b.rox

Next to Nothingness by Diane Yuri/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
It seems in our culture we are afraid of silence and emptiness. We fill our days with activities and rush about and chatter a lot, but underneath this superficial noise many of us feel somewhat hollow. If we pause we may get a glimpse of the [...]

It’s shaping up as something of a tradition in its own right. My birthday has an overt tendency to suck. A quick recap may be in order.

42: “Guess who forgot? That’s right. Xy.”
41: “I’ve got no festivity in my life whatsoever. Xy didn’t even say ‘Happy Birthday’ this morning, and she has report card conferences [...]

Michael gave me a lift early Sunday morning to pick up the car from where Xy had abandoned it on Airline Highway the night before. It wouldn’t start. While we were unloading her Xmas shopping a cop pulled up and chastised us for leaving the car there overnight. He waited while I called Progressive Roadside [...]

I got the key to our new house this morning. It’s starting to seem like reality.
My mother-in-law was down here for a week. It wasn’t possible, logistically speaking, for me to go to Houston and leave Xy alone with our daughter. Her workday begins before the daycare opens. But this worked out well for us, [...]

Oops. I thought we had a couple more weeks before we closed on the houses we are buying and selling. But when exchanging text messages with my Realtor, she mentioned a date much sooner than I’d anticipated, when I will in fact be at a conference and unable to spend the day signing papers. Then [...]

Avant-garde music has a bad rap for being screeching and unpleasant. Here’s a mix that proves otherwise.

Some of it is still weird, thankfully. And all of it is beautiful, to me. Sometimes it helps to know a bit about what you’re hearing. That track by Katie Peterson? That’s the sound of a glacier melting. “Starry [...]

Our inspection period is just about over. We’ve found a number of deficiencies which we are asking the seller to correct:

There are structural issues under the house. A lot of sills and joists need to be replaced or, in some cases, repaired.
There’s a flat roof over the addition in the rear of the house where [...]

It’s funny how after you make an offer on a house you start noticing the flaws. We are in the inspection phase now, a fourteen day period in which we can poke and prod and bring in the experts to see what kind of shape the house is really in. Our termite guy found evidence [...]

Lots of stuff going on lately, and so little time to write. The days slip away uncounted. I can’t stand that. So here are some things that have gone down over the last five days or more.

Xy made a trip to the north shore with Persephone and Daisy and Lavender to visit the splash park [...]

Posting’s been a little thin here lately because we were on a two-week vacation, visiting friends and family in Indiana and Tennessee. But I’m back now and hopefully will get caught up soon.
In the meantime, here’s a bit of fresh good news to chew on: Xy had an interview lined up for today — we [...]

This is the third installment of three sample documents dredged up from my old Brother WP-500 disks. I really have no idea what this is. Perhaps it had something to do with the Have Fun Club? That would place it circa 1992. I have no recollection of typing it, which is what makes rediscovering it [...]

I found an old letter from our mortgage company, unopened, buried under some junk mail. Inside I was surprised to discover a check, a refund for an escrow overage. The amount was substantial. That was a couple days ago.
Last night I found the old hand-written manuscript for my unfinished novel, The Vibrating Telemarketer. I began [...]

I took a vacation last week. Nope, didn’t leave the Greater New Orleans area. I’m afraid this was another vacation in the head, and as usual it was a soul-shattering experience. I mean that in a good way. I’m back at work now, trying to reassemble my personality into something vaguely recognizable. My parents are [...]

I’m trying to scrounge up the necessary accouterments for our Mardi Gras costumes.

Laurel branches: Everyone envisions classical gods and goddesses wearing a wreath of laurels. But where on earth do you find them?
Sheaves of wheat or barley: Symbolic of Demeter, goddess of the harvest. Again, not sure where I’m going to find these.
Poppies: Sacred to [...]

Here’s a new twist on an old theme. Because of our intermittent no-crank no-start problem, Xy has taken to going out early on cold mornings and giving the car a test start. This was such a morning. It was about 36º F out there. But the car started up, no problem. But twenty minutes later, [...]

I was tagged with one of those viral memes that I recall were ricocheting around the blogosphere a few years back. But this one happened on Facebook, and the difference is that on Facebook I’m connected to some old college and high school friends who aren’t necessarily bloggers and who don’t read this blog. I [...]

Somehow last week got away from me, and I failed to record some happenings here.
For example, on Thursday morning the car refused to start again. We waited ten minutes and then it started up fine. (Well, almost fine. Xy still couldn’t get it to start so I tried, and succeeded. Therefore Xy drove to work [...]

Playing the hand that was dealt me.

My co-worker Jim has said there’s been many a warm Xmas Day in New Orleans throughout his life, Xmases where he finds he’s quite comfortable wearing shorts. But I think this is the first such Xmas I’ve experienced here. I was hanging out in shorts all day. Warm summery weather. Loved it.
I did not love [...]

This morning the car wouldn’t start again. Only three weeks since the last time. Cocking the wheel didn’t help. Nothing helped. I waited about five or ten minutes, and it started right up.
I don’t think this is related to the colder weather, because when it didn’t start on the 9th the low was only 66º. [...]