twas the night before christmas.

And you know what that means....the Old Photos box.

face to face.

I just happened across some old photos and realized with a mild surprise that my reaction to them was almost purely devoid of melancholy, pretty much just pure happy memories. I mean really, this could mean something significant, cause that's pretty fkn uncharacteristic. At least it seems a good direction in which to head, because as we all know Nostalgia Will Waste You. Here's a sample, all circa 1997-1999: above, It Laid In Bed With NyQuil Eyes, location indeterminate but probably NYC; below, normal Atlanta kitchen behavior circa 1997-1999; below that, me obviously harassing my Nan in Phoenix, 1999.

reductionism.

We're reaming out the apartment. We've been reaming out the apartment for weeks now, it's fantastic. The reaming (last time I'll use it, promise) is now extending to the digital realm, as I go through piles and piles of CD-Rs looking for...well, nothing specific, just stuff we've inadvertently lost contact with over the last 12 years or so.

Like most of the photos from when we lived in Siena in 2000-2001, for example. This one above is taken from the city walls, a view that we had never seen until we were about to leave, when Mara spent some time in the hospital on the outskirts of town.

Mostly our happiest view was this, taken from our amazing 2nd apartment's balcony:

clearly i remember.

This is where we were 12 years ago, Firenze. My camera was taking pictures that were about 60kb each.

Tomorrow I'm making falafel from scratch.

too, mara.

Hey I also have not yet mentioned: Mara is in America for a month. I couldn't say anything before now b/c she was surprising her parents, but now the baby has popped out of the cake and everyone in Atlanta is very very pleased.

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On Monday I start an experimental regimen, one that's designed to corral some of my historically uncorrallable tendencies. You may or may not know this, but I have what people and Wikipedia call an addictive personality. It's something that I've known about for a long time, but it wasn't always the annoying/monstrous problem it has become, I guess because the things I got addicted to at first (reading, playing guitar, researching, working) had mostly functional and positive side effects (this is called foreshadowing).

At some point, or over a long period of time, this changed, I guess mostly in the last 5 or 6 years, probably in conjunction with our closing of our record shop, because I no longer had to "be somewhere" every day. So things gradually got worse. And by now I'm at the point where my problem is not only claustrophobically, profoundly frustrating, but undeniably severely detrimental to most areas of my health as well.

So! I figure that if the world is going to end in a few months, it would be nice by then to have at least figured out some small ways to understand/manage/control myself so that I'm not the kind of used-up, tattered thing of a person I was as of last week. You know, so I'm in decent shape when I have to fight off the apocalypse zombies that will eventually try to lurch their way into our (nonexistent) storm cellar.

So that's what all this is about. OK! Nice work everyone...thanks for sharing. See you tomorrow, it's Day Four I think.

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bye.

Heading home in a couple hours, hopefully we'll catch you swingin' on the flippity-flop.

Above: me, 1971.
Below: me, last nightish, eating some perfectly fried butterflied shrimp with coleslaw and lots of Texas Pete to convince our nervous systems to stop reporting pain for a while.


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alligator point, 1990.

The person on the right in this photo just sent me this. Yes, Alligator Point is really what this beach was called 20 years ago (we were in Florida).

And that really is me on the left, somehow. Obviously this was before I knew how to cook. And yet I seem to already have known that having pockets full of beer was Good Planning.

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retroperspective.

We found a bunch of quite entertaining old photos back at the Tomanek compound yesterday, or two days ago, or whenever we left. I'm going to start posting them when I get a chance. Above, we have some douchebag mockery from pre-meltdown 2007 (which reminds me, LATFH). Below, a very serious picture from 2004.

















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Yes. So...rounding up some lessons learned and other miscellany from our most recent On The Road segment:

• Sometimes you cash in. Because we used to travel a lot but don't so much anymore, we've had a ton of Frequent Flyer miles just sitting around for years now waiting to be annulled by one or more airlines' financial collapse. So we decided to dust them off for this last transatlantic flight by upgrading to first class.
  
  Was it worth it? I don't know: a Delta Frequent Flyer mile is equal to how many Euro these days? None. So, yes, considering that it didn't cost us any actual money, yes I would say that it was worth every bit of zero actual money.
  
  Complex calculations would be necessary to quantify the value of little things like adequate leg room, reclinability, and not having to sleep while touching elbows with a stranger. Not-so-complex calculations could assess the downside of babies (and their asshole parents) being allowed in first class. Not all babies, mind you, just those with asshole parents. But overall I think I can say that first class made flying less shitty. Oh, but the food? Not good.
  
  
• Sometimes you miscalculate. One day I was shopping for Latin American exotica in a small Mexican/Peruvian grocery near the Big Chicken, and a woman came up to me. Here is an approximate transcript of our conversation:
  
  Her: (unintelligible)
  Me: I'm sorry, non habla Español.
  Her: (unintelligible)
  Me: non habla Español, sorry!
  Her: You don't speak English?
  Me: No I don't speak English.
  Her: Ah. Interesting...
  Me: Yes.
  
  What follows is four minutes of me pretending not to speak English. I think my thinking was that, if I didn't speak English or Spanish, I could avoid an awkward conversation. Wrong: it turns out that she is Kenyan and is happy to learn about other non-English-speaking cultures like mine.
  
  Her: (holding up can of corn) In my country we call this "maize". What do you call it in your country?
  Me: "Mais".
  Her: Ah....very interesting.
  Me: Yes.
  
  I felt bad after about ten seconds of this, because she seemed sweet and in fact it's possible that she may even have been hitting on me. But in a conversation, once you have pretended to not speak English, it is tough to change your position on this without appearing really crazy. So we talked for another three minutes about corn, and the weather, and then she left me there, silently congratulating herself on not being the most fucked-up immigrant in town.
  
  
• Sometimes you say "meh". A couple Fridays ago when we were in Virginia-Highland, we were naturally looking for somewhere to eat. Somewhere interesting, dark, and within walking distance. We ended up at Pura Vida (watch out for annoying website music, menu here), one of Atlanta's 50 Best Restaurants, according to the AJC.
  
  It was HOT out, and the interior was a perfect antidote to the sweltering mess we'd been walking around in: cool breezes from ceiling fans everywhere, and so dark that we could barely see each other when we first went in.
  
  We sat at the bar and tried to return to a normal human body temperature via icy cold caipirinhas and mojitos. The cocktails were frankly perfect. The food? Not exactly bad in any way, but nothing I don't think we couldn't do ourselves, and nothing I would be in a hurry to order again. I'll take some of the blame for this, I ordered kind of conservatively: shrimp cocktail diablo with butternut gelee; duck confit with caramelized plantains; fried zucchini blossoms with smoked sour cream. All good, but just the tiniest bit boring. Upshot: we had a good time, but not really because of the food. And our bartender had a great laugh, like a honking goose, a total mismatch with his physical appearance.
  
  
• Sometimes you run out of time. I never did get to a Waffle House. Or Chat Patti. Or a single one of the current barbecue darlings. Boo. But I'll be back in October.
  
  
• Sometimes you forget what's exotic. One day when we went to Alon's, we bought a piece of stinky cheese, a bottle of rosé, and some flatbread crisps. 23 dollars, at least twice what we'd pay here. Cheese and wine prices in America continue to amaze.
  
  
• Sometimes you reap what you sow. This was the first time I've been to Atlanta in the summer in many years, and seeing what came out of Jeanie's garden this trip made me want to Do That Myself.
  

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halloween 1996.

In 1996, this look was still ironic. People didn't actually look like this in real life again yet.






















Now the question is, when will people start non-ironically dressing like Sheep Fucking Man here?

UPDATE: Mara has pointed out that the subtleties of this costume were obviously lost on me. The actual name of this costume was "Ewe Fucking Farmer". Get it? That's a pun.

You know what though: I don't care. He'll always be Sheep Fucking Man to me.






















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the jimmy picture.

I made a grievous error this morning (in addition to originally spelling "grievous" wrong, duh) and started looking through old pictures. Real pictures, like on photographic paper. Talk about nostalgia, baby...I got a regular damn ol' suffusion going on here.

But I knew the risks going in, didn't I. The reason I took a chance at all in the photo box this morning was to find The Jimmy Picture: the archetypical photodocumentation of the Mooperbird in a state of nearly perfect happiness. And there you have it, above, circa 1998 maybe, on the streets of Manhattan, cracking wise somewhere in Chelsea with a hot dog and a strawberry Julius.

Hopefully I'll tell the whole story here in a few days, including the history of Jimmy the Pizza Boy and a sidebar about Mara's mystical effect on the men of Chinatown (for example, she's walking down the street wearing a shirt with the number 33 on it, a passing Indian man says in a thick accent "let me be 34"). But first another teaser photo or two from the archives. Let's see. How about this: sometimes when you see a movie from the 80s, you're like: people didn't really look like that, did they?
















I guess the point is, there are two girls in the 1988 photo above who have been "my girlfriend" for more than a year or so at some point. And then they both showed up at my wedding in 1997:
















That's Wendy and Mara. They're obviously hugely uncomfortable with the whole situation.















You can see Mara's tongue if you look real close. Me? I was busy a few yards away, harassing my passed-out dad on the front lawn.
















I like the idea that I'm trying to chat up the pile of girls in the driveway despite my dad lying unconscious in front of me. "So hey, hey. HEY. Ladies? Hey, what are you guys doing later. Yo, me and homes here (motions at Dad) know a thing we can check out after this...Oh, yeah, totally, don't worry...he's cool to drive."

I'd like to emphasize that this is the only known example of my dad being drunk. He made a special effort for me that evening, and boy did it pay off, unless you had to be on the plane home with him the next day...then, not so much.

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