Updates

So some basic updates:

Since I last posted I've been to a wedding. Aaron Bonner-Jackson got married and everything went off without a hitch...except well, you know Aaron and Kia. They got hitched, but in that good way. Jesseca and I went Greyhound up to Philly, met up with Dave and Neil. The four of us then piled into Dave's jetta and drove to Rochester. Dave's car lacks air conditioning, as did--we later learned--the states of PA and NY. It was hot as blazes, nearly 90 degrees. So long drive in small car with no AC..we were exhausted when we arrived. But the weekend was only just beginning. There was tux testing. Dinner. Go karting (ABJ lost, but you know that's alright). Paint ball (Cricket watches as you sleep). Good times. Rather than give a detailed summary, I'll give a very vague one. The weekend was great. ABJ looked, and was incredibly happy. Kia looked radiant. People drank and danced. No one made a fool of themselves. No one burst into tears and lamented that they'll never be married. All in all, good stuff.

So that was two weekends ago.

This weekend Jesseca and I began painting our apartment. I say ours because, well that's the appropriate term for something held in possession between or among two or more people. Dave moved out this Saturday and she's moving in. I think it'll be nice. We're struggling with painting, and recarpeting, and figuring out where to put all the stuff. it's daunting and tiring. Hopefully those things will be taken care of soon enough, and we'll get a chance to share a nice, pretty space together.

Sadly, at present we're sharing the place with some funk. Not the good james brown, george clinton, stevie wonder kind of funk. We're talking dank, stank, rank...funk. The torrential rains of the past few days have finally overwhelmed the not so impressive foundation of the basement and the back bedroom is soaked. The carpet is awful and reeks. Thankfully we were planning on replacing the carpeting already, so this just gives further impetus.

As for what's to come: tomorrow we leave for Seattle. I'm going to play at Potlatch (largest co-ed tournament in the world) and Jesseca gets to see family. I'll also meet some family members and generally get to putz around Seattle with good friends from DC, Jesseca, and others. Should be quite a week (we're back on July 5). I haven't been back to Seattle in more than a year. Given the weather we've been having here in DC, I'm excited for the dry forecast in Seattle. How strange is that, I'm flying to Seattle to escape the rain.

All in all good stuff. And yet, all that said, I've been, of late, somewhat anxious, unsettled, nervous, worried. I have this sense like I'm not really moving towards things. I feel, as I have before, like I'm drifting not rowing through life. I don't know what I want to be different, but I get the sense that soon I'll find out. Or at least that's the hope. I want to feel motivated and excited again. I think that's when I'm most happy, most fun to be around, and most fully "Aaron." Maybe this trip, the new living situation, some distance from home, or discovering some new hobby (artisinal cheese making?) will help get me "out of this rut and back into the groove." Here's hoping.

Expect photos of Seattle, and maybe a few good stories about Potlatch, Mt. Rainier, and the various wonders of the West.

Grills

Jess and I went shopping at Ikea and HomeDepot this weekend. Many purchases--couch cover, wine rack, magnetic knife rack, new dishes, urethane, basil, potting soil, but really the best purchase was a semi-fancy new grill. It was odd the degree to which buying a grill made me feel manly. Or at least, man-like. Charcoal, of course. I'm not some sissy who cooks with gas. I'm a man. Give me a dead tree pressed into a brickette, and doused in liquid rocket fuel.

Unfortunately for my sanity, as we walked into the aisle with the grills and supplies a certain song jumped into, and has remained locked in, my consciousness.

Grills, all I really want is grills
And at dinner it's grills
Cause for the cooking it's grills

I like the way that they look
And it's great to use 'em to cook
And I can always make them hot
Piling brickettes in one spot

I bought one just the other day
Mockin' A-Leav to my dismay

Grills - to do the chicken
Grills - to make steak tips
Grills - to heat up salmon
Grills - and in the backyard
Grills, that's all I really want is grills
Charcoal not gas, I want grills
With new attachments I want grills
I ought to whip out my grills, grills, grills, grills, grills!

Neither a borrower...

On the way into work today I was listening to NPR (my new phone gets FM reception--pretty spiffy) and heard an excerpt from Hillary Clinton's acceptance speech of the Democratic nomination for senate. Pretty standard stuff, really. I found an article in the New York Daily News that quoted the speech, see if you can guess what part(s) set me off:

"We need new leadership," she declared. "We're going to see that this November. We're going to start electing Democrats. America's going in that direction. If we stand together as Democrats, with hard work we will take our country back."

If you guessed the part where she completely ripped off Howard Dean, you win a prize. Your prize is a festering righteous anger at mainline Democrats marginalizing Dean then when politically convenient scooping up his ideas and running with them--all without recognition of the act. Here's the thing, for Hillary Clinton to talk about taking our country back is somewhat skewed. She's not taking her country back, she's getting it back from her neighbor to whom she lent it. She eagerly offered up power and support to bad ideas and bad bills because she thought it expedient. Neither a borrower nor a lender be, Hillary.

And besides, it's not taking our country back, it's more like when you bug your neighbor to return your weedeater.

The New York Daily News goes on to explain:

In what often sounded like an Iowa stump speech, Clinton trashed the Bush administration on everything from the environment to the deficit to foreign affairs to energy policy to the gutting of FEMA.

It sounded a lot like a specific Iowa stump speech. Let's see, I think I remember who said that, oh right, Howard Dean, whom Clinton fans disparaged and tried to derail.