Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
I can't find any freaking girl scouts.
Every American, from sea to shining sea, seems able to get their hands on as many thin mints and somoas as they want while I haven't laid eyes on a girlie scout since grade school. I don't even know what they look like these days. Are they still wearing the little dress and sash with patches? (or was that the Brownies- hell, brownies sound good too!) Would I know one if I saw one? I just know this town must be teeming with unseen girl scouts. Are they in cahoots, staying just without my sight? Illicit drugs are in plainer sight! (and with protocol for acquisition I can understand) But what, I ask, has a girl got to do for some damned cookies? I've got an itch. And I need a girl scout to scratch it.
Where are those little brats?
Every American, from sea to shining sea, seems able to get their hands on as many thin mints and somoas as they want while I haven't laid eyes on a girlie scout since grade school. I don't even know what they look like these days. Are they still wearing the little dress and sash with patches? (or was that the Brownies- hell, brownies sound good too!) Would I know one if I saw one? I just know this town must be teeming with unseen girl scouts. Are they in cahoots, staying just without my sight? Illicit drugs are in plainer sight! (and with protocol for acquisition I can understand) But what, I ask, has a girl got to do for some damned cookies? I've got an itch. And I need a girl scout to scratch it.
Where are those little brats?
Monday, March 23, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
New Camera!
So, I went to best buy today to blow my gift card on a new digital camera. I've never owned one before, so be prepared to be flooded with photos during the coming months.
Here are some samples from today's test shoot:
Also: I figured I would use my time at the platform to make an official request for mailing addresses. I'm pretty sure that mine are out of date.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
There's Nothing a Little San Clemente Can't Fix!
Found the spot and set a date. Go out and get a hot new bikini and/or board shorts because we are booked August 8th - 15th. FUN! FUN! and more FUN!
Cuteness!
How cute is this little guy. It's a baby hummingbird. He is right outside my door in my bamboo garden. He is smaller than he appears in this picture. His little head is like the size of the tip of your pinky finger.
Friday, March 6, 2009
for bem
mom, i know you like the action shots. this is anika playing her favorite game- running out of the curtain (jurtain in the curtain) and then twirling around to see it flow down. i love the little squirt.
i couldn't make this up if i tried. why brandon, why? few things are as strange as the phrase, "i knapped it."
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
like a rhinestone cowboy
I call him the rhinestone cowboy. He wears expensive cowboy boots with his white doctor coat and one too many turquoise rings. He hails from Newport Beach or Palm Springs, I suspect, and is likely settled in Kayenta. He is my vascular surgeon.
I'm sitting in the exam chair with my foot rested on his knee and concentrating very hard on his skin. Please Alana, don't reach out and touch it. Don't reach out and touch it. Don't reach out and touch it! I am hypnotized, mesmerized, stupefied by his older and tanned yet perfectly smooth, childlike skin. He has the rugged Robert Redford look generally suggestive of leather yet I am looking at creamy, buttery suede. Trance-like, I stare, wondering if I could draw patterns across his cheekbone with my finger like I do on my sofa. (You just know the son of a gun gets microdermabrasion.)
I'm in his office for a follow-up and have just asked him about what seems to be permanent bruising on my calf. "Yes," he says, "it's iron deposited permanently in your skin from the torn veins. You know..." he starts then pauses long as if he were giving me time to realize the obvious, "a good tan would cover up the scars and discoloration."
A tan? I hadn't thought of it. But of course ol' rhinestone would suggest a tan. Skeptically, I glance to his assistant for a second opinion. She nods slowly up and down in agreement, a sympathetic furrow on her brow, as if to gently say, "yes, honey, everybody should have a good tan."
My parents were sun worshipers. Year after year I baked on the beach, burned at our Palm Springs RV park pool, and blistered while camped on the Sea of Cortez, hunting sand dollars. I formed my idea of manhood watching my father rub baby oil on his belly like he was basting a tight-skinned turkey.
But my grandmother was a red head. My other grandmother was a full-blooded Swede complete with large chest and blonde hair. So where did my Mother and Father really come from? Every family has its legends. One involves my Mormon ancestors, escaped to the Mexican colonies. My great grandmother, Jen, was 16 when Pancho Villa and his men came through. (general pillaging, raping, etc.) This would account for that sneaky gene sunk deep in the pool.
Where was I?
Fearful of not heeding a doctor's advice, I did the unthinkable. I visited a tanning salon. I continue to visit a tanning salon. I do it for my anything-but-dainty, ankle-less tree trunks one might call legs. I do it for me.
Weekly, I undress and climb into the tanning bed. I lay my large, white, lumpy body down slowly, thoughtfully, grateful this joint doesn't charge per square inch. Like a lamb to the melanoma slaughter, like a sacrificial gift to Ra, like a cold piece of fatty meat about to be nuked, I pull the coffin lid closed. Then I cover my face with a towel. Not because it's my own execution but because my face reddens like mars and scars like the moon. And maybe because I'm ashamed- ashamed of what my ancestors or my father would think about this unnatural approach. My Dad might tease, "Did the sun burn out?"
I can imagine them all- my leathery father, my red-headed grandma, Swedes and Irishmen alike- maybe even Pancho Villa himself- standing in radiant light behind the pearly gates. (wait- Pancho Villa in heaven?- depends on who you ask) They are looking down on me. I can't tell, though, if they are proud of my initiative and resolve to look good in shorts or ashamed to own me- now officially superficial and vain.
I'm sitting in the exam chair with my foot rested on his knee and concentrating very hard on his skin. Please Alana, don't reach out and touch it. Don't reach out and touch it. Don't reach out and touch it! I am hypnotized, mesmerized, stupefied by his older and tanned yet perfectly smooth, childlike skin. He has the rugged Robert Redford look generally suggestive of leather yet I am looking at creamy, buttery suede. Trance-like, I stare, wondering if I could draw patterns across his cheekbone with my finger like I do on my sofa. (You just know the son of a gun gets microdermabrasion.)
I'm in his office for a follow-up and have just asked him about what seems to be permanent bruising on my calf. "Yes," he says, "it's iron deposited permanently in your skin from the torn veins. You know..." he starts then pauses long as if he were giving me time to realize the obvious, "a good tan would cover up the scars and discoloration."
A tan? I hadn't thought of it. But of course ol' rhinestone would suggest a tan. Skeptically, I glance to his assistant for a second opinion. She nods slowly up and down in agreement, a sympathetic furrow on her brow, as if to gently say, "yes, honey, everybody should have a good tan."
My parents were sun worshipers. Year after year I baked on the beach, burned at our Palm Springs RV park pool, and blistered while camped on the Sea of Cortez, hunting sand dollars. I formed my idea of manhood watching my father rub baby oil on his belly like he was basting a tight-skinned turkey.
But my grandmother was a red head. My other grandmother was a full-blooded Swede complete with large chest and blonde hair. So where did my Mother and Father really come from? Every family has its legends. One involves my Mormon ancestors, escaped to the Mexican colonies. My great grandmother, Jen, was 16 when Pancho Villa and his men came through. (general pillaging, raping, etc.) This would account for that sneaky gene sunk deep in the pool.
Where was I?
Fearful of not heeding a doctor's advice, I did the unthinkable. I visited a tanning salon. I continue to visit a tanning salon. I do it for my anything-but-dainty, ankle-less tree trunks one might call legs. I do it for me.
Weekly, I undress and climb into the tanning bed. I lay my large, white, lumpy body down slowly, thoughtfully, grateful this joint doesn't charge per square inch. Like a lamb to the melanoma slaughter, like a sacrificial gift to Ra, like a cold piece of fatty meat about to be nuked, I pull the coffin lid closed. Then I cover my face with a towel. Not because it's my own execution but because my face reddens like mars and scars like the moon. And maybe because I'm ashamed- ashamed of what my ancestors or my father would think about this unnatural approach. My Dad might tease, "Did the sun burn out?"
I can imagine them all- my leathery father, my red-headed grandma, Swedes and Irishmen alike- maybe even Pancho Villa himself- standing in radiant light behind the pearly gates. (wait- Pancho Villa in heaven?- depends on who you ask) They are looking down on me. I can't tell, though, if they are proud of my initiative and resolve to look good in shorts or ashamed to own me- now officially superficial and vain.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
View From School
So I'm kinda likin the view eh.
Hope all is well with everyone! Shure miss you guys...
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