I'm looking for people to participate in a huge book exchange! You can be anywhere in the world. All you have to do is buy your favorite book (just one) and send it to a stranger (I'll send their details through in a private message).

You'll receive up to 36 books in return, to keep. They'll be favorite books from strangers around the world!

If you're interested in taking part, please comment "IN" below and I'll send you the details.

(The above is boilerplate from the organizer. I'm sending out my book today - let me know if you want to play! I am happy for the people who come after me to do used books and if the wording shifts to "all you have to do is send your favorite book to a stranger, new or used" I can get behind that.)

I recently received an e-mail from the folks planning my latest high school reunion. As in reunions of the past, I am completely torn about attending.

When I first learned of this year's reunion, the plan was that I would extend the trip to show my partner around my old stomping grounds. There was also the aspect of feeling somewhat more secure because he would be with me and be so excited about everything. He is from the US Pacific Northwest, and has never been to the New York City area, where I grew up. There were informal plans of various things to do - visit my sister at the Jersey Shore, take in a Broadway show, etc. But he can't go, so I would be going alone.

That isn't a big deal on the face of it - he and I will make that sightseeing, memory-exploring trip at some point.

But as the years have gone by, I have become increasingly introverted - like, beyond what anyone realizes. Socializing is exhausting for me. It literally takes me days to recover. There was a social event in which I participated several years ago, when a friend came to town with her longtime playwright partner to see a performance of a play he had written. And I goofed that up. I doubt he even thinks about it, but it sticks with me. I was wiped out for the better part of a week.

The most recent socializing was performing a wedding. There was no way to back out once I was committed - I was the center of the storm as the officiant, and I could not change my mind. I really didn't want to, and I didn't - but man, was it difficult. It was my affection for those marrying that kept me from reversing course. It was all great - lovely day, lovely company - but I think the major plus was that the wedding was super small: two people getting married, two witnesses, and me. I mean, I was all in black and polyester and it was 100 degrees, but I would not have traded that day for any in the last five years.

When social events come along, my initial response to any invitation is to be flattered and have a sincere desire to attend. As the date draws closer, there is an increasing sense of dread and panic. If I power through and commit to attending, I spend days preparing mentally and organizing to be able to go through with it. It is about storing the mental energy as well as psychological defenses. It was a bit easier to do this when I was on certain medications, but it is always a challenge.

The energy store is somewhat critical, but the psychological part is often just as important. I don't look in the mirror and see what others see. Every social insecurity I've ever had is right in my face. Don't talk too much. Don't overshare. No loud colors. Accept how you look, and don't think about it. Watch your voice. Watch your hands. Watch your posture. Be unremarkable, inoffensive, and as normal as you can. All of this can easily become Just don't do it and save everyone a lot of grief.​​​​​​​

In April 2018, I participated in the NoH8 campaign by having my picture taken by photographer Adam Bouska. I have not modeled in 30 years, and there is a picture taken of me perhaps once a decade, not counting official photos for licenses or other IDs, so doing this was HUGE. It is a cause I believe in, and once I told my partner about it, there was no backing out. He was so frickin' excited. And he knew it was a major thing for me to do, and it is now his favorite picture of me, largely because I didn't back out, and I did push through and violate my comfort zone. Only a very small handful of my friends commented to me privately about this, because they knew what a difficult and momentous thing for me to do.

So now I am thinking about this reunion, and I don't really know what to do. We, in my graduating class, lose more classmates every year. One of the more recent hit me particularly hard. His death was sad, but the saddest part for me was his fear. I wish I could have saved him from that. Having been dead myself, I am no longer afraid of it. The losses still sting when another passes, but I also know from my own experience the peace that comes, and it isn't something easy or even appropriate to communicate.

I digress. The point is, with each passing year, the opportunity to see any of the people that I might see at such a reunion diminishes. We're all getting older, it's just a fact of life. And with age also comes ever-expanding families and perhaps reduced ability to participate. In short, this may be one of my last chances to be a part of something like this, or see many of these people.

But there is that ability to mentally prepare - I may not have that luxury. Traveling is stressful, and I can't afford to be there for many days before the event trying to prep. A Friday night reunion might mean traveling Thursday, at best, after working the first half of the week. I'd probably fly back Sunday. 

And then I have to quiet the internal insecurities - with the added bonus of revisiting every misstep, every self-image, every memory of high school. For the greater part, I enjoyed high school - I had great friends, great experiences, and I have amazing memories - but there were also negative influences, both within school and without. I lived in the town for seven years leading up to my graduation, so there are a lot of memories and experiences to comb through.

As a logical, thinking adult, I don't care what others think about most things, but there will always be opinions that I value among people who meant so much to me for so many years. Introverts select their friends very, very carefully, and for me, it really is that methodical. A lot of people I admired in high school will be there, and their impressions remain important. I mean, that's ridiculous on its face, and I know that. None of them have any impact on my daily life now, and I shouldn't be a prisoner to the impressions of my teenage self.

And then there are those who were... we'll say abusive. I am not confrontational, but the adult me is not the teenage me, and I don't tolerate bullies now. It is the one situation that triggers me, and it startles people how I react, usually on behalf of others. My partner is protective and has a much shorter fuse, and it is probably a good thing that he wouldn't be with me if the wrong person said something that he thought was disrespectful. I really don't want to be on the news.

I don't know which population will be more present, and I don't know if I want to go through all this to be around the wrong group. I can't decide if it would be positive or healthy. I know there are people I would see that would likely overshadow any negativity. I really do miss a lot of them sometimes, but thanks to Facebook and other social media, I have stayed in touch with anyone even remotely of interest. Social media interaction is not the same as the real world, however, even if it is so much easier for an introverted, shy, social anxious personality.

So I have four weeks to the deadline to make a decision. We'll see how it goes.

I've been working on a project that is bringing plastic talking lightup ridable sheep to Burning Man.

I got drafted into making the corral. I designed a barn too, but it got nixed. We made signage for the corral. I spent july asking and asking for people to draw me sheep, robot sheep, sheep robots.  . . and then turned the submissions into signs. I'm still working on ones that says "Baa means Baa" and "Sheep consent to photos, but ya gotta check if the attending humans do". Here are some of the signs art:

With some other sheepsters, I spent yesterday making 5 flags for the corral.  I am very proud of these sheepy flags <3 <3 <3

Also, since I have a glowforge laser cutter in my basement, I offered to make swag. Sheep coaster sets: 

And Sheep pendants (matchbox for scale):

This project has been a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to seeing it all come together out in the desert at the end of the month! It's about flocking time!

PS: The sheep themselves look like this. And they talk, each of the dozen sheep have different voices/personalities :-)

The title is dogs, but it's really one particular dog that is consuming my throught cycles at the moment. Gna, my boxer/greyhound mix, she's the one on the left in my profile pic.

She had a tumor removed earlier in the year. It was an aggressive cancer. The only option was an exploratory surgery, open up her abdomen and see if they could find the root and take all of it. And hope it wasn't growing from an organ. Really, that was not an option, due to her age and general un-well state of being.

So, we've gone through the balance of spring and most of the summer and she's been a couch potato's couch potato. Sleeping away the days. Within the last couple of weeks she's been digging and chewing on herself. A sure sign that a dog is stressed. I made a vet appointment for an assessment.

But last night she started denning up in her crate and wouldn't come out to go to bed. I let her sleep in her crate downstairs. This morning she wouldn't go out. I let her sleep. She did come out for breakfast and went out in the afternoon. She's spent the rest of the day in bed.

Now, my once in a lifetime dog, Gage, lingered with cancer. I really feel that I was keeping him alive for my comfort, not his. So tonight I'm staring down the barrel of having to let her go in the morning.

In general I don't shy away from anything. But there's a part of me that is hoping that tomorrow never comes.

So I had a random idea in the wee hours this morning and thought I would jot it down. These are the notes I wrote down to remember the concept. I just thought you guys might enjoy seeing what pops into my brain before I imbibe enough coffee to kill a mortal man.

I'm not sure what I will do with it (if anything) - this probably falls under that heading of 'too many ideas, too little time'. That said, I could see doing this as:

• Just a collection of sketches / drawings / digital paintings that I expound on in the blog posts I make about them.
• An illustrated short story. (Note: this seems like a concept I should do. A lot.)
• If all my other stuff suddenly, magically gets done, a book. When people talk about writing to market, this seems like exactly what they mean - the nexus of the author's interests and what seems to be 'currently hot' in the market. (My understanding is that Post Apoc is hugely popular right now. Kinda the 'zombies' of 2018.)

The genre of 'post apocalyptic fantasy' is probably already a thing (how could it not be?!) but I hadn't ever heard of it. That was a big part of why this concept came spewing out of me so fast - figuring out how to connect the dots was exciting.

*****

• Our hero is a half orc who lives in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest. (See drawing above.)
• Mother (human) taught him to avoid humans - explained that they would never leave him alone if they learned of his existence.
• Hiroshima nukes opened a rift to the Fae Realms. Humans didn't know it. The fae took many years to reveal themselves and when they did, it didn't go well. War ensued.
• World note: Tech doesn't work (think EMP) - something done by the Fae to counter the nukes. Thus, you know, post apoc.
• Humans move into our hero's territory - why? (Zombies?)
• Fae are returning to the world after having fled the war back to their realms of origin - why? Migration because something is happening in their world? (Holy Hell, has this been done to death, but also, it works.) Does this cause them to create zombies to 'clean house' before moving to our world?

I frequently foster dogs for a friend's rescue. It's usually a good thing. This would be one of the times that it isn't.

I've fostered dogs whose owners were murdered in front of them. Dogs that were abandoned in an apartment and only rescued just shy of death's door. Dogs that were owned by an elderly person who had to be placed in a facility. If I had to make a bet, that's what I think happened to my latest dog, Mr. Pickles.

Mr. Pickles, or Pickles as I call him is probably a Fox Terrier / Mexican Hairless crossbreed. He's small, ~ ten pounds or so, long legged and roach backed. He's got almost no hair on his back and the fur on the top of his head has that wispy quality like the Mexican Hairless that have crests. He's six to eight years old and when he was found wandering stray, his left eye was detached and badly infected. So the vet took it.

After he moved into my house I discovered that he is not housetrained. It's not uncommon for a small dog that lives with an elderly person is paper trained, but never housebroken.

But Pickles can't live with me foreever. So in order to have any chance at finding a good home I have to housebreak him.

More news on this story as it occurs.

I've never said or typed "herml-blermbl" before, but it just seems to fit.

I have a buncha half-written drafts here on OPW and I want to finish them and tell y'all what's been happenin' (and also to remind myself later what was happenin'), but I just... don't do it. Herml-blermbl.

So, here's a redux:

-- Beatlefest (July 16-21) was unfathomably satisfying and I really feel like we pulled off a nigh-impossible feat with very high quality... the highest to date. We had top-notch musicians/players who were all incredible readers, which was gonna be the only way we'd ever get to play 215 songs over 6 nights. Reading the charts, listening to each other, and watch Rich or Joe for the ending for the songs that faded out on the actual record. I'm really proud of what we did, and I'm excited it's now officially an annual thing and has caught the attention of all of the Delaware tourism groups and chamber of commerce and politicians and hoteliers and stuff... so they're gonna throw money and marketing behind it next year to make it something that the state celebrates and hotels offer package deals and yadda yadda yadda.  They're also trying to move it to the 1200-seat Grand Opera House, which is pretty amazing. 

-- I jumped back on Facebook because people were "very upset" they couldn't tag me in BeatleFest photos. #firstworldproblems  It is time to disable that shit nowwwww. 

-- We are derg-sitting Riley The Mutt again; she belongs to Nick and Nancy D'Argenio. They actually spell her name "Rylee" but when this derg is here she is MY derg and that's how I spell it, so there. I love having a doggo in the house. She is such a good, good, good, and pretty girl. JD was such a guy-dog, but Rhieleighe is so dainty and girlie, even though she's a mutt and not any kind of fancy foo-foo breed. She's still very much a doggo, though. 

-- I give the WeRateDogs guy sole credit for inventing the little dog-lingo the entire internetz now uses have when talking about dogs. The whole "heckin' good doggo 12/10 would pet" sentence structure amuses and delights me (and I didn't even do it right).

-- I've had a co-worker for the last 6-ish years that I've only ever worked with remotely... I'd never met him before in person. But this week he was teaching in Philly so we invited him down for dinner and for a jam session, because he's about to retire and do music full-time. I'm so happy for him! We had a great time. He said that he's the only democrat/non-Trump guy in his entire neighborhood... ugh, poor guy. I let him drink from our ITMFA mug and he was delighted!

-- Andrew Durkin (my musical collaborator since 1986) flew to the east coast today, and he'll be here for a week. From this-coming Monday to Thursday we're gonna get together and work on Sunnyvale material... Sunnyvale is the band that is me, Matt, Andrew, and Leo. (In the '90s I was in a regionally-successful band called The Evelyn Situation with both Andrew and Leo (and some other folks)... so getting to make music with them plus Matt is a musical dream come true for me.  We're gonna rehearse and record at my folks' place in north Jersey. 

-- My parents' 51st anniversary is this coming week, so we're taking them out to dinner on Sunday night. I asked my brother how many folks from his clan were coming, and he said "Just me and Mindy" (his wife).  I said, "No kids?" He said, "One kid is at camp and the other one has something else going on, and the oldest lives near college now. So yeah, just me and Mindy."  Call me weird, but whether I was 14, 17, or 22 (the ages of their 3 kids), I never had a choice about whether or not I'd attend a grandparent-related event... it was expected I'd go.  It feels weird to me that it's just kinda optional for them.  My folks are gonna be really disappointed, but hey, it's not my call. 

-- Matt and I are going to Burning Man this year... the last time we went was 2011, which was Matt's first time, and we left before the man even burned.  This year we are determined to stay for the man burning (Saturday before Labor Day) as well as the temple burn (Labor Day eve), but I'm not sure if it'll be do-able given his near-daily anxiety attacks.  He is hoping for some mystical, magical, cosmic ass-kicking. Perhaps some, um, molecular encouragement will help... or it'll kill him when his brain separates from his body permanently. We'll see. Or we won't.  But either way, this is the 10th Anniversary of Patty and Mike's Burning Man wedding that I officiated, so they wanna have a Vow Renewal Ceremony with me at the helm again. It won't be nearly as elaborate, but just a little something to commemorate a decade of awesome. 

-- We had our 8th Hot Breakfast Summer Blowout at Bellefonte Cafe on Friday the 27th and it was sold out since the Wednesday before. That was nice to hear. 

-- My music schedule is super-busy between now and the end of November. This is cool.

-- There's a new edition of ITIL (the thing I teach) coming out in Q1 2019, and the ITIL Mothership has chosen me (me!) and my videos to be the one they wanna help be first to market.  This pleases and flatters me greatly. It's nice to be recognized by the creator of the thing I'm a specialist in that yep, they agree I don't suck.  Woot! 

-- Food has been getting stuck in my dumb esophagus for years, which means I only eat a few bites per meal... which means I'm down to 111 pounds which is TOO DAMN SCRAWNY​​​​​​.  So my GP finally prescribed a thing I can take before I eat that will loosen things up and allow me to eat a full meal without having to pause after two bites and sit awkwardly and uncomfortably.  I'm so excited!! Hopefully I'll get some friggin' meat back on my bones. I look like Skeletor. 

-- I sleep on a towel every night and soak through it every night. Very sexy. I wish someone would yank out my girl parts... I DON'T NEED THEM.

--Matt's MiniCooper (Janice) doesn't have too much life left in her, unfortunately. So we need to decide: New Mini? Or Chevy Cruze which we fell in love with unexpectedly on a business trip when I was randomly assigned one by the rental car place?

-- I paid for the NYTimes digital edition as well as for access to the digital versions of their crosswords. I loooove their mini-crosswords (they take me anywhere from 40 seconds to 2-3 mins). But their full-size crosswords start easy on Monday and get harder through the week. I can only do their Monday and Tuesday ones, and then they get too hard for me because I'm dummm. But I love doing them. 

-- I'm sorry I haven't been posting or commenting here much... but I have been reading everything.  I love you all very much. 

-- I'm forgetting stuff but I need to sleep. 

(In fact I just nodded off and dreamt that Nik Everett is Matt's cousin Amy's grandfather and he was giving a speech on a baseballfield about having to give her away at her wedding. But she wasn't there to hear the speech so I was recording it with my phone and then a muslim hardcore/speedmetal band started setting up around him and just started playing playing in full burqas... but they turned out to be guys just trying to push the envelope... but they were really good! My brain is weird.)

Okbye.

Okay, I have a canine problem.

You all know that I love dogs way more than most humans probably should. It's kinda a thing. And it's fun or even cute most of the time, but...

Well, we've all had that experience where we're traveling and we see someone that we're just sure is Soandso from Suchandsuch. Only it's not. It's just someone who resembles that person. And they look enough like that person that you immediately felt a kind of bond with them (or animosity depending on how you feel about Miss or Mr. Soandso).

Well, I recently saw a tweet by Cherie Priest about an opinion her dog was displaying with their face.

I felt an immediate bond with the dog.

From a tweet.

Because (I eventually realized) it's features are a bit of an amalgam of several dogs I've known and been fond of over the years.

Yeah. I have a problem.

I got a new roof put on my house yesterday. I mean, it's not something you rush into. The old roof had been on my house since 1990-ish. So I guess it was fully amortized. Someone must have paid off the inspector, because said old roof had neither a ridge vent or a bathroom fan vent. And this is where the story starts to resemble "for want of a nail..." Because for want of a ridge vent, the plywood on the southern face of the roof started to warp and buckle from nearly 30 years of overheating and no way to vent the heat.

My roof, my roof

My roof was expired

Anyhow, I didn't want to tell the story of the many lacking features of my old roof. But rather how things went awry in the quest to replace the roof.

I bought my house in 2000. The home inspection detailed the lack of a ridge vent, and probable leak at the waste stack vent. No problem! says I. I can save up a couple thousand and get it done. After all, I was working a good contract for a major chemical company. And a week after I closed and moved into the house my contract got cancelled. Panic. Unemployment, scrape by for a couple months, get another contract with a major electrical supplier, nice raise. All is hunky dory. A few months later, a different contract, this time with a internation financial institution. That contract wraps up in July of 2001, but there's a follow-on contract in October in Dallas.

9/11 happens. Plane flies into my employer's building (WTC 1) and it falls on my client's building (WTC 7). And I get to watch it on live TV. Stress. Not a patch on the people who were there. And God bless the people trapped in the buildings and on the planes. But still, stress.

Dallas contract gets cancelled. A year and a half of unemployment, punctuated at odd intervals with small contracts and a last minute reprieve with the same company and same client. Do good work and people remember you when there's more work. Thank you Matt. You know who you are.

Then a couple of months later, just as a third unemployment extension is going to run out, the light at the end of the tunnel. I land a job with a local IT body shop. They farm me out to a local convenience store chain for their ops center. That works for a couple of years, but at a significant cut in pay. Hey, the bills are getting paid.

That job turns into another gig at a local bank and in 2009 I'm nearly back to where I was back in 2000. And then the compay that bought the local IT body shop decides to tell my client that the stuff they contracted to do, they weren't going to do. My client tells them that the contract they have? Yeah, we're not goint to do that any longer.

My last day at the bank, my oldest niece dies. I get told at lunchtime. I had to go back and work the afternoon. It's a testament to my fortitude that I didn't freak out. But yeah, more stress.

And more unemployment in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Job prospects are non-existant in the Carter-esque economic malaise. I get a lifeline from my brother that keeps me afloat, if barely. But the bills are getting paid (mostly) and the wolf is only at the garden gate, not the front door.

And then I get into a hit and run accident in 2015. Yeah, 6 years of borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and a drunk hits my vehicle and bolts. Made me wish I had a dashcam (I do now). My right shoulder is screwed up. I start sleeping on my left side exclusively. 

For the next two years.

Revolving door doctors. More physical therapy than I've ever had before. And finally I found a good orthopedist who went through all the steps, and found the problem. Surgery, more physical therapy and eventually, 3 years to the day I was hit, I'm through with medical care.

Small settlement from my insurance (but that's another story). And I can finally pay off my house. Oh yeah, I've never replaced my roof.

So, finally, the roof is done.

The point of writing this all down?

At my lowest, in what I call "The Years of Suck", I re-watched Castaway. It was a good movie. Tom Hanks in the period when he could do no wrong. His character was helpless in that movie. He had no agency to change his situation, or even to kill himself. Until apparent random chance, wind and tide, brought him the tools for his salvation. And even then it was a struggle.

He says, "...And that's when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive. Somehow. I had to keep breathing. Even though there was no reason to hope. And all my logic said that I would never see this place again. So that's what I did. I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, and gave me a sail. And now, here I am. I'm back..."

In no way was I a castaway. But I have refered to my house as my lifeboat over the years. 

I have to say this to you, and take what comfort from it that you may. Keep treading water. Keep struggling, even when you don't think you can change your course or make a goal you desire. Because your ability to conceive of events outside your grasp, and how those events may impact the arc of your own little story, is insufficient to the task. Sometimes, it's just the ability to hang in there, keep breathing, keep putting one foot in front of the other even though you believe you'll never get where you want, that makes the difference that gets you to your goal.

The improbable can happen and it can happen to you. And that's not a bad thing.

But for tonight I shall sleep under my new roof. And for a change, the pitter patter of rain on my roof won't make me grind my teeth.

I recently turned 50 years old. You would think that I've thought of myself as a grown-up for a long time, but I'm sure most of you don't really, in your heart, no matter how old you are, feel much more than 20. I know my body won't ever be like it was when I was 20, but in my head I don't really feel like I've changed too much.

One of the things that has never changed about me is that I hate confrontation and I always want to help people even if I know I'm getting myself into something messier than I want to deal with. But today I really proved that I have grown up and learned some lessons.

A high school friend of my daughter's (who's 22) asked if she could move in with me because she's taking a semester off from college and she can't take living with her parents any longer. A big part of me really wanted to help her. I love a lot of my daughter's friends like they're kids of my own and while her parents aren't physically abusive I know they're overbearing and hard on her. But she was asking if she could move in with me for five months! If it had been a week or a month, I probably would've said yes, but 5 months with another person in my house?! I just couldn't do it.

My husband and I have only been married for three years and quite frankly we're still like newlyweds. I love that my daughter is grown and succesfully out on her own and that my husband and I get to spend a lot of our time alone. So I told my daughter's friend this frankly and she said she understands, but I still feel badly. I was tempted to carry on the conversation (this was in texts) to try to offer advice, but I was worried that if I continued I would get sucked into letting her stay for some unspecified time. So I just let the conversation drop.

And that's how I know I've grown up because I know where to draw the line. To say "you are a grown-up now too and you have to figure these things out for yourself." But it still leaves me feeling a bit wretched. :(