And I'm back in black

A few weeks ago a friend of mine from Vegas came to visit.  After she went back home she sent me a Facebook message and signed off saying, "Stay black."

Which all lead to the following exchange:

Me:  Stay black?  I think I will.  Amazing.

Her:  Being black can also be a state of mind.

Me:  That's why when I leave a room I often say, "I'll be black."

Her:  Ha!  I bet you do.  I think you should start referring to yourself as a black man and see how concerned your family gets.

Me:  I might need some training.  I might have to axe you some questions about how to be a black man.

Her:  Axe away!  Actually, I will train you to be a loud and ghetto black woman.  They really don't put up with people's shit.  Plus, it would be more fun.  You might have to get a hair weave.

Me:  I'd love to be a loud, obnoxious black woman.  I'll start by yelling at the screen in movie theaters.  You can teach me more later.

Her:  That's a great start!  Also, remember to take offense to everything someone says to you.

Me:  I'm offended that you thought you had to tell me to be offended.

Her:  Bitch!  Calm yo black ass down!

Me:  That is absolutely the first time anyone has told me that.  Awesome!  I feel darker already.


It warrants mentioning that she just so happens to be black.  If you can't mock stereotypes, then what's the point?

More on this later.

Don't listen to a word I say

Last week one of my friends had a birthday party. I know her entire family, but don't see them often. When one of her sisters and her family arrived, I asked her eight year old boy if he remembered me. He said he didn't.

Later, while I was sitting on the couch talking to another friend, the eight year old came up to me and said, "I do remember you."

I said, "You do, that surprises me," as he walked away.

The guy I was sitting next to asked, "Why does that surprise you?"

I answered, "I thought I had him drugged better than that."


 Later, that kid's one year old sister came up to me and wanted me to hold her. I carried her around for a while and someone made a comment that I seemed to be really good with kids.

"What, this? Nah. I'm just getting my reps in so in 17 years when she's legal I'll be first in line to date her."


 In other words, don't ever invite me to a party.

That's the way it should be

Things I did last weekend to try and get over being "subdued."

Hiked to a waterfall. No, I didn't propose to anyone there. This time.

Drove to Bear Lake and spent some time on the beach, followed by a raspberry shake before heading back home.

Went on a very hot, very dusty hike to Lake Blanche. Might have done some damage to my knee along the way, but it was still worth it.

Went and looked at dinosaur bones. Didn't see my own there, so I guess I'm doing alright after all.

And of course, I self-medicated with candy. Lots and lots of candy.

No, you can't have any.

Life ain't pretty for a dog-faced boy

A friend from Vegas came up to visit me this weekend. In part so she could escape the heat, and in part to try and cheer me up about things not working out with The Model. We went to breakfast the first morning she was here, and had the following conversation:


Her: I feel like you're a lot more subdued than when you lived in Vegas.

Me: Really? Why do you say that?

Her: I don't know. I just feel like you're an old dog and I'm this annoying little puppy that you just have to kind of tolerate, but at some point you're going to snap and bite me.

Me: Ha ha. Well, if it helps you feel better, I'm in a much better mood than I would be if you hadn't come to visit. Also, I promise I won't bite you.


So there you have it. My blog sucks because I'm a subdued old dog.

There's a vulture at the end of my bed

My boys and I are at my parents for Father's Day weekend.  On the way here, we started telling knock-knock jokes in the car.  Mr M made up one that's entirely inappropriate, so of course, I have to share it.

"Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Your doctor."

"Your doctor, who?"

"You have cancer."


I'm seriously starting to wonder about that kid.

Leavin' without you, can't say no

About a week and a half ago, The Model who I'm not exactly seeing anymore but not exactly NOT seeing anymore was invited to play a show in LA by a musician friend of hers who has been hanging out with her a lot and helping her with her music.

Without going into too many of the details, after their show on Friday he wanted to get a hotel room with her.  She declined.  Apparently she thought they were only friends, but he thought they were more than that.  When she refused to get a room with him, he freaked out, threw her phone, laptop, and money out the window, and sped through downtown LA, running red lights so she couldn't get out of the car.  He then drove her to Sacramento against her will.  Luckily she was able to get away from him eventually and call the police for help.  I shudder to think of other ways it could have ended.

I found out about it the day after he was arrested when she got computer access and emailed me.  She was online later that night, so I was able to chat with her for a bit:

Me:  I'm so sorry that happened to you.  Anything I can do to help?

Her:  Come get me?  Hold me all the way home?

Me:  If you're serious, I'll do it.  I could leave right now and be there by about seven in the morning if I drove all night.

Her:  I couldn't ask you to do that - drive a thousand miles for me.

Me:  I would.  I wouldn't mind.  I wouldn't even make it awkward or abduct you or anything.

Her:  How is that even funny* right now?







*It was totally funny.

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like

As promised, here are a few more of the highlights and lowlights of the trip I took through Canyonlands.

Highlights:

- One guy was telling us about how he'd been divorced for three years.  "I guess at some point I need to stop talking about it to everyone and just move on."  The husband of the girl who invited me said, "It's alright.  It happens to the best of us."  I don't know if I've ever seen someone's head whip around as fast as his wife's did at that moment.

- I got to know some work colleagues much better than before, and met some really cool people who were friends with them.  You can't beat spending time with people who all get along and have the same interests.  Too bad the coolest (and perhaps cutest) girl lives in South Carolina.

- On the third day I rode in a tank top to see if I could do something about the terrible farmer's tan I have.  It didn't work.  Instead I just got really dirty, and looked really trashy (thus earning me the nickname Trail Trash).  That same day, two of the girls from camp ended up talking to some people in the camp next to us.  Apparently they described me to two girls there, and they expressed interest in meeting me because I seemed like their kind of guy.  That kind of stuff never happens when I'm camping.  It's good to have wing-women.

- The scenery itself was so incredibly gorgeous.  The pictures don't do it justice (do they ever?).  I wish I could go back.

- Dunking my head in the river just a mile or so before we began our final ascent out of the canyon felt sooooooo soooooo good.  Sometimes, that's the best thing you can do after three days without a shower.

Lowlights:

- The wind.  It was so bad for two and a half straight days.  One of my friends was living in Louisiana when Katrina hit, and she said they were worse than that at times.  If fighting it on the bikes wasn't bad enough, having sand blow across your face all night wasn't much fun either.  It blew so hard for so long that even though it finally died down on the evening of the third day, I still felt like wind was blowing on me the first night I was home in my own bed.  I woke up five times because of the "ghost wind" that night.  It was the weirdest sensation.

- When we were setting up camp the first night, we couldn't get the propane stove to work.  Some of the guys starting manipulating it, and ended up catching a propane can on fire.  The manliest man of the bunch reached in and twisted it off bare-handed, but for a few seconds there I was sure someone was going to lose an eye or a finger or something.  Fortunately, they finally figured out how to get it working.  The lesson?  When you buy a new stove, take it out of the box and set it up before embarking on a four day trip away from civilization.

- Apparently the last people to go to bed on the first night didn't put the fire all the way out.  When the winds really kicked up about 2 a.m., it blew some hot embers into my sleeping bag and caught it on fire.  Not the best way to start out a trip.  Luckily I didn't get burned myself.  That could've ended much, much worse.

- At the very beginning of the trip, like, as soon as I took my bike off the rack, I noticed a hole in the side of my front tire that my inner tube was bubbling out through.  I thought I was screwed from the beginning and wasn't going to get to ride.  One of the girls had some duct tape though, and we were able to reinforce it with that.  Luckily, it held up the entire 100 miles.  Who'd have thought?

- It took three days and many many Q-tips to finally get all the sand out of my ears.  Disgusting.

I'm sure there are things I'm forgetting about.  That's what happens when I wait a week to give you updates.  Oh well.

The sun it don't mean to hurt I guess

You know what I love most about my life?  When someone tells me on Wednesday that I should join them on a trip that lasts Thursday through Sunday, I can go ahead and do it if I want.

One of the other post-docs told me about a mountain biking trip she and some others had planned.  "You should come," she said.

"It sounds like a lot of fun.  Maybe I should."

"Oh, you're coming."

It was settled right then and there.  So, I packed my stuff that night, showed up at her house at 7:30 the next morning, and then we were off.  We drove about four hours to Canyonlands where we picked up the permits she and her husband had applied for a year ago, and then we were on the trail.  Six mountain bikes, two Jeeps loaded up with camping gear, food, etc., and a guy on a motorcycle.  Off on a four day ride along the White Rim Trail.

As you can see, the scenery was fantastic!

On average, we rode 25 miles a day.  We had two and a half days of very strong winds.  Some of the girls were actually blown off of their bikes.  Multiple times.  Luckily, the wind died down on the third day so we didn't have to fight it on the last climb out of the canyon (about 1200 feet in elevation over the course of about a mile and a half).  

At the onset, I wasn't sure I'd be able to ride the entire way, but I knew I had to give it a try.  I made it.  I can't believe I did, but I feel pretty awesome about it.  Of course, then I found out that there are people who do the whole thing in one day, then I didn't feel quite as bad ass.  Whatever.

I didn't tell my boss I was going.  I just told him when I got back.  His response?  "Good.  It sounds like fun."  He's awesome!

I might have some more stories to tell from the trip over the next couple of days.  Stay tuned.

Mama's gonna' keep baby healthy and clean

Here's just one of the many reasons why my mother is awesome:  She makes all the cards she sends out for birthdays, Christmas, etc.  They're fantastic.  Here's the one she made for my birthday last month.

I especially loved the note she wrote inside it.  You can tell by the qualifier she put at the end that she reads my blog =)

I'm posting this early because I don't know if I'll get around to it otherwise, but I just wanted to wish her a happy Mother's Day.  Thanks Mom!  For everything.  I love you. 

Hard on the knees, money in the bank

I'm out of town for the weekend. Again. Trying to do a lot of that these days I guess. The guy whose house I'm staying at is a great host.

 Him: Can I get you anything? Do you want some tacos?

 Me: No thanks. I already ate dinner on the way out.

 Him: Well, do you want something to drink? A beer maybe?

 Me: I'm good, but thank you.

 Him: How about a Vietnamese prostitute?

 Me: If you've got one, that'd be great!



 He didn't really have one handy :(

So I'll dig it up and bury it in the ground

One more story from my camping trip to the desert a couple of weeks ago.  We were out trying to catch lizards and snakes if we could find them, and my friend started talking about how we probably wouldn't see any rattlesnakes because people tend to kill them when they see them. 

"Which is kind of ridiculous when you think about it.  A lot of people you talk to about it will say they know someone who's been bit or whose kid has been bit.  Especially in the mid-west.  But if you look into it, there are actually very few documented cases of snake bites in the U.S., and even fewer deaths."

Later that afternoon he said he was bummed out that he hadn't seen any rattlesnakes.

I facetiously said, "I'm glad they've all been killed off.  I used to have six kids.  Now I have three.  Lost three to snake-bites.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to bury a toddler?"

He answered, "It can't be that hard.  I'd think about three or four shovelfuls ought to do the trick."

I've got friends in all the right places, I know what they want and I know they don't want me to stay

When we were coming home from the desert last weekend, my friend's check engine light came on just as we passed through a small town.  Being a Sunday afternoon, there wasn't any repair shop open, but he didn't feel comfortable pushing on to the next town and risking doing further damage to his vehicle, so we opted to stay the night so we could have it looked at in the morning.  After looking around town to see what our options were, we decided to rent a cabin at a campground in town.  There wasn't much to it, just a queen sized bed, some bunk beds, and an air conditioner.  It was good enough.

At one point, my friend looked at his lady friend and said, "What are we going to do tonight when we're having sex and [Minnow] is going to be right there?  You're going to have to keep it quiet."

She got really embarrassed.

I said, "You can be quiet or you can be loud, it won't matter to me.  I'll have my ear buds in."

"Are you serious?" she asked.

I answered, "Yeah.  That way I won't be able to hear it when you guys tell me to stop masturbating while I watch you."

I confide in wolves at night

Well, I made it back from the desert.  It was kind of nice to be out of cell phone service, with no internet or email access for four days, I'm not going to lie.  The only problem with that whole situation was that five friends were supposed to meet us on Friday afternoon, but they never showed up, and we didn't know what happened to them until Sunday afternoon.  Were we worried?  A little.  Was there anything we could do about it?  Not really.  

We spent most of the day on Friday just hiking around the hoodoos of Goblin Valley.  Not a bad way to spend some time if I do say so myself.  

We also just hiked straight out into the desert from our campsite, and saw some other cool views.  

The next day we hiked Little Wildhorse Canyon.  Despite what these pictures show, the place was PACKED with people.  Like, enough that I might not ever go back.  Oh, who am I kidding. Of course I'll go back.  I'll just try to do it on a weekday to avoid the crowds.  Instead, we ended up running whenever we could to put some distance between us and the other people.  That gave me a chance to beat a girl who was described to me by my friend as "the fastest girl I know" in several foot races.  It must suck for her to have to relinquish that title.  It sucks for me that I was sprinting in sandals and ended up ripping a blister off the side of one of my toes and getting a bunch of sand in it.  That made for a rather painful mile and a half walk to complete the hike.  The next morning my two toes were glued together with pus, so that was kind of gross too, but I got over it.  I think.  It doesn't look infected yet anyway.  Check back to see if I get gangrene.  

We caught a few species of lizards, and a pretty good sized bull snake.  We're biologist dorks, remember?  We find that sort of thing entertaining.  I have pictures, but am too lazy to post those right now.

I also saw about five different shooting stars while we were there, and even though I made wishes on all five, I didn't see any boobs all weekend, so I'm going to go ahead and call b.s. on whoever said wishes can come true.

I'll have some more stories to tell over the next few days, so you can look forward to that (or not).  It was a much needed distraction for me.  I'm glad I went.  I can't say that I'm glad to be back.  I wish I could've stayed for another week.

Well I can be lonely if she's happy, after all

You guys remember how a couple of posts ago I told you about the girl I was dating?  Well, it's hit a snag.  Already. It turns out that her ex-fiancee is making a major effort to win her back over.  She's now taking some time to try and figure out whether she wants to try one last time with him.  Awesome, right?

So anyway, I'm in a pretty lousy position.  It's not exactly over between us at this point, but it's not exactly NOT over between us at this point either. 

The last time we spoke I told her that I needed to see her one last time to try and get some closure.  She said okay, if that's what I really wanted.  I told her that it wasn't what I really wanted, that I wanted to be with her, but that it wasn't looking like that was going to happen (at least not from my perspective).  She asked me to try to ride this out a little while longer if I could stand to.  She knows it's not an easy thing to ask.  It's not an easy thing to do. 

I don't know what to do.  Some days I feel like she'd be worth the wait.  Some days I feel like it'll be even worse if I wait and she still ends up going back to him. Bottom line:  Dating sucks.

Instead of making a decision right now, I'm going camping with a few friends this weekend to try and take my mind off the entire situation.  So, if you'll excuse me, I've got some wilderness to disappear into.

This is the golden age, it's hard to imagine with the way I feel today

Me:  I'm seriously thinking about cashing out one of my retirement accounts and using it as a down payment on a motorcycle.

Friend:  Dirt bike, or street bike?

Me:  I want a BMW Enduro.  They're supposed to be good for both.

Friend:  It's probably a bad idea.  It's dangerous riding those things.

Me:  You do realize that I'm basically suicidal three out of every seven days anyway, right?

Friend:  Regardless of whether you're talking to [Girl] or not?

Me:  Regardless of her.  I've been this way all my life.

Friend:  But don't cash out your retirement.  What will you do then?

Me:  If it's really that dangerous, I'll probably be dead by the time I'm old enough to retire anyway.

Friend:  That's some solid logic.  I say go for it.

I want you to wander silent past my outstretched arms

Delta Spirit - California

I want you to move to California for yourself

I want you to find whatever your heart needs

I want you to move to California for yourself

But not for me

I want you to go out there and find somebody else

I want him to treat you like I know he should

I want you to find somebody new for yourself

If not for me

Ooooohhhhh ooooooohhhhhh

Ooooohhhhh ooooooohhhhhh

What of the feelings that I know you never felt

And all of the simple words you never said

I want you to keep them like a secret to yourself

They're not for me

I want you to wander silent past my outstretched arms

I want you to hide yourself from all I see

And though my heart will fight until its dying breath

You're not for me

Ooooohhhhh ooooooohhhhhh

Ooooohhhhh ooooooohhhhhh

I want you to move to California for yourself

I want you to find whatever your heart needs

I want you to move to California for yourself

But not for me

Some will die in hot pursuit in fiery auto crashes, some will die in hot pursuit while sifting through my ashes

Me: Just so you know, I'll be leaving town on Monday.

Sister-In-Law: For a long time? Where are you going?

Me: Going to Jackson Hole for some meetings. I'll be back on Thursday night, unless I can talk my boss into staying an extra day and going to Yellowstone.

Niece: Don't go to Yellowstone. It's going to explode.

Me: That'd be a pretty cool way to die.

Niece: If you die, can I have all your valuables?

Me: Uh, I don't have any.

And into the darkness we all go

I'm currently in Arizona visiting my kids. Mr M was on Spring Break, so I figured I'd try to come down take advantage of the last day or so before school started back up.

The first day I was here, Togers brought my ex-wife a Buddha statue (she's fascinated by anything from Asia).

She asked him where it came from.

He jokingly said, "Mom, I'm not going to tell you."

She asked again.

He insisted on keeping the joke alive. "Mom, you don't understand. I had to do things I'm ashamed of to get that for you."

"Well, I hope you brushed your teeth after."

They'll destroy you, but it ain't nothing, it ain't nothing to me

Today in the lab:

Grad Student: Do you ever watch that show River Monsters?

Me: I've heard of it, but have never seen an episode, even though it seems like it'd be interesting.

Grad Student: Well, I saw this episode the other night where they were after some introduced fish in Papua New Guinea that bites peoples' testicles off.

Me: What? Like skinny dippers? I don't think they could bite that hard through any clothing.

Grad Student: The natives go down and bathe or swim in the river or whatever, and these fish come along and bite off their sacks. It happened at least twice, and one of the guys died. He bled out after it happened.

Me: It wouldn't take long to bleed out if that really did happen.

Undergraduate: Is there a lot of blood flow to that part of the body?

Me: There can be, if my morning wood is any indication.

Deer Tick - Ashamed

I am the boy your mother wanted you to meet

But I am broken and torn with heels at my feet

And with your purest light why don't you shine on me?

Well, I should've been an angel

But I'm too dumb to speak

Now as she gets nearer the visions get clearer

I'll kneel and weep and I will hold her dear

Oh, if your eyes water you've got your favorite number to spin

And oh, oh

What a crying shame

A crying shame

What we became

Murdered my throat screaming bloody all night

Hit him with a book and how he crumbles

Oh you should have seen how the arches tumble

They're golden no more and now I'm smiling in my blood

I'm caught in a whirlwind

I'm goin' to heaven

I'm standing on trial and it's painted on canvas

An eternal testament to how we are so animalistic

And oh, oh

What a crying shame

A crying shame

What we became

I bowed my head in the morning light and said goodnight

I held her hand and I, I kissed her eyes

Stumbled down the stairs and hang myself on high

And I started for the town that I have a front yard

And died