Pictures Without Cameras

With the camera gone, I have to turn from photos to art. Perhaps I should hire a courtroom artist, I'm not sure what they're actually called, to illustrate scenes of my life. I don't think anyone could object to sketching me going to work, or eating a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich for lunch, or agonizing as I watch another DC United game unfold into defeat.

My wife’s an artist. I could just hire her. She sells stuff online. While most of what she does is birds and trees, her latest is of a cat:

She usually doesn’t do people though, so it could be a bit of a challenge for her. Or at least that's what I thought until this past weekend when, looking through her old sketch books, I found this little picture tucked away in the corner of a page dated 10/09… I will call it A Portrait of Me.
I think it's brilliant. She says she doesn’t remember doing it, but it makes me wonder what exactly I was doing that warranted me being drawn in my underwear with a big, goofy grin on my face. My guess: probably standing around in my underwear with a big, goofy grin on my face. There's a good chance I was envisioning myself having just saved the day... perhaps a thought bubble with me donning a cape billowing in the breeze would help. Although, I don't think courtroom sketches have too many thought bubbles.

I can only imagine the floating head glaring at me is the artist herself. Sometimes I suppose I deserve to be glared at.

Anyways, I love this picture of me, and I hope to find many uses for it here at the Muted Guerrilla. Maybe my intern Jeff can put it to good use.

Cell Phones

What do Warren Buffet, Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, Tavis Smiley and the Muted Guerrilla's own John Duffy have in common? That's right, they all scorn cellphone usage.

Dinner (For Schmucks) & A Movie

Friday the 13th. The lore surrounding Friday the Thirteenth undoubtedly originated in vintage 1980’s horror movies. They forever linked the hockey mask to the chainsaw to certain unspeakable death. While perhaps there’s more to this spooky date than that, I offer my contribution to the litany of Friday the Thirteenth horrors, which also takes place at the movies:

Every now and then, my wife and I go out on something resembling a date. We’ll make plans a few days in advance. We’ll get kind-of, sort-of dressed up for a date-like dinner and then see a date-like movie. And so it was this past Friday that we had a fancy dinner at Pizza Hut and saw the highly-romantic movie, Dinner for Schmucks.

Dinner was everything that Pizza Hut has to offer and the movie was good enough, and we headed home happily unaware that tragedy had already struck. For at some point over the course of the evening, our camera was stolen. Yep, cue the organ music and B-movie scream. It had been in my wife’s purse, which was left in the car for most of the evening. I must not have locked the car at some point.

I can’t underscore enough how much it sucks. Yes, it’s just a camera, but I truly feel like a Schmuck. In fact, after the initial shock, I spent some time trying to figure out how I felt. For a long time, I couldn’t get past just feeling bad. I wasn’t angry or vengeful, which is what I would have guessed. It was more like disrespected, but disrespected in a way that “who would do such a thing?!?” doesn’t even come close to characterizing. Without my knowledge, some random guy came into my car, went through my stuff, and stole pictures of my life. I feel like I need to give my car a shower.

So unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of the evening, or of the past two weeks. Truth is, I haven’t included any pictures in a long time, for which, I will blame my intern Jeff. Soon though, I hope to include pictures again, as we just bought two cameras online, one of which is identical to the one we lost. They are both used and priced well below their market price. I can’t help but wonder if we aren’t buying some poor schmuck’s stolen camera. There’s even a chance that we just bought the one we had stolen. I’ll have to check for pictures of a Kings of Leon concert.

So, let this be a lesson to anyone who goes on a date on Friday the Thirteenth! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-haaaaa!

Twiddling Thumbs

I turned thirty a few months ago. I’m getting old. It’s very sad. Already, I’m showing signs of getting old. My knee hurts, my back aches, my memory is fading. I’ve got a hip that pops when I walk and creaks when I stop. My balance is starting to give and I keep hitting my head or bumping into walls and doors and people. There are other tell-tale signs too. For instance, did I mention my memory is fading? (Aahh… you knew it was coming.)

For my thirtieth birthday though, I got tickets to a rock concert, Kings of Leon. As my wife said, “I knew they’d be good, but I wasn’t expecting them to be true rock stars.” To me, they were simply awesome. While a few favorites definitely stuck out, all the songs were great, start to finish.

Throughout the show, while I was happily singing along and occasionally making fun of how short my wife is, I was struck by how many people were twiddling their thumbs rapidly into a cellphone. Maybe the world has changed more than I’d like to admit, but I remember the good old days when all you could do with a cellphone is talk with it… five years ago. The last thing I would want to be doing at a rock concert with pretty hefty ticket prices is LOLing or OMGing or updating my Facebook status. What happened to just enjoying the show?

I really sound like an old grump, don’t I? In my defense, I am thirty now. And it seems like I’m one of the few thirty-year olds who generally does not carry around a cellphone. I used to and I imagine someday I will again, but I’ve found that most of the time I was using it to ask my wife questions like “Did you need salted or unsalted butter?” Sure, it might be best to ask the question and get the answer, but there’s a certain freedom in rolling the dice and hoping you’re right.

A cellphone would definitely come in handy, however, if say my car broke down or something, but part of me secretly looks forward to that happening. It would be like Problem Solving 101: What To Do When…. Don’t get me wrong, it would suck figuring it out and I would probably curse myself for not having a cellphone, but I’d get to fully experience that level of suck, like people did way back when… ten years ago. And just like people should have been fully experiencing Kings of Leon at the show.

Of course, I spent a portion of my time at the show enviously watching people with their glowing cellphones, pondering how best to incorporate them into my blog. Sure, I was listening and enjoying myself, but I've got fans of my own to please... you! Perhaps there's not such a big difference between those with cellphones and those without after all, and like the star-bellied Sneetches, maybe I'll learn to get my nose out the air.

All Dogs Go... Somewhere

The dog ran off. I’m not a dog owner, but if I was it would undoubtedly run off. It’s not that dogs hate me – in fact, quite the opposite, they’re usually drawn to me. I think it has something to do with my aura that only dogs can see, or maybe it’s the fact that I whistle inaudibly all the time in a tone that only dogs can hear, or maybe, just maybe, it’s my personal hygiene and I stink such that only dogs can smell.

Actually, my guess is that they can sense that I need protection. They see me and they think, “I’ve got my work cut out for me with this one.” As I said though, they would undoubtedly run off, but it would undoubtedly be when I wasn’t there. I would go to work for the day and a few hours later the dog would start to worry, “where’d that boy run off to this time!” Another hour or two later and the dog would resolutely set off on a heroic search and rescue mission. For all it knows, I could be anywhere!

This week my wife and I have been house-sitting, and well, the dog ran off. Soon after we arrived one day after work, we were back in the car, hollering out the window. We knew immediately that it was no use. We were on a dirt road in the middle of rolling farmland, the dog could be anywhere.

After a bit, we tried to convince ourselves that it was best if we stayed at the house and waited for her to return on her own. Dogs are smart, I remember thinking. But we both shared the same feeling of dread. It didn’t feel like the dog was on her way back home.

My wife had put out a few calls to folks around the area but nobody had seen anything. Then the phone rang. Somebody who was in town visiting had seen a dog on the road a few miles up. Back in the car, we drove almost four miles before we slowed down to crawl and began to yell her name out the window. It was pretty far away, but it was all that we had to go on. We drove another mile like this without any luck before we turned around and continued searching as we drove back to the house.

Near the end of the street, about the place we had slowed down, I thought I saw something in the woods. I stopped the car to watch it. It wasn’t moving. I knew it wasn’t a dog, but I had to double check. I turned the car around and quickly confirmed it was not a dog. About to turn around again, my wife told me to go a bit further, more out of safety than anything else as it was on a blind turn. About halfway down the stretch of road that we had already searched, I turned around. It was almost dark. Our search was getting pointless.

A few houses down a woman had come out of her home. While I don’t suspect she recognized my wife, she had been one of my wife’s teachers growing up. My wife did the talking, and her response went something like this, “You know, we saw a dog a while back….” At this point she looked over our car into the large field across the street. “Oh wait,” she said pointing to the fence about a hundred feet off the road, “is that your dog?” As we thanked her she said, “I’m not sure why I came outside, but now I’m glad I did.”

She was scared to the point that it took a long time for her to recognize us. And she limped on both front legs because she had run the pads of her paws raw. But she was alive, which was a huge relief.

While I might be tempted to roll my eyes and say, “Always in the last place you look,” I’m beginning to wonder if there’s not more to it than that. I’ve been mentioning my faith in the abundance, and along with that I may have some belief in the Universe, and I think this story is that in a nutshell. One coincidence after another allowed that dog to be found. The visitor from out of town happened to be driving by just then, I turned around to double check what I knew wasn’t a dog and it led to my wife seeing someone she hasn’t seen in twenty years.

It makes me wonder. Maybe all this happened for a reason. Maybe the Universe is trying to tell me something. Maybe I’m suppose to get a dog. And name it The Universe. Then I could be the Master of the Universe, just like He-Man! Of course, then you'd hear me say, "Well, The Universe ran off again." And then I would have to set off on a heroic mission to rescue The Universe! I could see it now...

Unfortunately, I'd also have to mean it when I said, "No digging The Universe!" which I'd have trouble with, ya dig?

A Better Me

After another slight break in blogging (I’m definitely not winning over any fans this way), I am going to attempt to weave together a few stories, so please bear with me.

I think I’m well on my way to attaining enlightenment. Right now I’m at the “I want to be a better person” stage. Next up, becoming a better person. Then, in no time at all, attaining enlightenment. After that, I will burst into flames.

I’ve tried visualizing and reciting affirmations along these lines with help from a CD, but the speaker’s soft and pleasant voice usually just puts me to sleep. However, a few weeks ago in deciding between two weekend adventures away from my wife, neither of which I can really afford, a soft and pleasant voice in the back of my head reminded me that “I have Faith in the Abundance.” Twenty minutes later, I had committed to both.

I survived the first weekend a couple weeks ago, and now, I can report that I have survived the second weekend, a wedding in Florida . I was able to take a few days off of work beforehand to see my sister along the way, which gave me some justification for driving instead of flying.

On a map, it doesn’t look so bad. I live in Northern Virginia, so I’d have to drive through a lot of Virginia , North Carolina , South Carolina , a small part of Georgia , and a small part of Florida . With a stop at my sister’s in North Carolina , I’d get to break up that state going down to the wedding, and South Carolina looked so small compared to the states around it. All in all, I was thinking North Carolina would suck on the way back, but Virginia looked the most daunting, and by then I’d be in the home stretch.

Point is, I was wrong. South Carolina is enormous. And that small section of Georgia I think is even bigger. The way down, two 6 hour drives, wasn’t so bad. Not only did I have a destination, but the mile markers that line the highway were counting down so I knew how far it was to the state line. On the way back, it was anybody’s guess. (Although, the South of the Border place on the Carolina divide with their love of billboards was helpful. “Hey, Amigo, only 216 miles to South of the Border!” It’s bad when “216 miles” is of some comfort.)

Anyways, the wedding was a lot of fun and I’m glad I made it. It was the right decision and in a way I think I’m a better person because of it.

So, back to becoming a better person, I’ve turned to a book to be my guide of sorts, It’s a Meaningful Life, It Just Takes Practice. It’s a great read. Each five- or six-page chapter makes you think about stuff and look at yourself differently, and more often than not, it leaves you challenging yourself to do this small thing or that little thing, all in the name of becoming a better person. For me, it’s become something of a daily shot in the arm.

On Sunday night, after 12 long hours racing up the East coast, my daily shot in the arm encouraged me essentially to be more personable and treat everyone like friends, singling out people like telemarketers and cashiers who have a lot of interactions but are usually overlooked. On Monday, after driving 24 hours in one long weekend, I returned to work with this still fresh in my mind, and on my lunch break, I had my first chance to put it into practice at the local pharmacy.

While I’ve been advised not to share the literally-blood-dripping details, I feel comfortable saying that after so much time in the car, my first attempt at greeting a cashier with all due compassion was with a tube of Preparation H in hand, ironically another first for me.

Needless to say, my first attempt did not go over too well, and in fact, for most of this week my path to being a better person has hit a few rough patches – one in particular comes to mind. But I’m pretty sure that sooner than later along this path of mine, I’ll see a sign up ahead that reads, “Hey, Amigo, only 216 miles to being a better person!” and that will provide at least some comfort.