Blogblah!!! » Longrydehome

February 19, 2009 (updated)

John Long — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 06:39:24 +0000

Vintage RayBans

AH CHOO! SNIFFLE SNIFF
Today’s LongRydeHome is an evocative note about Spring planting and working in the ground. I admire the sentiment, but can’t join in. I’m having an allergy day from hell. My eyes feel like they are bleeding and not just oozing water. My ears feel not just stopped up, but filled with concrete. My throat is almost closed and is raw from coughing up phlegm and the occasional post nasal drip. I am miserable. I haven’t had a good respiratory breath through my nose since I woke up at 7 this morning, and I’ve filled up half a wastebasket with tissues. It’s midday and I’ve not left the house, although I’ll soon make a foray out to buy more cigarets. You want to know what it’s like to be an addict? That’s what it’s like. No matter how miserable you are and no matter how irrational and self destructive, you do what you have to do to get your next fix.

TODAY’S THOUGHT

Proverbs 17:9

One who forgives an affront
fosters friendship,
But one who dwells on disputes
will alienate a friend.

It is easier to know wisdom than to act wisely, I find. Please forgive me if I toddle and stumble while I’m trying to learn how to walk the walk.

Blogblah

February 15, 2009 (updated)

John Long — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:25:00 +0000

Looking on

VALENTINE’S DAY
I had a lovely Valentine’s day weekend. I ran the gamut of emotions: content, happy, joyful, ecstatic, blissfully asleep. I ignored the troubles of the world and focused on the moment. I cooked a couple of meals, steak and salad Saturday night. I received in abundance validation and emotional fulfillment. Did some interesting things like antique shopping, thrift stores, book stores, coffee. Stress free and full of laughter and intimacies.
By comparison, my blogging buddy Flibbertigibbit vents a bit about Valentine’s and relationships and flirting and that whole boy-girl thing.
MindOverMary posts with passionate kindness and urgent wisdom in a lovely essay that made me admire my sister even more than ever.
Mom-A-Tron, aka RebL, gives us a lesson in green valentines that, I must admit, express a far more true and everlasting valentine than the pink and red crap we seem to favor.
LongRydeHome had a weekend full of trauma (a trip to the ER) and drama (a personal feud gone all bloggy) and despite the fact that MCARP shows up in a great many of her episodes, he has nothing whatsoever to report at 3:40 a.m. Wednesday through Saturday.
Sweet mystery of life.

I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY

gay agenda/Sally Kern

Broken Penis Syndrome

The End of All Marriages?

A BIT OF OLD BUSINESS

TODAY’S THOUGHT

Those who are kind reward themselves
But the cruel do themselves harm.

Proverbs 11:17

SINATRA SPEAKS

Chariman of the Bored

Muffy, it was a lovely weekend. Nothing better than having not one but two humans doing your bidding. I out-thought them at every turn. If one got tired of petting me, I went to the other one and said I’d never been petted in my life. One to let me in and one to let me out. LUXE! SCORE! The best that neither one knew the other one was feeding me. I don’t even care about the blue jay and the mockingbirds, there’s no room in my belly for another bite. Well, maybe one tiny, just a thin slice more.
More proof that cats rule the world.

January 27, 2009 (updated)

John Long — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:25:55 +0000

My yucca plants covered with ice and snow

THERE’S SNOW BUSINESS IN OKC

Since the courthouse is closed today due to the weather “emergency”, I thought I’d take time from being bored at the house and maybe do a little blogging since I’ve not really written anything since the Inauguration on the 20th, a week ago. Before he tells you all about it, I’ve got to admit to a tiny bit of cruelty: I laughed and laughed and could not make myself come to the rescue of Sinatra late yesterday afternoon when he found himself in the middle of an icy driveway and couldn’t get any traction. Have you ever seen a cat lose its footing? I don’t think that happens often, or at least I don’t see it often, and watching my “snow cat” floundering just struck me funny. So funny, as it happens, I couldn’t keep my own footing well enough to go rescue him. When I finally got to him to pick him up and carry him back inside, he was PISSED. Fortunately for me, it was nothing a good petting and a little canned food wouldn’t assuage.

LongRydeHome's Earth/Sky/Water sculpture at my house, now improved and new with SNOW added!

While I was outside taking pictures, I snapped a shot of the sculpture that is installed in my front yard. This work is by my blog buddie, LongRydeHome, who graciously commends and refers to my Jan. 20 post, and I thought I’d plug her work. It’s not really set at such an angle, by the way, that’s just my bad picture taking. The small ball represents the earth and the semi-circle around it is the sky; the dangling piece is obviously waves of water if you ever get a chance to look at the piece. Now, of course, it’s new and improved with not just earth, not just sky and more than water — introducing the new and improved WITH SNOW version of KO’s work! I love the way the sculpture works with the arc of a wall just behind it and the rocks that provide the setting.

The view down 61st Street, looking east from my house

Just so that Nojackla, Mom-A-Tron and MindOverMary, living in New Orleans, Tucson and Charleston respectively, can remember what Oklahoma winter weather is like, I thought I’d let ‘em see down my street why their hometown is shut down. As I write this at midday, just about 11:30 a.m., the weather report says it’s 20 degrees (F) and snowing on top of the ice we got on the streets last night. A few good and brave folks, including Muffy, are out on the streets, but an old guy like me knows better than to even try.

New Avatar?

When I run out of cigarets, I’ll either stop or put on a lot of warm clothes because it’s pretty toasty here in my little studio and it just looks miserable outside with it snowing/sleeting hard enough for me to hear it hit the bushes even through my closed window.
John X was wearing a hat at the RC the other day when I tried to take a snapshot of him, but he turned the tables and took a picture of me wearing his hat. What do you think? Better or worse than the black and white “GQ” picture? Does this look like the sort of man who’s blog you’d like to read? Better yet, does this look like the kind of lawyer that could get you divorced? Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.

A lonely blogger types his fingers to the bone

I’ve been playing with my computer and i-Phone during this bad weather and picked up some nice free “apps” for the phone: Shazam, which will listen to a few notes of any music and then tell you what the song is, who sings it and refers you to the YouTube where you can see the video or refers you to the i-Pod/i-Tunes download; Stanza, which lets you download free books from the public domain and read them on your phone; and also Google Earth, with which most of you are familiar from your laptop or desktop. Does the thumbnail on the right look more “bloggish”? I think this is the best picture Sinatra has ever taken of me, but that may be a matter of taste.

TODAY’S THOUGHT

Just because you’re in the driver’s seat doesn’t mean you have to run over people.

The Last Lecture
Randy Pausch

I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY!

$100 Civil Fine for Pot Debated

Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth

SINATRA SPEAKS

Chairman of the Bored

Muffy, he laughed at me. I am the most fearsome hunter in the territory and a ruler of the universe and he laughed at me. I’m humiliated. When he sees the heating bill from opening and closing the door and window to let me in and out 50 times today, he won’t be laughing then, oh, no. He’s been extra careful to keep his closet shut so I can’t get to his shoes and poo in them, but I’m watching and waiting and he’ll forget one of these days and then!…shoe poo!
Muffy, you just wait and see if I don’t.

January 4, 2009

John Long — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 08:27:13 +0000

SATURDAY WAS A TOP DOWN DAY FOR BLOGBLAH

Are you gonna be my drop top girl? It's a top down day

I have beaucoups things to do to get ready for Monday and I’m working to get my calendars and contact lists all sync’d up and blah blah blah, but when it is 73 degrees Farenheit on January 3 in Oklahoma, there’s no way I could stay inside and pound away on the computer. Nor could I do anything else. I just had to get outside. Now, I know how Sinatra feels when he’s sitting on the window sill yelling at me to let him out NOW.

73 Degrees!

I dressed and got in the car and pulled it into the driveway and pulled down the ragtop and away I went on a little Saturday afternoon adventure when there was football on the television and everything (I don’t give a rat’s patoot about the NFL, so there it is). Perhaps you live in Tucson or in Charleston and don’t think it was REALLY 73 in Oklahoma City, so I even took a picture of the thermometer in the dash:
Since I didn’t really have anything to do or anyplace to go nor much money to do it with, I thought I’d just kind of drive around and see what was up and if anyone else was out on the streets looking for something to do or having found something to do or planning something to do.

Evil Empire Starbucks

The first place I went was the Evil Empire Starbucks since that was the closest place I could think of with outside seating.
However, there was not a soul around who I recognized among the sparse customers. I suppose the Nichols Hills people are all out of town at the lake or going to some bowl game or coming home from some bowl game or maybe they’re just skiing, but there wasn’t anything to keep me at 63d and Western and I didn’t even buy a cuppa there.

Red Cup?

So, it was off to the Red Cup.
Yes, I know it’s called the Red Cup, but the identical white cup of coffee on the red counter you see in that picture is what I actually got. Along with a long note from Kurt the self-confessed bad businessman about how the menu is going to be curtailed and an equally long whine about his tiny digs and all the excuses for not serving his customers.

Lexi at Red Cup

Good thing I don’t go to the Red Cup for the food or even for the coffee. What I do go to the Red Cup for is to see friends, which I had not found at the Evil Empire Starbucks. Sure enough, the first person I saw was old friend rarely seen these days, Lexi.
I have no idea why she was holding that rat in her lap, but she claimed it was a dog and who am I to argue when she’s there with her boyfriend and I want her to speak to me after she realizes her horrible error without me. She says she’s “good”, but we all know better depending on how she meant that.

Skip at Red Cup

Not two feet away from Lexi was the intrepid Skip, talking to Lars on the phone. He says he’s having a triune brain brainstorm session Sunday about 3:30 p.m. at Galileo’s and depending on the weather and how I’m feeling I just might go. Later, I saw Skip at Sauced! as well as the cup, but you don’t get two pictures and mentions that easily. Well, I guess you do.

Sauced! bike rack

Next on my list was, of course, Sauced! with it’s large patio outside and its clientele of young artist types and Paseo dug-ins and just the normal neighborhood folks. Here’s the famous Sauced! bike rack with several bikes installed because those bike folks seem to flock to Ed’s Place.

One of the people I saw at Sauced was fellow blogger and fabulous artist/architect/sculptor, Larry P, who runs the pop*modern blog, where I found the “THOUGHT FOR THE DAY”. Larry quotes a construction foreman as saying:
“I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.”
my oh my but ain’t that the truth!

pop*modern

Larry P was incognito at Sauced!, thinking about a beer and maybe not a beer but a thousand other things, but I took his picture so maybe you could recognize him if you saw him in one of those grainy black and white videos from a convenience store robbery or maybe a Scorcese film.

Speaking of fellow bloggers, I also saw LongRydeHome in all her beauty at Sauced! She was talking to some guys and she introduced me and all, but I wasn’t paying attention and I don’t know who they are. I wish I’d read her blog post for Saturday and had known she started out having a pretty hard day and what sounds like a good cry.

longrydehome

In the event, I figured she was working her mojo with the big, handsome guys whose names I don’t know and I drifted over to another table.

Christopher at Sauced

At the next table, I found a couple of friends chatting, Christopher and Andre.
I am very jealous of Christopher because he speaks foreign languages, has an absolutely gorgeous woman in his life and has and does travel the world. He even has a steady paycheck, which is a rarity in Blogblah world.

Andre at Sauced

Andre, one of the cooler parts of a warm day, was deep into some kind of conversation around the table when I barged in, but it’s always great to see him. We talked about how dangerous a place it is between your ears sometimes.

BECAUSE I SAID SO, THAT'S WHY!!!

For example, I thought this blog was going to be a good idea and a monster was created. Far too often I find myself in wonder at how good an idea it seemed at the time and how not-so-good it turned out.
Other than the schemes and dreams, though, there’s also a guy in my head at the head of the committee that doesn’t seem to like me very much and is yelling about what an imperfect screw up I am.
I blog to make him shut up.

AN INVITATION

Worst Ever

Last, but not least, there will be an Inaugural Ballz celebration at my house on Jan. 17, the Saturday before Obama is sworn into office. It’s BYOB since I don’t drink, but there will be food, poker playing and a finale you won’t want to miss — the burning in effigy of the current Worst. President. Ever. Before that, we’re going to throw shoes and shoot BBs at the life-sized image I’ve had ever since Oz scared the hell out of me one April Fool’s Day a couple years back. Think 7:30-ish.

Blogging Buddies

John Long — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:09:58 +0000

MCARP’s Three Fourty A.M.

Swimming in Love

MCARP has a new “infatuation”, a teen crush that he’s all hush-hush about because it’s about him and not the anonymous her. Of course, he also has a dream about drowning that wakes him up. Calling Sigmond, Calling Dr. Freud.

Flibbertigibbit
I follow her on Twitter and I read her blog and I’m one of the boys she’s left behind (I’m L2 in fact), but now we’ve all been left behind by her love for her new 3G phone fueled by raises and bonuses in the oil and gas business.

MindOverMary with LongRydeHome

Longrydehome

KO starts the year very perky and then goes to Eureka Springs, Ark., spontaneously and gets elliptical again talking about the joys of being in a new town where no one knows your name.

MindOverMary

Baby sister does the holidays with panache: one drunk girlfriend falls face first off a barstool at their favorite watering hole and her son in law gets in a barroom brawl over the unwanted advances of an endangered pipsqueak towards his wife, sister and motherinlaw at the same bar. Only Mary could make this sound like a fun time and make me laugh about it.