.   Not because the entirety of myself wants to, but because somewhere inside there’s a small kernel of myself that believes him, however unlikely the fantasy might be, surrounded by a lot more that desperately wants to have faith.    So I move.   I dig, and crank, and push, and pant.    And the top comes closer.    As I feel the crest beginning to flow underneath my tires, he chants softly beside me.

“Thaaaaat’s it, yes, that’s it.   Keep it up, keep it up.    That’s what I’m talking about!”

I round the top of the hill and the pressure releases from my legs, although my lungs have yet to read the telegram and still grab hungrily at great gobs of air.    I keep moving — staying in motion is the only way to prevent the large knotted muscles from freezing solid.

“Wooof,” I exhale.    I take in a breath and look around, taking in the grasses, the fields, the waving corn, the stretch of road ahead of me.

As the bike sinks into the downhill side, I can see him grinning at me, and I cannot help but crack a small, ironic, but meaningful smile out of the corner of my mouth.   I feel a new-found vigor rush into my legs, infusing them with a renewed energy and excitement for the next challenge ahead.   Pedals push, speed increases, and the wind rushes past.

The miles tick down.   He is still there, mostly damning.   Sometimes encouraging.   At the best of times, seemingly at war with me, but that’s how it always is.   The motivation is not that of the heroes, not that of the stories.   This is hard-won, struggled, squeezed out of every fibre unwillingly.   But in the end, it is real.

I glance down to look at our silhouette; two wheels, two legs, one body, and a hundred miles of hot pavement.

And down the road we go.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2010. | Permalink | 2 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

In computer programming, we call this any number of names, but it’s usually, “getting in the zone” or “going on a coding spree” or a “hackathon”.    We have the ability to get into a mode, a method of thinking and reacting, that shuts out 98% of everything else and distills your neurons down into a fine, smooth wine of design and bits and logic.   It’s a beautiful thing to be in…when it happens.

Writers talk about finding a similar comfortable spot of mental clarity and developing that into a habit for producing their prose.   It’s a shut-out against everything else for that one, sacred, glowing spot of white in the middle.

I’ve been terribly distracted and unable to silence the voices that ramble in my head all the time and so I’m finding it increasingly difficult to be at my peak performance.   Tactile things seem much more do-able at the moment and pure thought is fleeting at best and shouting crowds of bullcrap at the worst.     Whoever is driving the crazy-train in my head is certainly having fun trying to jump the tracks.

Much like the weather outside, my brain is like a blowing snowstorm, things flying this way and that, eddies of wind whipping around hidden corners and swirling in the middle of the room.    To hold onto a thought is like trying to fly a kite in a jet engine it seems.

I should have been a carpenter.

In Other News…

Despite my concentration issues at hand, on March 6th I will be guest-blogging at the ever-revealing blog Morning Erection.   To say that I’m excited about this is like saying that I like taffy a lot, and I’m a man who likes his taffy.   I’m currently planning out the piece that I will be doing there and it should be a good, fun opportunity.     Tom is a great guy and often writes a lot of varied pieces (much like this blog) that touch, inspire, and make you tilt your head sideways.

I encourage you to stop on over to Morning Erection and get a feel for what Tom’s doing and to stop over there on March 6th to see my guest post.    I’ll be sure to mention it here and on my Twitter to let you know as well.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2010. | Permalink | 4 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Today I had an OK day and a simply shocking, horrific evening, and the only saving grace was that I was able to come upstairs after banging my head against a brick wall for long, tedious hours, plop my ass down on the floor, and say to the cute little boy across the room, “Come give Daddy snuggles.”    He padded across the room, wrapped his arms around my neck, and laid his head on my shoulder for a few moments before dragging me off to the table to play with trains and cars and to comment on the TV cartoon.

I wonder if he knows that as much as he needs me at this time in his life, sometimes I need him just as badly.     Thanks a ton, buddy.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 4 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

The rest of the year we are usually content to work and beat the living shit out of ourselves in doing so simply so we can obtain those few short days of bliss in a foreign clime.     We try to buck it up and say that we love our jobs, but the truth is, we don’t; if we truly loved our jobs, we wouldn’t insist on being handed a check a few times a month.    We are working hard so we can spend nights, weekends, holidays, and Vacation Time™ doing…NOT work.

Big, big trips, of course, cost an awful lot of time, money, patience, good luck, and planning, and if any one of those things goes awry, you will quickly find yourself at a loss for figuring out what to do with your precious Vacation Time™ because your plans just hit a rotating air movement device at high speed and shot off in multiple directions.

Such it is with our plans this year or, at least, my plans for my own precious Vacation Time™ which I’ve been saving up since January in anticipation of putting it to good use at the end of the year.   Instead of taking time off during these past warm, sunny summer months, spending time outside or traveling or having fun, I’ve been working, and sometimes working a lot, just so I can make the most of two, maybe 3 weeks at the end of December by taking a well-deserved (in my mind) trip to Australia with my family to see all of our relatives and friends over there in that distant, poisonous-animal-filled land.

Wouldn’t you know it that life has come along and blown in all to hell, eh?  *sigh*

Money being the fickle and transitional thing that it is has chosen to waft its way out of my grasp for the time being and we find ourselves within a month or so of buying the necessary travel for this trip and — utterly broke with little chance to gain even a small percentage of the funds required for our amusements.     And be ye not disillusioned about how much these sorts of trips cost, for verily they causeth much strain upon thy pocketbook.   But we’ve done it before, the cause is good, and family, friends, mince pies, sausages, pasties, schnitzels, chips, Tim Tams, seagulls, spiders that would rather kill you than look at you, sandy beaches, and the smell of the ocean are all more than worth the price of admission.    One needs only to find themselves gazing out over the infinite azure expanse of waves and the stresses of finances just…melts away.

So, now I’m stuck.   My vacation time is a use-it-or-lose it sort of proposition and it’s all going to have to be taken in the ass-end of the year when weather is questionable at best and places like Iowa are not where you want to be.    The thought of staying home for the entire time and spending it doing domestic activities like cleaning, painting, and working on freelance jobs makes me so depressed that I could sit in a corner and impale my forehead on a stick.    The term, “staycation,” might as well be a Barry Manilow record on repeat for all the comfort it gives me.   And yet, of course, the primary factor in canceling a good vacation is still present, so I cannot take off for Aruba, either.   I will have to think and be mightily creative about this or I will end up in a very sorry state by the end of the year.

And just to head off all of you who are going to comment and say helpful things like, “you’re lucky you have a job to take vacation from” and “it could be worse” and “I hate Australia; damned good thing you’re not going”, I say this:    I get ya.   And don’t think I’m not thankful for the opportunity to work and support my family.    That isn’t what this is about, it’s more about disappointment and trying to figure out how to recharge myself when the options are limited, so I can go back to doing exactly that…working and supporting my family.    Some people aren’t lucky enough to be in this position in the first place and I’m sorry.

So, there it is…barring a miracle of impressive proportions (hey, I’m still up for the Lottery if the fates are), this is where I sit and, apparently, where I’m going to stay for awhile.     I’ll work and work and add brochures about sunny places and tiki bars with scantily-clad women to my bathroom reading and sometime, someday, I might manage to unplug myself and enjoy a day or two for once.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 2 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

(All pictures taken in Decorah, IA, on a day much nicer than the ones we’re having right now.   Sigh.)

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 2 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

So, in lieu of writing something that’ll make you think, I’ll simply run through a brief outline of some areas of my life that have been on my mind lately. If you don’t care, no worries — I don’t, either.

My Job

I left my employment of seven and a half years and started the new position of Systems Programmer at Cambrex Charles City on the 19th of November. While I’m still the “new guy” and I’m very much in a learning role, I’m starting to find my footholds in this interesting corporation. I have not met everyone yet in the 200+ employment, but so far my impression is that Cambrex is staffed by people who are intelligent, friendly, and absolutely dedicated and dead serious about the work they perform.

I’ve quickly learned that, while you can joke about your weekend or lunch or your retirement plan, humor concerning the job is taken about as well as yelling, “Freeze!”, in an airport. Which, considering that the company is making human pharmaceuticals, is very comforting. My role is still fleshing out and I’m still learning the various tasks and projects that I’ll be involved in, but it will be more responsibility and mental work than my last job, but in a good way. So far the commute hasn’t been awful (40 minutes each way), but I’m sure it’ll get old in the long run. All in all, enjoyable.

My Moonlighting

As some may know, during my last job I would have periods where we needed extra funds and would do contract work at night or on the weekends to get a bit extra on the side. Now that I have the job with Cambrex, this is no longer needed and, indeed, with Keston in the picture is almost impossible if I want to have anything to do with his upbringing and/or seeing my wife. However, I have obligations to finish off a couple of jobs and they driving me crazy to try to get done. I’m struggling to finish them and/or back out as I can, but it’s taking some time and a lot of Maalox to do. I’ll be forever relieved when they are completed.

My Son

He is a constant source of amusement and education or, in the case of today, poopy. While I was feeding him he obviously shat himself, so I hauled him upstairs. Sure enough, there was a copious amount deposited in his diaper, so I took it off and got a new one underneath him, then proceeded to clean him up. It was at this point that the little firehose of his went into spastic mode and sprayed everywhere, prompting me to cuss and quickly cover his willy with the new diaper — 2nd one down. I pulled that diaper out, put a new one underneath him, and just got done cleaning him up again and he farted and shot liquid crap everywhere. Finally, after four diapers, a clean onesie, a new changing pad, and an untold number of wipes, he was clean and happy. I tell ya, the fun never stops when you’re a parent.

We recently found out that he is officially a carrier, but not a demonstrator, of the disease cystic fibrosis, a fact that we are forever grateful to find out. That being said, the doctor that came and told us the news should be hit over the head with a tack hammer for taking 15 minutes to explain to us the nature of the disease and then say, “Oh, and I don’t think your son has it.” Or should that be a tact hammer?

My Wife

The woman of my dreams has been having a hard run of it lately, I’m convinced. After having an interesting labor and delivery, she had a lot of pain in her abdomen, which we all associated with the two hours of pushing needed to get Keston out. However, of late she has had major pain attacks that last from an hour to five and cause her no end of agony. As it turns out, the doctor is convinced her gall bladder has gone tits up and needs to come out, but we have a specialist looking into the matter on Monday morning. Likely it will be a keyhole surgery and therefore easy and quick, but it’s still a surgery and not one that she looks forward to. Hopefully this will be the end of problems that she has had recovering and she’ll be back on her feet, better rested, and in no pain soon.

My Health

It’s shit, really. I’ve been constantly gaining weight since I came back from Australia in February and/or losing muscle tone. My need to work contracts at night and my job in the day lent to days of sitting on my ass and not doing anything physical at all. Now, at this point, I’m out of shape, tubby, and completely and utterly lacking the motivation to get going on a healthier eating plan and exercise, despite my desperate need to do so. My blood pressure is up, I’m pretty sure, given the number of times I have red ears and/or face, clothes are fitting poorly, and I find myself out of breath easily. I know it all has to change, I’m just trying to find that trigger that will lead me down the right path again. Why does maintaining health have to be one of those things that takes every fiber in your body? Should we just default to being healthy?

So yes, dear reader of mine (who is still reading — bless each and every one of you) — a few things have been plaguing my tendrils of thought lately. I hope to be back in the saddle soon and making you all scratch your heads, but until then, think of me, think of me fondly….to quote the Phantom.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 3 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

The shadowy darkness of the living room seems to heighten awareness of the small sounds that are normally background to the hubbub of life but now punctuate the twilight even as my eyes lose their grip on specific details. Computers whirr and whoosh softly, their internal fans gently blowing a cooling draft past heated silicon. The clackity of my fingers on a keyboard like so many unchoreographed tap dances is met with a rhythmic shuuck-CLICK, shuuck-CLICK from across the room.

My baby son, cranky and gassy from the many relative encounters yesterday and the odd schedule of the holiday, rides on a pendulum of sleep. Moans, groans, and whines softly emit every so often, but the steady tempo continues to be tapped out and he is lulled back to the dreamworld. The furnace fan kicks in and a slight whoosh! is heard as gas turns into flame and heat arises from the basement. The phone lodges another complaint, bitterly.

These sounds surround me, bathe me, as the darkness cuddles me here in my chair, the stark whiteness of the screen ahead of me the only harsh element in this horizon between light and dark, the greynesses of early evening, the shufflings of a winter sifting down through the slate sky and settling in a blanket over the landscape, claiming all green things to brown, active to slumber, warm to cold.

And me, and my thoughts, find free reign in the middle of an otherwise chaotic period of time, the beginnings, endings, and continuations that plague all of us and rob time from our fingertips and years from our chests. Even as I allow myself a few precious moments to tap out some wayward thoughts into this neglected forum, my mind is both enthusiastic and loathsome of the many background issues awaiting attention — lists of projects to finish, paperwork to be approached, meals to be negotiated, life to be navigated.

If I allow myself, I can prompt it instead to wander down paths less travelled, the roads to other minds, thoughts, and hearts, future dreams and ambitions, mental and physical needs yet unfulfilled. These are overgrown trails, a track to be followed, yet the caretaker woefully absent of late and the trimmers lying in repose for far too long. Flowers in this secret garden still bloom but are covered by sheets of weeds and neglect. Walking down these aisles is an exercise in exasperation; a realization that there are things to be done, but the starting point is difficult to pin down.

And yet, here in the start of evening, I have the sense that the winds have changed and the last season is drawing to a close. I am not yet through the gate and into the garden, but it stands before me now, its outline discernible from the rest of the wall, subtle yet visible hints of a direction to head and a world of options beyond its weathered face. I might still be fumbling in my pocket for the key, but I can now see the knob and I know, instinctively, which way to turn it.

Drifting back to the present place, I shiver in my hoodie, the chill tendrils of the frozen tundra drifting eerily across the floor and wrapping themselves around my ankles and spine. Despite the warmth deep inside, my skin still tingles from the touch of ice — the dampening forces of a world hibernating from the harshness. As I — as we — go on, the fear and trepidation will never leave me, this I know. They inspire the foolish to be wise, the timid to be brave, the lost to be found. The family tree of Good and Evil ends up being circular in nature and first cousins are kissing more often than not. Opportunity begot Strife, Pain begot Pleasure, and the clock ticks onwards…

I sigh, contentedly, as the darkness settles in deeper; night has come, but my eyes shine forwards in the dark to light the path, and I smile as I take the first step of many towards that new day.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 3 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Sure, there are examples from 80s music literature that should be used more as examples of what not to do, but one has to be picky when spotlighting the decade given that there was a plight of one-hit wonders and pan-flashes. Madonna’s Material Girl hilights some of the worst attitudes of a world wrapped up in things like pumpable basketball shoes, hanging gardens of hairstyles, and cola wars. Karma Chameleon is lovely but strange as hell and Boy George is nothing more than a 1980s version of David Bowie gone homosexual (and there’s some debate about Bowie’s alignment in the ballpark as well). It’s iconic, but it isn’t necessarily noteworthy.

Africa, on the other hand, is one of the real gems of the era, a song that is unique, intriguing, powerful, well-done, and memorable. I never get tired of hearing it, whether it be sung by the original Toto or one of many a capella covers in my music collection. The video is a bit odder than the song itself, but is a shining example nonetheless. It is a golden rule by which other compositions from the 80s and, indeed, today can be measured by.

Ok, ok, stop laughing, dammit. I’m only 3/4 serious.

But really, who doesn’t love that song? It’s so…haunting. I mark this as a “travel song”, one that always makes me think of the escape of flight from this country to foreign climes and the thrill, excitement, and fear of doing so. Along with Dazy Head Mazy’s Push Away, each time I hear this song I get the chills and travel bug longings in my heart while my gut aches with that feeling of displacement from all you’ve ever known.

My trips to Australia have been a combination of joy and terror; that sweet feeling of escaping to some place new and the tug of the homeland pulling at you, less and less with each passing mile, yet increasing in its poignancy. Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy noted that humans radiate a sadness and longing emotion to others around them, the strength being how far away from their place of birth they are. At times, when away, I feel as though I am at my peak, putting behind me everything in the world and being re-invigorated by the newness of my surroundings; at others, the strangeness of it all washes over me like a cold wave, causing me to inhale sharply and curl emotionally into a ball.

Africa is about travel and it is about relationships. The perspective in the song is from a man waiting for his love to come to him on an inbound flight to Africa during the rainy season, giving them time to spend together and “do the things we never had”.

This could be taken literally, but I think the metaphors point to a greater meaning. Sometimes in relationships, we get a chance to reconnect, to try again. If we can realize those points (“Hurry boy, it’s waiting there for you”), we can take advantage of them and strengthen the bond that exists between us. Conviction is required (“It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you”) and you have to fight to do what is best for everyone involved (“I know that I must do what’s right”) but you can find a solution for the problems that exist (“I seek to cure what’s deep inside”).

I must constantly remind myself to bless the rains down in Africa in all of my relationships, but especially with my wife, who is most important to me in the world. I think in some ways, the appearance of Keston into our lives is a bit of a chance for us to adjust our association and spend the rainy season reconnecting. There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do to drag me away from you — or him.

C’mon, boy. We’ve got a whole decade and you’re only a week old. You, mum, and I have a lot of listening to do.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 11 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

If you’re anything like me, the sound of steel drums and bongos, instead of making me look cool in shades, dreads a-swingin’, and chilling out on a sunny beach, instead puts a bright spotlight above me with a neon sign that says, “White and GEEKY“. But, in reality, nobody has theme music. No one really has an orchestral cresendo when they lose their virginity. Life just simply doesn’t have a soundtrack.

So…where did they come from?

Have you ever thought about that? If I don’t naturally get a, “wha-wha-whaaaaa,” in the ear when I screw up, why do people get them in the movies? Oh, sure, I know that the music and sound effects adds to the emotion and drive of the film and gets people engaged in something that is, essentially, make-believe, but how did the first person that tried to emulate a sad situation pick out the muted trombone for the task? Would a tuba’s, “pa-bum, pa-bum” sound really sound like a fat man walking in a forest if you hadn’t heard it before?

I’m constantly fascinated by the sound effects and music that are picked to frost a motion picture. Sometimes the soundtrack is the main feature and you can tell that the power it has doesn’t even compare to the crappy acting and story behind it. Sometimes you are just aching to have someone bring in some orchestral support to a scene that seems dull and uninteresting without that support. And on the really good films, you don’t even notice it, because it fits together so perfectly that you are simply mesmerized.

Some soundtracks can continue to convey that emotion away from the movie itself and some sound completely and utterly idiotic without the supporting visual. Pirates of the Caribbean is a recording that I can listen to often without the movie, but while LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring sounds fine without the movie, LOTR: The Two Towers does not and is really only for diehards like myself that don’t get out on weekends and prefer knowing how many decilitres are in a hogshead. (about 2,385 if you were curious)

The emotion can be powerful — people have been swept away by the soundtracks of such classics as E.T., Rent, Titanic, and Harry Potter to say nothing of the multitude of violins that gave their lives for horror flicks and shark movies. The right music and timing can recreate anger, happiness, tears, joy, and sorrow, all at the flick of a conducting wand and a few good sound technicians. And yet, I have yet to figure out exactly how they know that a crescendoing line will bring me out of my seat and to the heights of adulation when that has never, ever happened in my real life.

Despite this purposeful deception and misleading, we humans seem relatively happy to let ourselves bask in the glory of the soundtrack and all of its effects. We are eager to let ourselves go to the mystical places that cinema takes us; the soundtrack is just another train to far away places, situations beyond our dull, dreary existences, a ticket to a lovely fantasy. And we’re all aboard and ready to rock.

So, think about that this week as you go about your “usual” activities. What would a composer be working on for you right now? Would that stupid move you just did earn you a circus riff? Would opening the door in a towel for the UPS man get you an oboe twittering along? Hum along with it a little because, you never know — someone might be recording your life’s soundtrack.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 2 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

A lot of people have asked me (as they tend to do) if I have qualms about passing this milestone. In general, I don’t. I realize the aging process isn’t an instantaneous thing, but a linear progression that happens with ever nanosecond of my life. I am not instantly 30, I’m always in the process of aging to 30. And at the same time, I’m in the process of aging to 80. So I tend to not get my feathers ruffled about attaining such a marker in my existence because it is only one of a billion other delimiters — people just tend to notice the nice, round ones.

That being said, the other day I had a few hours of extreme depression wash over me, mostly from my mind considering where I am in life and being a bit disappointed at some things. By now, I had really planned on being more financially secure, in a much better job, and in general being more successful. Some of this has to do with chance; some of it is my own doing (or lack thereof). I sometimes wonder how many mistakes and bad decisions I’ve made that not even I recognize. I’m sure there’s a million.

However, I am also at the same time extremely blessed with a great many things, and I don’t want any of that to be diminished by my short spurt of wistfulness. I have a good house, a decent job, a wonderful wife, and my first child on the way. I could be in a far worse situation and I’m thankful that I’m not.

Since people like to see some evaluation of time, and you all like round numbers, here’s some stats from the past 10 years and what I’ve done and accomplished. This is by no means comprehensive, and by no means perfectly accurate — there’s two things you lose with age, the first is your memory and the second…uh…what was the question?

• I dated 8 women, kissed 6 of them, was intimate with 4 of them, fell in love with 2 of them, and married 1 of them. (does that make me sound like a manwhore?)
• I married my wife, Yolanda, twice — February 28th, 2004 and December 18th, 2004
• I managed to help conceive three children, lost two, and one is making his/her way to becoming our first child.
• I worked nine different jobs, 8 part-time and one full-time, as a groundskeeper, construction worker, webmaster, helpdesk support, computer programmer, and system administrator.
• I lived in 7 different locations — 3 dorm rooms at Luther College, 1 parent’s house, 1 apartment, 1 rental house, and 1 house that I bought.
• I had five different pets, only one of which is alive today — 2 anole lizards, 1 dwarf Russian hamster, one turtle, and one cat.
• I vastly revised my religion and belief system from that of a staunch, conservative Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS) Christian to that of a custom, mostly liberal I-don’t-know-what.
• I would like to say I changed drastically physically, but I can only state that I’ve only probably added about 40 pounds to my frame. I have had three serious bouts of dieting and exercise.
• I traveled once to the East Coast, twice to the South, twice to Australia, and numerous times around the Midwest.
• I have flown on 21 flights and been to 11 airports. I have been on three charter buses and no trains.
• I’ve owned four cars — a 1984 Buick Century Ltd, a 1996 Dodge Intrepid, a 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse GTS, and a 2007 Mitsubishi Galant Ralliart.
• My main home workstation has gone through 5 major upgrades and numerous small upgrades, but has retained the name “Simon” the entire time. I started on a 75mHz processor with 32MB of RAM and a 2GB hard drive.
• I have been in 8 weddings (I think) and attended many others.
• I’ve had stitches and staples in my head once, but no other major health issues.
• I have been in one accident, hit two deer, had a car towed twice, and had one flat tire.
• I have had 7 phone numbers, exactly one cellphone, and three major email addresses.
• I have participated in six different musical groups – choral, barbershop, and concert band.
• I played naked soccer 8 times and streaked 3 times. I have yet to skinny dip.
• I’ve had four roommates if you count my wife.
• Including this post, I have made 162 blog postings.
• I have made more friends than I can possibly count.
• The number of hugs I’ve given and received over the years would astound even me. And that’s a good thing.

Here we go into the next 10 years. I hope you come along with me.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 5 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Don’t get me wrong — I like it well enough. It’s horribly lean, tastes reasonably good, and is fairly cheap. It comes in pretty little green plastic tubes, frozen, and fits conveniently in my freezer. I can eat one without feeling guilty, and in a pinch, the frozen packages double as hammers.

It still disturbs the hell out of me, though.

It’s the idea of a turkey, that golden-plump bird sitting nestled in the middle of a silver platter, juices glistening on the crispy skin, the succulent flesh letting off slight puffs of steam as it waits, anticipating the first glorious slice of the cleaver, ready to fall apart into moist slices of happiness for the clamoring crowd at the table — now reduced to a ground-up meatpaste in a plastic tube.

The same aversion could be said for cows, but we’re rather used to consuming beef in the ground-up format. Nobody says, “Yeah, I’m having the family over. I went to the store and lugged home a 1,200 pound steer, I hope it’s enough,” and then tries to serve it with stuffing. We’re pretty much O.K. with the idea of a large animal like that converted to a more portable and moldable state, but something like a turkey, a duck, or a chicken is supposed to stay whole and recognizable.

Of course, this is because we don’t like chickens or turkeys, because they’re not cute. When you bake a chicken to perfection, it looks 183% nicer in its cooked, basted state than it ever did as an adult chicken, and turkeys aren’t exactly winning prom dates left and right, either. Render them naked, baked, and stuffed with dried bread, though, and boy howdy — have we got a looker. You’ll hear people walk around for days after Thanksgiving going, “Good lord, did you see the turkey Aunt Betty cooked up? I could have taken that bird to bed with me it looked so good.”

Rabbits, pheasant, deer, kangaroo, and other animals, however, we feel necessary to render unrecognizable, not so much for their size, but because they’re good-looking beasts. Nobody wants cooked rabbit to look like a rabbit, that fuzzy little bunny out in the lawn chewing madly on your carrot tops — no, make it look like CHICKEN, because then we feel better about eating an ugly animal that, clearly, had it coming anyway. I think this is also why manufacturers do not put cute cartoon characters of the animals on the packages of meat, as they’re afraid of upstaging the product by accident. “I think I’ll skip the, ‘Kuddly Kanga Ground Roo’, for now, thanks.”

And face it…Bambi scarred all of us as kids. You just couldn’t bring yourself to slice up a hot, steamy flank of doe-eyed deer on Christmas, not after losing his mother like that. Make it into jerky or sausage, though, and we’ll gnaw on it for weeks. For that matter, sausage takes any animal and any part of that animal and makes it into an attractive dish, as we are all well-aware of, but refuse to think about as we’re browsing for some wienies at the store.

So, as long as our food, as prepared, looks better than it did when it was alive, we’re ok; our food consumption is primarily based on the ignorance of its content anyway (preservatives, anyone?), so why not make it look attractive?

Turkey burger still freaks me out, though, but not enough to skip it.

*Gobble*

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 7 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Are you banking left or right?

How’s your speed? Your thrust? Your position?

In the world of aircraft, it’s all about your attitude, the combination of which direction the plane is pointed and the settings of the other systems of the plane. You might be climbing, you might be diving, you might be stalling — it all depends on your attitude.

Likewise, many things depend on your psychological attitude as well, not just your viewpoint, which many seem to cite. The emotion with which you approach a situation is important, don’t get me wrong, but so are other aspects, like your preparation, your determination, drive, willingness to risk, and ability to improvise just being a few. You can’t fly a plane simply by pointing it “up”, nor can you pilot a successful life by simply attempting to be positive about everything.

Nothing grates on my nerves more than the perpetual happymonger who insists on spreading fucking joy into every crack of existence just for the sake of being the ray of sunshine up everyone’s ass. Anyone who sees past this can easily point out the many different flaws in this system of constant cheer — life isn’t always pleasant, and being happy isn’t always productive. Sometimes it’s very applicable to the situation; many times it isn’t. Having someone shove that down your throat constantly just ends up labelling them as the eternal jackass.

Is this a matter of attitude? Clearly not. Pure emotion is usually extremely dumb. Attitude is smart — it is your emotional state plus all the above components, arranged in a manner such that when the bumps and struggles of your situation do hit you full-force, your airspeed doesn’t fall so far that you drop out of the sky. The way you initially formulate and interactively adjust your attitude shows a lot about your ability to handle life situations with intelligence and experience.

The Attitude Captain amongst us will evaluate every possible aspect of the situation, assess them all with objectivity and fairness, and then approach with their attitude adjusted, having their pieces in place to make a successful go at it. The Captains are also sharp enough to know the limits of their planes; if things won’t hold up in a hard turn, they know better to use some other aspect to replace what that hairpin turn would have gotten them. If they get halfway into a loop and find out they don’t have enough speed to keep going, they can quickly grab their other resources, realign them, and get out with all engines still turning over.

These I envy. They are the ones who simply radiate confidence and assuredness in life, the people you admire from afar in a crowd, even if you have never met them. Their attitudes are pointed in the right direction, and all their settings are within the green. I often long to know their secret, because some of them fly so far and hard and fast and never catch ground.

No two airplanes are built the same. Likewise, your craft might be big or small. Your engines may be tiny, but you are able to easily make turns. Maybe your powerhouses are huge, but you can’t stop on a dime. But all of us have the ability to use what we have to get where we want to go and to get there safely and smartly.

Pilot on first runway, you are cleared for take-off en route to the rest of your life. Safe travels.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

This following video is one of those things, however. Maybe it’s my love of music, children, and the wonderful innocence they have, but this is beyond amazing.

(there’s a short intro before you get to the meat of it, but it’s worth every second, trust me)

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 4 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Today I pulled out of going to the contest entirely, an event that further cements my feeling that most of life sucks.

The reasons are numerous.   A large part is available finances (or lack thereof).    A part is the enormous responsibilities currently sitting on my shoulders trying to manage all of my jobs.   And a part is that I have lost the "spark" for the hobby almost entirely.

I think the constant stress in my life trying to juggle all this shit is destroying my ability to relax enough to enjoy something like barbershop singing or any other sort of enjoyment or relaxation.   I’m so wired and wound and ripped up all the time that letting go of that is becoming near on impossible.   Going to rehearsals every Monday night have become only one more thing to fit into my life.    Going to the contest would involve leaving on the last possible flight to get there, stressing the entire time about money and my responsibilities back home, and then catching the first possible flight back as well.    In short, I wouldn’t enjoy hardly a second of the entire experience.

So that, coupled with the fact that we really could use the money somewhere else, caused me to write an email tonight and pull out.    I absolutely hated doing it, but I essentially had no choice.    This has been ripping me up for days; I’ve been stressed about it, thinking about my options, weighing things, re-weighing them, jugggling options in my mind — one does not throw away a one-time experience easily.

In the end, I had to practically force myself to write the email to terminate my involvement, but it was necessary or I was going to start puking blood or something.

It sucks.   It royally, royally sucks.   I hate these moments when life backs you into a corner and doesn’t give you a reasonable, logical way out.   Sure, I could have gone and thrown responsibility to the wind, but one doesn’t do that when you’re adult and thinking and rational.   One does that when you’re 15 and are invincible or 18 and cocky.    A man of 29 is expected to suck it up and deal with it properly, which is what I did, no matter how much I’ll hate myself for it later.

And now…back to the grindstone of life, to be crushed or rubbed or burred into whatever shape fate has for me and my soul.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 2 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

You can find photos and movies of the destruction here.

The Sherman Street house had served us well and we were sad to see it go, but it was definitely un-saveable. The walls in the upstairs were covered with black mold that wouldn’t leave, despite many bleachings that we did while living there — due to a lack of insulation, the upper floor walls and ceiling got cold in the winter, allowing condensation to run down them. In the last years of its existence, water from rain had started to seep into the ceilings as well, adding to the problem. There was a constant bat infestation; at night we could hear them climbing up and down inside the walls and chimney, and we chased 4 or 5 around the house with cookie sheets and paper bags while living there.

The house had started to collapse in upon itself long before I took up residence; indeed, it has suffered through a lot of abuse and neglect over the years, and one has to wonder if the proper care was given if it wouldn’t still be around instead of gracing a landfill. The main support joists in the basement were held up in multiple points by stacks of two-by lumber, propped up instead of repaired, as rampant moisture wreaked havoc in the crawlspaces. The previous owner had clearly failed to notice that the washing machine drain dumped into the crawlspace instead of heading down the drain properly, so the wood suffered years of wetness. This coupled with a complete lack of insulation and the freeze/thaw cycle of Iowa winters had done its worse to the superstructure of the foundation.

Problems upstairs were numerous — the walls were either insulated with corn cobs and dried horse shit or straw; the former fell out of any hole made in the wall like winning the jackpot on a slot machine in Vegas. Cold seeped through a lot of the walls and formed pools of moisture around the frames. The floors were uneven, mostly due to the foundational problems; bat shit covered the insulation in the ceilings, and age-old wiring sat in the walls. The furnace had a single, primary cold air return right above it, ending in two large grates right in the center of the floor of the living room. This meant that nobody failed to notice the furnace coming on or running. The furnace had a tendancy to light erratically; that is, sometimes it wouldn’t light right away, allowing the gas to build up considerably. Inevitably, it would ignite, resulting in a slight “Boom!” and the house would shake as the gas ball went up all at once. It was…disturbing.

The outside wasn’t much better. The siding was wood and was sorely in need of replacement — so bad, in fact, that the nails were working themselves out on their own, and it was a yearly task to go around and tap them back in with a hammer. The paint on the wood got less and less each year as it flaked off in the changing temperatures. The roof was better than some, but needed some replacement, and the rafters that were burned and charred in a house fire many years back had subcummed to the weight of the roof, bowing it along its length.

And yet, despite all these flaws, the house had a lot of character. From the add-on porch that still had the old siding inside on the house side, to the 1970′s inspired shag gold-and-green carpet upstairs, there were lots of quirky things to love. The wall texturing in the living room and kitchen were unlike anything I’ve ever seen, or probably will again, composed of what must have been buckets and buckets of plaster slapped on in a random way, making texturing so deep and rough that it took a 3″ napped roller and lots of brush time to repaint it. The bedroom doorway was just under 6′ tall, which meant that my head smacked it repeatedly during my stay there. The door itself for this was a barndoor style construction; I kept it when I stripped out the house, because it was so unusual. In the bedroom there was a built-in jewelry cabinet in the wall with a small glass door on it; quite unique. The bedroom closet was actually a walk-THROUGH closet to the big room on the south-west side of the house that I used for a computer room.

The upstairs was a 1/2 story with walls so slanted that almost nothing could be put up against them. The previous owners had left the rust-brown and gold-’n'-green shag carpet up there, and someone had, at some point, tossed an entire bag full of sex toys into the attic, which I discovered before moving in. These toys are now sterilized, painted gold, and arranged using fishing line into a mobile in my basement.

While living there, I redid a wall in the bathroom that was crumbling and redid the plumbing and wiring as well. While banging out the wall, I found newspapers lining the old wallpaper that were marked with the date 30th October 1888 — I was amazed. I carefully took all these off and have them in a box; I hope to make a framed poster for the wall some day with these pieces of yesteryear. These pieces proved that the house was built before 1888, probably at least 10 years, making it easily one of the oldest if not THE oldest houses in Sheffield. Even the buildings on main street aren’t that old.

Both I by myself and with Yolanda had some great memories in that house.   We fell in love in that house, essentially, although a lot of that was online.  From parties and gatherings to incidents with bats; playing with technology or playing carpenter in an attempt to better the place; housing guests from Australia and guests on the day after our wedding — it was a good house and didn’t owe us a thing by the time we left. I’m nostalgic about it, but practical, as I know that in later years it was an eyesore and a health hazzard to anyone in or near it, so it was time. But I’m glad it was there when I needed it and I’m glad I was able to be a part of its history, even if I was the last part of over 118 years of existence.

Good knowing you, 212.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

I spent the last two days working on stripping out the old house. For those of you just joining us, our hero used to live in a small house at 212 Sherman St which is about 5 blocks from his current place of residence. It is a little white house, barely 1000 sq feet, situated on the backside of one of the blocks on main street, right behind the grocery store.

The house has an interesting history in that we don’t really know how old it is. It is clearly at least 117 years old, given that newspapers in its walls are dated October 30th of 1888. However, the abstract (which, interestingly enough, is only required by Iowa anymore) doesn’t go back to the construction of the house. Nearest we can figure, it is one of the oldest houses in Sheffield.

So, given that, it’s a real pity that it will be knocked down sometime this summer. But the fact is that the house has gone past the point of no return, and while that’s sad, there’s not much to be done about it. The frame is falling in on itself. Mold covers the upstairs walls and now the downstairs in places, too. The roof of the main section, burned ages ago in a house fire (which prompted the addition of the 2nd story and the front of the house), is now sagged under years of relying upon the charred timbers to hold it up and poor shingles letting in moisture. Bats occupy the walls and regularly escape into the living areas, the chimneys leak massive amounts of water into the house, the corner of the roof has now buckled and stained the inside walls with leaked water. Insects have a heyday in the basement, which is dirt crawlspace, and the floor is propped up in at least 5 places with stacks of lumber and block. There’s just no end to the number of problems that the house encompasses.

I wish it was a fixer-upper; that I could go in, strip it down, and redo it into a nice little place. If I could do that, I’d buy it and make it a project. But, at this point, it’s just not worth the money. You would essentially end up redoing everything.

My boss, who owns the place now, asked me to take out anything of value that I wanted before knocking it down, which I appreciate greatly. So, the past two days I’ve been in there, pulling and hammering and yanking and cutting, taking out all manner of things. I’ve moved none of it home yet, but right now am just stockpiling it in the centre of rooms to be moved out in a bit. So far I’ve managed to get both sinks and vanities, the hot water heater, the makeup mirror and lights, tons of outlets and switches and plates, some piping, a bunch of network and audio wiring, bunches of cupboards, doors, and shelves; the A/C unit that I purchased and installed, a couple of windows, and 73 red brick. I have yet to get more windows, another door, the furnace, and some other wiring and piping stuff. Most of it will have to take residence (somewhere!?!) in my garage for the time being until it gets used elsewhere, but I want to get it out and here so Kathy can proceed with demolition as she sees fit; I certainly don’t want to be the holdup on that one.

I’ve taken a lot of pictures of the house after I rip things out; will post them here once I get it mostly done. The house is glad to have me there again, I think, but at the same time it’s sad…or maybe just resolute, given its impending fate. No doubt it has been through a lot in its years and perhaps it’s ready to stop being empty, abused by time, and abandoned. I feel somewhat like I’m violating it; but at the same time, I think I’m trying to preserve what I can about it. The place has shitloads of character, which unfortunately will be lost when it is gone, but I still appreciate it. If nothing else, many aspects of it will live on in my and my wife’s memories of our times there and all the little things that still make us smile.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2006. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

While I wish that this particular writing was going to be one where I can quip eloquent and fill your minds with some interesting and thoughtful visions, I’m afraid I need to address something quite painful in my life. Bear with me as I do a little bit of mindspilling for the benefit of myself and in respect to the thoughts of someone who I won’t ever really get to know.

On Friday the 10th of March my wife and I jaunted over to the doctor’s office here in Sheffield, the small local clinic which has seen so much of us in the past year or two that we are on a first-name basis with all the staff and regularly have conversations with them about life events and other things. They’re in general a great crew of people if you have to go to such a place on a regular basis which, it seems, we do, mostly due to my wife trying to get used to the virulent American germs.

Being my afternoon off I wasn’t terribly pleased with the idea of going to the doctor’s but the previous night the pressure in my sinuses from my cold had grown to such proportions as to give me visions of my nose exploding off the end of my face and littering the livingroom with fragments of nostrils. No amount of honking seemed to jog loose the stuff that was clogging it or convince the cold to move to other climes. (And, for those that know me and my expletory nasal talents, you know I was giving the honking a good and proper go.) It was time to swallow my pride at keeping a relatively healthy body and head to the doctor’s.

So in we head; my wife was returning for the third visit in her attempt to battle a similar cold. She was undoubtedly the worse off for it, being in absolute misery while I was just primarily concerned with losing facial features.

The doctor saw each of us in turn and during my wife’s examination she happend to remark to him that it had been a month and a week at least since her last period, which gave her a bit of concern. He suggested a pregnancy test as well as having her nasal passages swabbed with an overgrown Q-tip.

During this time, I was in the waiting room and he did my examination, recommending some pills the size of Jamaica and a saline solution to squirt up my schnoz to try to loosen the erstwhile inhabitants. However, I could hear the women (my wife + nurses) chatting loudly, laughing and chiding, outside. I had no doubt that my wife was chatting them up as she likes them. She often gets into the middle of groups of women like that and I am frequently amused at how she is so bubbly and keeps such a great conversation going.

At any rate, the conversation escalated as I sat and waited for the doctor to come back, but instead Landa walked in with a bigass grin on her face. She then shoved a piece of plastic in my face and said, “Look.”

Well, I gave this hunk of purple plastic a look like a monkey doing astrophysics and looked back at her. “Yes?”

“Look!” she said, again, pointing to it. This time I noticed that there were two purple lines in a white background. Wait a minute…two purple lines? Ah. Ah? AH!

Heh. She was pregnant.

I had a hard time…ok, it was damned near impossible to stop grinning as the nurses came around the side of the door where they had been hiding, waiting to pounce. We cajoled with them as we got out of the office, our favorite nurse, Becky, practically jumping for us, as she knew we had been trying for some time to get the ball past the goalie, so to speak.

For the rest of the day I had to give Landa shit at every point possible because I was pretty damned happy. There had been question about our ability to have children and if it would happen quickly or not or what. Given that we had only been explicitly concerned about it for about 2 months, this was pretty good. We knew we still had a long road to go, but at least we got this far; it was an accomplishment.

So much for accomplishments.

On Monday, Landa started to bleed. It wasn’t much at first, just some pinkish fluid mixed with regular clear stuff. A bit concerning, but as we looked up some stuff online and so forth, it seemed a bit normal. But we were concerned. I think there is a hormone release within parents whose side effect is paranoia about your health and anything that might be going on with the baby that’s growing. So, we had our stomachs in a bit of a knot, but thought to wait it out.

It continued on Tuesday, and by then, we were genuinely concerned. Through a series of calls and so forth, we eventually got an appointment up at a Mercy clinic in Mason City to get some blood drawn by a nurse. The idea was to check Landa’s hormone level and see if it was rising appropriately or was going down (a sign of problems) or what. It didn’t appear from the conversations that we were actually going to see a *doctor* per se; that was a bit worrying, but we figured that they must know what they were doing.

On Wednesday afternoon we went up for a very short appointment and Landa had her blood drawn. During this time, the nurse talked with her and found out that Landa is O negative for her blood type, which is problematic since ‘negative’ blood types can form an antibody against the baby if not treated properly. So, she assured us, she would be testing for that. She would be calling us the next day to let us know what the test results were.

We went home with much trepidation and not many answers. The nurse seemed unconcerned; it was hard to look at that and go, “Oh, ok, everything’s rosy.” Landa was ordered to be on bed rest, so that was something. Her bleeding and cramps were getting worse all the time.

No news came on Thursday. Bleeding and cramps continue.

No news on Friday. The clock ticked.

Cue Saturday. I left in the morning to join some good geek friends of mine, Jonas and Jpaul in a pursuit to photograph all of the computers in our collections. Seeing as we all have significant piles, it seemed a good idea to gather a troop to do the effort of documenting all the systems instead of doing it alone. Plus, it would be fun.

At noon we had completed Jonas’ house and had just finished wolfing down sandwiches and pasta salad when Jpaul’s phone rang. “Oh, it’s your wife,” he said and handed it to me. I said hello and Landa answered on the other side, “Hi.” I said, “How are you doing?”

There was a long, long pause, then a heart-wreaking sob and she said something — I don’t know what. It was covered up in the horrific sobbing coming from the other side of the phone.

“I’ll be home right away.”

I got off the phone and told Jpaul, my ride, that I had to leave right away. We had told him and his wife, Kate, about the pregnancy although we hadn’t shared it with others at this point besides a few distant friends and family in Australia. He knew that it wasn’t good from my mood and drove quickly and efficiently back to his place where I jumped into my car and spun out for Sheffield.

It was one of those times in my life where I wished I had driven my Eclipse that day instead of the 178,000 mile Intrepid; I would have easily pushed 120 on the way home. However, I managed to keep it below 80 on the way back to Sheffield, more for fear for the car shivering into its component parts than anything. I called Landa before leaving Paul’s as my fear was that she was lying in the middle of the floor in a puddle of her own blood, but she assured me that she’d be ok until I got home.

I burst into the living room upon arriving home to find Landa sitting in her computer chair. There was a pregnant pause and then her face crumbled as she said, “I think I lost it.” She then collapsed into my arms in wreaking sobs.

One speaks of their world falling apart; I cannot necessarily say that I had that sort of feeling. My world consists of more than just this dream of parenting; my wife was ok and sitting in front of me, my house still stood, my job was intact. But there’s little to compare with the incredible crushing weight of your worst fears realized in the form of the woman of your every fibre breaking apart in your arms and your happiness and dreams of being a parent being shattered into meaningless pieces in a single instant.

I don’t know how long we hugged and I comforted her — a long time, not long enough, forever and a split second. Time is so fluid when the moment stands before you and insists upon itself existing.

After awhile and reality had crept back in, we went to gaze upon the toilet and the blood bits there that remained of our child, as such. I am always of the opinion that there are sights in the world that are best reserved only for adults; things that scar and maim no matter how accustomed you become to them. All are educational, influential, character-building.

But some images in my memory crush my thoughts no matter how many times I review them and try to turn them fully into something positive. My cousins and grandmother in their caskets at the triple funeral. My mother melting into despair at the beginning of my parents’ divorce. My (then) fiancee collapsing against the fence at the airport as I was forced to leave her in Australia. A few small pieces of tissue and blood clots to mark what was going to be, in 8 more months, something warm and soft and cuddly sitting in the crook of my arm. Someone I could get to know, teach, guide, and utterly love to death. Now reduced to something…so very basic.

The rest of the day didn’t consist of anything very fun. We called a nurse and talked to her and she recommended we go in to be examined, so we trucked up to the ER in Mason City and spent four hours waiting, being examined, having blood drawn, etc. In the end, it was ruled a miscarriage and we were given instructions on what to expect and when to see a doctor again and so forth.

We ended up that night back at Kate and Jpaul’s house where I helped with some projects, but we were mostly going through the actions and not really participating in life so much as living it for the benefit of doing something.

It hurt a lot more the next day. I stumbled around feeling very empty and numb. I always find times like this horribly strange; I am not ignorant of the human condition. I don’t think of death with fear and loathing and try to ignore it. As much as it scares the living tar out of me, because I don’t know what to expect, I accept it as a part of life in general. One has to have a good perspective on it given the amount you see during your life.

I know that I am human because I really, really hurt. No other symptom of my existence speaks so loudly to me as the hollowness I have felt since that day.

Some might think it silly that I should place such emotional weight upon something that was no bigger than a grain of rice, barely had a beating heart, almost certainly little to no sentience and, most importantly, whom I had never met or even seen.

It’s funny, though, how quickly you adapt to the idea of being a parent, especially if you had been looking forward to it for so long, as we had. Most of our friends have already successfully ventured into having children of their own; we are definately late in the market appearance for this item.

I was so happy at the idea of being a daddy. Since I believe that the definition of a unique life is deliniated by conception, I already called myself a dad. I would halfway joke with Landa and speak to her lower tummy, admonishing it to give his/her mother cravings for vegetables instead of fast food and would sing to it…I even sang some barbershop tunes for it one night. I have always planned to sing to my children while in the womb, so why not start early? At any rate, we were having fun telling some select friends and being thoroughly happy about having accomplished this milestone but even more excited at the thought of having a child to share our experiences with.

lightning crashes, a new mother cries
this moment she’s been waiting for
the angel opens her eyes
pale blue colored iris, presents the circle
and puts the glory out to hide, hide

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not of the opinion that my life is now worthless, or that I won’t be able to go on, or I am irreparably broken. I shall go on, we’ll continue to wish and hope for children, and we’ll hopefully be a solid, happy family one day. It is incredibly hard, however, to not feel that we have lost someone very important to the both of us. And I think we have. We really have.

I’ve also gone through all the ideas of, “it could have been worse.” There might have been a very good reason for this child not to make it. They could have been deformed, injured, genetically unfit. Miscarriage at 6 weeks is certainly a lot less traumatic than, say, at 40 weeks. We didn’t have to bury a dead child. We didn’t have to sit and watch a deformed baby struggle to stay alive and lose. We didn’t have to feel the horror of knowing that the child in your arms won’t make it another day because it has no brain. It could have been worse. But it still hurts.

We are each dealing with this in our own way. Yesterday was worse; today was better. My thoughts still drift over and around ideas about our unborn child and what they would have been like, done, and what I would have said to them. Would he/she look like his/her mother, or more like me? If it was a boy, would he have my dimple? My wife’s eyes? Would she run up and hug my leg?

Kate and Paul have a wonderful baby boy named Tam who we see on a regular basis and, I’ll admit, enjoy to the very centre of our being. He is cuter than sin on a Sunday afternoon in the park and makes great noises, is snuggly and warm, and has these wonderfully wide-open eyes. The other night as I was playing with him in the basement while his father geeked on some things, I couldn’t help but look at him and hope that his mother and father knew how fortunate they were that he came out as great as he did.

We have named our child. This might sound like a completely ludicrous idea to some, but it is our way of acknowledging that this was our child; it was a living human being and we honor and respect the memory of them. We plan to do something in memory of them; not something brazen, I do not want to be broadcasting our mourning to the world in an act of attention-seeking or blow something out of proportion, but we do want to do something that we, as its parents, can look at and remember and feel that love that we held and still hold for this being of our creation.

For what it is worth, my child, I loved you even before you came into being, for I love your mother with all of my heart and you were a product of her and I — life is a carrier of love. I’m glad that you came to be with me and your mother for the time that we had, which was so brief and short. I hope you did not suffer through everything. If we did something wrong, I am incredibly sorry. I hope you think fondly of us and know that we would have given you a life of the best possible things we could think of and afford. But most of all, we would have loved you fiercely, passionately, unendingly.

We will always think of you; you are in our memories now. Our journey as parents began with you — we hope we can only go upwards and onwards from here.

I love you.

Daddy

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2006. | Permalink | No comments....YET! Make one! | Subscribe RSS

If there is anything more lightly amusing than animated peas with French accents, I don’t know what it is. Although I’m not hot and bothered by the religious education provided by the ever-popular VeggieTales (it’s innovative, sure, but the tales are, like most interpretations, a bit too assuming), the quips by the various vegetables are just precious.

So, they are taking down the brick buildings to the west of my office building here in Sheffield. Whilst there’s nothing overwhelmingly odd about that, it strikes within me a sort of nostalgia for the past. I’ve never been a historian or really had any great sense of wonder of history, but it has become interesting to me to find out the various historical facts about the town that I live in. I would guess that is because I have an attachment to this place; I’m curious as to what used to be below my feet as I walk down the sidewalk, what people have gone here before me, did they have dreams about their futures, what problems did they encounter? As I stroll through the park, I wonder if I am stepping on the location where someone received their first kiss? As I lay in bed, I wonder if a couple years ago spent their wedding night here. Or someone’s child was raised in this room.

I’ve lived in two places in this town so far, my current residence (100 years old) and my former house (at least 117 years old). I wonder many things about them. The newspapers in the wall that we found, dated October 30th, 1888 — what was it like that day? Who put them up there? Were they rich? Poor? What was the weather like? Was it a father struggling to keep his family warm in the harsh Midwestern winters, or was he rich and putting up a new wallpaper covering? Did he ever think that 117 years later some guy would be reading the same newspaper he put in there? Did his family have a good life?

Nothing like having a taste of your own mortality.

We’re cleaning the house madly for the (supposed) mass of people set to invade us shortly on the 29th for our 3rd annual Halloween costume party. I don’t know exactly why we got that one started — guess we felt we should have our own sort of party for our friends — but in the 3rd year now, we’re hoping it’s going to stick around for awhile, kinda be the thing the Pralle’s do around here. It’s fun — getting adults dressed up in costumes is still entertaining, I think. We get several people who bitch’n'moan about it the first time but when they understand that EVERYONE has a costume on and then they start to think creatively about it, they end up having fun with it.

Today definately has one of those downer sort of feelings to it, and I’m not exactly sure why. Mondays often do — something about the combination of being back at work with the looming practice of barbershop and the general dreariness of weather — something like that. I like barbershop, really I do, but at times the constant weekly committment to it gets arduous. That statement sounds absolutely ridiculous given that I used to have choir rehearsals 5 nights a week for an hour each night during college; however, those were set into a schedule that was a lot more flexible, I didn’t have to drive 30 minutes to get there, and it was a good solid hour of hard-ass practice with talented people and then we left. Barbershop blows 60 minutes of driving, takes 2.5 hours of hard-ass practicing with a group that is both very good and very amateur group. Some guys come to sing, some guys come to jaw. That’s frustrating when I come to sing and take a night out of my life to do it. Band on Tuesdays, at least, carries less of a “screw-around” factor to it.

I need to get off the massive amounts of caffeine I drink during the day, but I have yet to find a drink that goes down as nicely as Diet Mt. Dew and yet doesn’t contribute to my caffeine amount or so forth. Diet Sprite doesn’t do it, water definately doesn’t do it, etc. Coffee counts, but it rips my stomach to shreds after a few days so I can’t keep on it unless I drink the weak shit, and I can’t *stand* the weak shit. I don’t know. I think sometimes I have some sort of oral fixation as I have to constantly have my little mug here to sip on while I think and work.

Perhaps I’m just mentally looping.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2005. | Permalink | No comments....YET! Make one! | Subscribe RSS

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2004. | Permalink | No comments....YET! Make one! | Subscribe RSS