6.06.2010

Going Places and Doing Things


Since moving into my new place overlooking the Redhawk golf course in Temecula last March, I've enjoyed fewer than two weeks in my own bed. 2010's been a busy year for family and business travel, a fact made evident by my moribund blog entries. I'm not sure what happened to the snapshot retrospective I posted before last month's European vacation, but when eagle-eyed friends noticed the links were dead, I simply deleted my musing. After all, what's the point? Facebook makes telling everyone in the world about your last ham sandwich easier than ever, so blogging might be the new Lambada.

Speaking of common men, I read "Publish this Book" by Stephen Markley on my European holiday, and I've got to say, it was shit. two heartfelt chapters of critical introspection surrounded by another 20 about high-school basketball, bad jobs, hipsters, frat boy bullshit and Bruce Springsteen lyrics. Markley was only 24 when he wrote it, and his book's premise—"Check me out, I'm writing a book about the short, common life of a college journalist to see if anyone will publish it!"—was something even its author doubted could hold up in print. I appreciate Markley's trepidation, because I've written the fourth chapter of "Satin Hammers" five times and I still think the whole idea of an online novel about a closeted chopper newbie surrounded by a flamboyantly homosexual biker gang is a waste of time.

Everything these days seems like a waste of time.

Doing laundry
Buying groceries
Walking Willis
Getting haircuts
Cutting my toenails
Cooking dinner

One thing that does make sense is working on my Spartankiller project, and that's been put on the back burner while my friend finds a welder for his recently moved fab shop. Until that happens, my roller sits in a warehouse in downtown LA and I sit on my chartreuse couch writing about the futility of time management and the pressure of forward momentum.

It is sunny and warm in SoCal, so yesterday we rang in the new season at a vintage dirt-bike race at my old stomping grounds, the Lake Elsinore MX Park. I sold my YZ250F in 2002, a couple months before I bought my '03 Boxter. Remember the days of owning expensive toys like these? My quiver of luxury items is down to three bicycles, two motorcycles and an electric crockpot. The furniture in the 2,500-square-foot home I housesit for my business partner and friend features two end tables, a book shelf, three lamps, a king-sized bed, a queen-sized mattress and the aforementioned couch. Duane Ballard says my couch feels like it is covered with fiberglass. Bill says no one takes more pleasure from divesting themselves of "stuff" than I do. After taking inventory just now I see there's still a long way to go.

It's official: I enjoy taking photos. I say "taking photos" instead of "making them" like pros do because I'm still not confident in my skills as a technician. I have a basic brain for the rules of the game (small apertures increase depth of field, for instance) and a decent eye for composition, but the key commands for post-processing digital images in Photoshop still elude me. I get by, but if I barely have time to trim my toenails, I'm probably never going to take a Photoshop class at the local JuCo.

The jacuzzi's ready, so I'm going to put on some boardshorts and hit the tub. I'd wear a banana hammock if I had one, but that's probably a story I'll save for another time.





Share/Save/Bookmark

No comments: