General Ramblings

Update on Anne

For those who might be interested, I thought I’d note that Anne saw her doctor yesterday for a post-surgical follow-up. He said she’s doing great — the incisions have healed nicely and he still believes she has a good chance of an endo-free future. Although with this shit, you never can tell. Call it a case of life imitating art, in this case one of those cheesy old horror movies where the words “The End” come up on the screen, followed a moment later by a big, spooky question mark…

(See the original version of The Blob or the 1980 version of Flash Gordon if you don’t know what I’m talking about…)

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No Hard Feelings?

As I expected, the last post in which I revealed my feelings about President Bush sparked off a comments-section round of sparring between myself and my friend Cheno. That action continued on the phone this morning and was mostly good-natured, as political discussions go. We’ve known each other a long time and we both value our friendship enough not to take a difference of opinion too far. Nevertheless, there seemed to be a fair amount of tension between us, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just me feeling it. We defused it – or attempted to, anyway – by making jokes, largely at each other’s expense, and in the end we never really discussed why we feel the way we feel about the president or the issues that surround him. And that has me wondering: why is it so difficult to talk politics with even our close friends?

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Anne’s Surgery and Endometriosis Awareness Month

Some of you folks out there in Internet-land may be aware that my girlfriend Anne underwent surgery last week. I’m happy to report that it appears to have been successful and she’s doing fine. I’ll provide more details in a moment, but first, for those who don’t know about Anne’s problems, let me explain.

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Surviving the Blizzard

“Your taun-taun will freeze before you reach the outer marker!”

 

“Then I’ll see you in Hell!”

It’s been snowing most of the day today and as of the current moment — roughly 1.30 in the morning — there is a good five inches piled up on the back deck. If I had any sense at all, I’d have stayed in tonight with a nice bottle of brandy and watched Blade Runner. But since I’m basically a dumbass who thinks it’s a good idea to be sociable with friends on a Saturday night, I took Anne up to Bountiful to visit with Jack and his lovely Mrs. We had a pleasant evening, discussed many interesting things, bowled our usual pathetic games while ogling the teenage beauty-school dropouts playing in the next lane over (well, Jack and I did the ogling; Anne and Nat made fun of us for being dirty old men), and generally had a good time. Then it was time to go home…

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Fun Stuff from Lileks

For those who care — and there probably aren’t too many of you — the post about my All-Time Favorite Movies is still forthcoming. To keep you amused in the meantime, however, let me direct your attention to Stagworld, the latest irreverent (or is that irrelevant?) section of James Lileks’ very funny Institute of Official Cheer web site.

A little background information: James Lileks is a collector of ephemera,which consists of old paper items like postcards, matchbooks, magazines and cookbooks. On the Institute site, he shares with us the more dated and bizarre stuff in his collection, supplemented with his own amusing commentary and captions. This exercise sounds kind of pointless, and I suppose it is — making fun of stuff produced by the naive America of fifty years ago is sometimes like shooting fish in the cliche’d barrel — but James has a sharp wit and these pages always make me laugh out loud. Sometimes they’re even educational, giving us a glimpse of a long forgotten pop culture that existed before the rise of Cable TV.

If you go exploring around James’ site, be warned that his blog can sometimes get a little shrill, depending on your politics. Hope you enjoy yourselves.

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Congratulations Again

It’s a busy season for the OB/GYNs out there. Only a few days after Jack’s big news, another round of kudos is in order for my friend Mike “Cheno” Chenoweth and his lovely wife Kim. They welcomed their second child into the arena this afternoon. It’s a boy this time. Good job, guys.

“And you never even call me Godfather…”

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Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself

I’ve been thinking that since this site does not have an “About Me” page, I probably ought to offer up a some kind of profile of myself. Although I’m 98% certain that the only folks who are reading this blog already know me, I am out there on that InterWeb-thingie now, so you never can tell. Besides, my friends (and you know who you are) might not know some of this stuff. So, without further ado, I offer up the following list of autobiographical tidbits:

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Congratulations

A quick pat on the back to my Webmaster, friend, occasional bowling partner and fellow Kurosawa fan Jack Hattaway, who has just announced his impending fatherhood. For details and fuzzy black-and-white images purported to be the tyke-to-be, check out Jack’s own site.

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