Hypothetical Hermits, A Bicycle Not Even Built For One, Stephen King's Wang, And Who's Afraid Of Mr. Blackwell?

It’s Thursday once again, and so I find my weekend drawing to a close.
In contrast to what felt like a short weekend last week, upon my return from Michigan, this weekend has seemed to stretch out interminably.
That wouldn’t necessarily have been a bad thing if it had been an eventful and entertaining weekend, but it really wasn’t either of those things.
Beyond going to the Oral Surgeon on Monday, and going for a few walks, I didn’t go anywhere all week. Not needing much in the way of food, I didn’t have to go grocery shopping, and being in something of a “funk” thanks to the bloody mess that my mouth has been and to the unbearable mugginess of the weather, I really didn’t feel motivated to go anywhere.
That’s hardly anything new, I know, but it was a little more extreme this week.
When I was taking that class last week, by way of illustrating a point the instructor asked if anyone in the class had a job that required no human interaction whatsoever, as if from starting time to quitting time there would be no interaction either in person, by phone, by e-mail, or IM, with another member of the human race.
Of course no one there had such a job, and the instructor stated that he would feel sorry for anyone who did.
Meanwhile, I was envying this hypothetical hermit.
Honestly, though, I think that high a level of isolation would be a bit much even for me, but what I’m getting at is that this week I found myself feeling a little more anti-social than usual.
Of course, I’m already pretty anti-social, so it’s not like anyone besides myself would notice.
Today, though, I did need to head out to pick up some suitable food and snacks for this weekend, so I picked up a variety of soups, yogurts, and puddings.
I didn’t feel like straying too far from home, though, so I just walked over to Safeway.
When I go for my walks, as part of the routine I stop at a Sunoco gas station, which used to be the only Circle K I’d ever seen in Virginia (Circle Ks are all over the place in Tucson) before it switched over to Sunoco, to pick up a bottle of water or a SoBe or something.
The other day I realized that I was running out of cash, so I walked over to the ATM across the street to replenish my water/SoBe funds. While doing so, I spotted a guy on a bicycle.
This wouldn’t have been noteworthy, except that the bicycle in question was one of those original bicycle designs from the turn of the last century; one of those numbers with the gigantic front wheel.
It made me wonder how you go about getting on one of those things, then it made me wonder why you would bother at all. After all, there have been all kinds of advancements in the science of bicycle-making since the days of handlebar mustaches and Coke with real coke in it, most of which have greatly enhanced their ease of use, though none of which, I suppose, are likely to inspire people to scratch their heads in bafflement and write entries in their blogs about you as you unsteadily bicycle your way past them.
So if you’re into that sort of thing (getting people to notice you), I suppose that riding an old-fashioned bicycle is more likely to get you noticed than some state-of-the-art mountain bike, though I think if you’re going to try to get people to notice you, the unicycle is really the way to go…
As I walk in the mornings I’m beginning to recognize some of the people I (very briefly) encounter along the way.
Mostly they tend to be middle-aged (and older) housewives, and men, but there have been a few younger, more attractive women…though they are all married and have kids.
Today I saw two and a half attractive women out on the trails.
I say “two and a half” because one of them I’m only assuming was attractive based on what I saw of her from behind as she jogged past me. She looked to be in pretty good shape, so at least the back side of her looked good, though I did note that she had a ring on her finger.
Further down the trail, and a bit ahead of schedule, I saw the Running Lady, as I refer to her, who jogs along pushing a stroller with her two kids in it.
At one of the playgrounds I saw a very attractive woman, apparently named Sasha, based on the fact that one of the kids called her that. She was watching three kids, and given that one of them called her by name, not all of them were hers, but at least one of them called her “mom.”
I’m guessing that “Sasha” is a stay-at-home mom who babysits other kids as a means of income to allow herself to be a stay-at-home mom, which is, I think, a fairly common practice in this area.
I’m not sure what the money is like, but with a husband working a decent-paying job here in the tech sector, I’m sure that it works pretty well as a supplemental income.
After all, daycare costs around here are insane, so a mom working out of the home could charge a fair amount and still manage to undercut the prices of even the employer-subsidized daycare centers that working parents in NoVA have to choose from.
Scott could provide more input on this subject, though, as his wife watches some kids during the week.
In any case, while I didn’t get up close enough to see her left hand, it’s probably safe to assume that “Sasha” is married.
Still, while none of my fellow travelers on the trails, not even the younger, attractive ones, are bringing me any closer to actually meeting “someone,” since they’re all spoken for, it occurs to me that when you tally up all of the “good mornings” and “hellos” I exchanged with them this week, I actually had more in the way of interaction with people than I typically would despite the fact that all week long I was feeling especially anti-social.
I suppose there’s some irony in that.
Mostly, though, I think it’s just representative of the fact that I can never get what I want. After all, I wanted to keep my contact with people as minimal as possible, but it ended up being maximized.
Ah well.
It’s been around 6 years since Fiona Apple last released an album, though in that intervening time she has actually recorded one.
There seems to be some confusion surrounding the reason that the album hasn’t been released. The most common view is that Sony, the record company, feels that it isn’t “commercially viable,” which prompted fans to start an online petition that goes about literally sending “An Apple a Day” to Sony Music execs until the album is released, though there are some claims that Apple herself is unhappy with the album.
Still, no matter what the cause, the effect is that there is no new album, even though one could be available. If you like Fiona Apple, this is distressing. If you don’t like Fiona Apple, then why are you bothering to read this part?
Most of the people I know who don’t like Fiona Apple dislike her because of her perceived political views, whatever they may be, though I think most of them based this opinion on some random comments she made like seven or eight years ago at some award show or other.
For my part, I like her. I love her voice, and I think she’s a very talented songwriter, and for me, that’s really all that matters.
I pretty much always manage to separate performers from their personal lives. So in much the same way that the fact that they are lousy singers whose songs are treacly, sentimental pabulum doesn’t change the fact that Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson are freakin’ hot, the fact that Fiona Apple may or may not be some kind of tree-hugging, preachy hippy isn’t reflected in her music, and since the odds are that I’m never going to meet her, what she’s like in her personal life is absolutely meaningless to me.
Of course, this separation of the art from the artist (or separating her hotness from her lack of real talent) isn’t absolute. I mean, if someone proved that Fiona Apple, like, ate babies or something, that would probably color my perceptions of her and lessen my enjoyment of her music considerably.
That doesn’t seem too likely to happen though, as I believe she’s a vegetarian.
In any case, getting back to the unreleased album, last year someone leaked a track from it out to the Internet, which helped further fan the flames of fans who were already clamoring for its release.
(As an aside, if for the alliteration if nothing else, you have to dig that line: further fan the flames of fans)
Recently, though, someone leaked the entire album out to the Internet community, and I have to say that of late, “Extraordinary Machine,” as the album is titled, has been the number one thing I’ve been listening to.
What I find most interesting about it is the rather “cartoony” nature of the music. Often, it seems as though she’s singing along with, or just as frequently, in counterpoint to, the soundtrack of a Looney Toons cartoon, though when you actually listen to it it’s not as silly as sounds here, and it really works well.
So for that aspect alone I enjoy the album, though how could I not enjoy an album by someone who actually manages to use the word “falderal” in a song?
So for those of you who like Fiona, or at the very least are Fiona-neutral, I’d recommend checking it out, particularly if you ever enjoyed the musical stylings of an old Warner Bros. cartoon…
Of course, when I say that I “recommend” checking it out, obviously I don’t advocate the illegal downloading of music. So for the record RIAA, I wanted it stated that my belief is that clearly, illegally downloading music is a crime against God and man, and shouldn’t be practiced by anyone on penalty of torture, and, eventually, after lots and lots of torture, death.
(Seriously, I’m totally okay with illegally downloading music)
Then again, I wonder about the illegality of downloading music that has not been released commercially. If Sony has no intention of releasing the album anyway, then they can’t really claim that they’re losing revenue through the free distribution of the album on the Internet, though I suppose that, strictly speaking, their intentions for the album notwithstanding, it is stolen property.
(Screw it; ust download it anyway)
Lately I’ve been reading a book called “Pattern Recognition” by William Gibson, who, years ago, created the “cyber-punk” genre with his novel “Neuromancer.”
I’ve meant to read some Gibson for a while now, but hadn’t gotten around to it until I picked this book up (based largely on the fact that it had blurb by Neil Gaiman on it).
So far it’s…interesting, if a bit dense and rather “high-concept.”
One element of the story focuses on people who collect rather esoteric pieces of computing history, and there is a character who, with no trace of irony, comments on how he’s preparing to purchase Stephen King’s Wang.
Now he’s actually talking about a word processor, but I was greatly amused by how Gibson managed to slip in a dick joke that pretty much only nerds would get…
As an aside totally unrelated to anything, for anyone out there wondering, my dad continues to recover quite nicely. Yesterday he told my mother that for the first time since before the surgery he actually felt like himself when he woke up.
Yesterday I mentioned not having anything in the way of reference photos to work from for drawing the male D&D characters for the picture I’m working on.
…
The problem with searching the Web for pictures of anything is that having a lot of porn mixed in with your results is inevitable, but when you’re searching for pictures of men it becomes a little more problematic.
Now, anyone who knows me can attest that, any gay jokes I make (particularly within the next couple of parapgraphs) notwithstanding, I’m not even slightly homophobic.
That I have a positive attitude towards and about homosexuality (especially the female kind…at least the female kind you see late at night on Cinemax, but not so much the kind you’re likely to see at, say, an “Indigo Girls” concert…) does not mean, however, that I had any interest in seeing some of the things that popped up (literally) in my Google Image search…
I have to say, though, that, religion aside, I don’t really understand the basis for homophobia. I mean, what’s to be afraid of? They’re gay. It’s not like we’re talking about members of a biker gang, or escaped prisoners, or snakes, or something. The worst they’re likely to do is make a scathing sarcastic comment about what you’re wearing, and that’s not really that scary, is it?
Then again, given the way a lot of homophobes dress, particularly in the South, I guess that could be pretty scary after all…
Seriously, though, I’m no homophobe. Hell, if it weren’t for gay men I’d never get hit on.
In any case, that’s pretty much going to do it for this entry, and this week. I hope you have a good weekend, and I’ll see you all back here on Monday.