On this gorgeous day I’m staying inside. At least for now. There is the Evolve Urban Arts Project opening later on. And then Mila’s birthday party. But for now I’m attempting to straighten things up, do laundry, finish a pot of coffee.

Lately I’ve been archiving movies and tv shows from my computer; that 250MB hard drive that I thought was monstrous four years ago is apparently bursting at its seams. So there’s that going on too. In looking for archived archiving disks, I stumbled upon a disk labeled “<insert The Millionaire’s name here> (final)”. Well isn’t that a little piece of joy.

I popped in this little summer-of-2003 relic in my computer’s drive to see what exactly is on it. Nine simple photos of me and The Millionaire, whom I dated that spring and summer. I remember that time well. I still had Libby, The Silver Bullet (my car) my mother and pets were alive (and healthy) and I was the fittest I’ve ever been as an adult.

I saw The Millionaire at the beach this summer but he didn’t notice me. Considering he was hanging out with someone else I had dated once, I easily forgave his lack of observation skills. They were both people I was to have a limit amount of time with; I was not in their social or financial league. I’m glad they’re friends now. Be fruitful and multiply your financial interest.

Back to the pictures on the disk.

The pictures were taken on July 4, 2003. We had just returned from working out at the gym and had showered and gotten ready at my old place, Jump Street. We were getting ready to go to a friend’s bbq, the first time he was meeting friends of mine. I was giddy. He said he was “smitten”. It was a good time in my life. The quality of the image is not very good since I was using the picture feature from my videocam, but they are what they are. The eyeblocking isn’t out of disrespect, it’s for anonymity. <–This is stupid. Here’s the unlayered pic. I love loved how he’s pressing up on me.

It’s been a bizarre week. Nine dead on the Metro crash. Farrah loses her battle with Cancer. Michael Jackson unexpectedly dies. Distant deaths of people I didn’t know but have had some sort of impact or memory in my life. Thursday I found out I’m separated by one degree to the driver of the Metro train that crashed.

In 1977 I had “the poster” iron-on on a yellow tshirt, and wore it to school. My principal made me turn my tshirt inside out for the remainder of the day. Apparently the teeth or the boobs (or the nipple) was too much. Some people didn’t know how to handle Farrah’s sex appeal. I also had a puzzle of the poster image, too. Her teeth was perfectly centered onto one of the pieces and I always thought that was cool. Maybe if that piece had not been cut so, if her teeth had been divided between pieces, I might never have remembered even owning that puzzle.

There are many more memories and associations with Michael Jackson. The first was back in 1972 or so. On my Cub Scouts handbook (Wolf? Bear? I can’t remember.) I had affixed a Michael Jackson plastic 3-dimensional sticker, which I probably got at the bottom of a cereal box. And also I remember watching the Jackson 5 cartoon series, with its groovy warm colors and animated videos to their songs. And singing Rockin’ Robin in music class.

Later, as an adolescent, I can remember the singles from Off The Wall on heavy rotation on both radio and at the skating rink. My favorite was always Workin’ Day & Night, maybe because it was the most frenetic of the singles from that album, maybe because all the staccato of the percussion. This, of course, was setting the stage for my fascination with the sequencer-laden pop from the early 80s and in particular one Mr. Nick Rhodes.

Then, right after high school, Thriller dropped. The sleeper first hit, The Girl Is Mine, was pretty much under my radar but then Billie Jean showed up on the radio and MTV, and I swear that bassline is still the hottest to date. I watched, live (at broadcast date) the Motown 25 special, where he first moonwalked and really declared his independence from his brothers, who had performed with him minutes earlier but then left the stage once the bass from Billie Jean started. Soon everybody was talking about the Beat It video and had I seen it yet or not. And you probably know the rest of the story from there: the Pepsi spot, the premiere of the Thriller video, super-hyper-mega-stardom, etc.

My interest in MJ waned over the years, but it was always obvious when a new album was coming out and there was no escaping the publicity about his personal life. Wacko? Guilty? Perv? I guess it really doesn’t matter now. The talk on the news is what he will be remembered for, will it be the music or will it be the oddities and scandals? I presume it will be both. No one speaks of Marilyn without mentioning JFK; nobody mentions Elvis without referencing the gaudiness of Vegas shows and dying on a toilet. And it’s probably better that we do remember both sides of Michael, the great music and the perverse plastic oddity he had become.

Today I found out a friend’s cat also passed away, the cute and friendly Kosmo that I spent some time with back in April. Friend’s pets passing is always sad for me, having The Twins™ pass away and knowing what those feelings entail. So RIP to all, even Mr. McMahon.

It’s 1994. Kurdt has just offed himself, Blur’s Parklife and Orb’s Live 93 play continuously in my CD stack while The Twins™ sunned themselves on the brick courtyard in front of my lovely little garden house. I motored about in my 1977 VW Beetle at 25 mph, filling the tank on Friday evenings on the way home from work and giving her a wash on Saturday mornings. I never locked her doors.

I had recently purchased my first computer, a Performa 630 CD. Yes, it had the “CD” in the name, pushing the new-fangled technology of CD-ROM. Fancy. One of the underlying reasons for this purchase, aside from the fact of not wanting to go into the office to mess around with Illustrator and do side projects was to play some games. SimCity 2000 had just come out and I was embarrased to have my boss finding me playing on my work computer on a weekend, so I figured I needed to move it home. Another game I desperately wanted to try was Myst, a game played with a CD and Mac-only at that point.

Myst was really a revolution when it came out. It featured wonderfully rendered 3-d images, almost unheard of at that time. The interface was simple, static point-and-click images to turn, navigate down a path, etc. The game put you on a mysterious island and you had to figure out what to do; it’s intrigue was in its beauty and simplicity (and once playing, complexity) and wondering around, figuring out how to work the elements on the island and puzzles contained within. I remember it came with a blank notebook where you could jot down things to remember, sketch out maps of the puzzles and basically doodle what was happening around you, as several “books” in the Library on the island showed you as you read them. The game also featured QuickTime movies embedded into the gameplay, which again, was unique for gameplay at that time.

During this time I was also dating Mr. Shipman who was currently working for a client in Chicago and would return to Houston for the weekends. On weekends we would have our together time, going to dinner and having beers and doing dating things. Once I had a big outing planned and Mr. Shipman, after learning I had Myst and being the computer geek he was, said “Why don’t we stay in, order a pizza and play Myst?” Heaven.

Last week Cyan, the creators of Myst, released the iPhone port of the game which is identical to the original from 1993. I think I still have the original booklet that I diligently wrote all my clues in 15 years ago but I’m not sure where it is. It may have been discarded before the last apartment move, I’m not sure. What I do know is that I’m immersed in a world that is oddly familiar (sometimes blatantly) but feels primitive, exciting and full of nostalgia.

I haven’t had to diagram much this time around and back then finding a solution to a tricky puzzle was to sit there and figure it out, whereas now a simple Twitter question or using a provided “hint” link will eventually lead you online to the answer you’re seeking. Trying not to use the hints I’ll still be through it in a week or so now, because I know what to look for, opposed to the couple of months it took me to complete it back in 1994. It’s still fun.

I go out. Not the same kind of out that I quickly realize everyone else is doing, because it’s a Friday night and it’s time for them to let off a little steam. They’ve been working all week, they’re entitled to it. I’m only out to get out. 

I originally think I’m going to head south, maybe walk to Barney Circle of something, but instead I find myself headed west. Past the monied, well-heated and well-lit homes on Lincoln Park which are devoid of people. Past the house where, in 1986, I had a brief and passionate romance with Eric Frances Baker. The iconic sculpture outside his residence was sadly gone, yet it had been replaced with a smaller, not-to-be-seen-from-the-street sculpture, painted all blue and perhaps the same one that briefly occupied the 500 block of East Capitol during a summer blitz of temporary outdoor artwork circa 2004. Outside Eric’s place is where my car was stolen one night. Eric didn’t care about the car. Or me. 

I found myself walking half of my stride length, for no apparent reason, and about half of my normal speed. I was walking like an old man, not even moving fast enough to have my arms swinging. People stared. I didn’t care.

After Eric’s I passed the Apartment In The Sky, my first home in DC. It was up there that I photographed with a Polaroid the intersection of Sixth & Independence every month for about three years. It was also there on my little balcony that I strung up christmas lights and left them year-round. This is also where Rattle fell and I found her the next day, four doors down under the front stairs, waiting for me to find her. She had been lost before, she knew the drill: stay where you are, Pops will find you.

Down at Jump Street I looked up and remembered this is where Hum survived her cancer surgery of 2001 and later died five years on. Afterwards I came home to a house with only one cat and that was one of the worst feelings I’ve ever had. Rattle pulled me through it though.

I notice that there are quite a few houses that still have their christmas lights on while others still have them up but they’re not turned on. I see a penny on the sidewalk and actually pick it up, thinking “this is income”.

I pass one of two (that I know of) futurejunkie stickers that I put up over ten years ago. It tells me to become an addict. Behind the One Way sign that it’s affixed to, a full moon shines and teases us humans to dare ourselves to be astronauts.

I think we crashed our work server today constantly watching the redonk PuppyCam. The pups official Twitter feed is here and their webpage with more info is here. Be prepared to waste a couple of  hours if you dare click below.

The six Shiba Inu pups (3 boys and 3 girls) turned 5 weeks old on November 11th. This is the first litter from their mom, Kika.

Girls:
Autumn (Purple collar)—3 lbs 5.8 oz (as of Nov 11th)
Ayumi (Yellow collar)—3 lbs 3.4 oz (as of Nov 11th)
Amaya (Red collar)—3 lbs 6.6 oz (as of Nov 11th)

Boys:
Aki (Green collar)—4 lbs 0.4 oz (as of Nov 11th)
Akoni (Black collar)—3 lbs 12.6 oz (as of Nov 11th)
Ando (Blue collar)— 3 lbs 1.2 oz (as of Nov 11th)

Goldy had to have her kitty, PJ, put to sleep last night. PJ had not been doing well for the last couple of weeks, not eating much and taking in very little water. She was listless and her eyes were kind of staring off in the distance. PJ was 18, which is pretty darn old for a cat. Goldy surmised that PJ wasn’t really going to be getting any better, I agreed, and when we took her to the vet, the vet agreed as well. There’s only so much you can do for them, especially at that age when it’s difficult to tell what they’re feeling because it might be harder for them to communicate it.

So we took PJ into the vet, and spent some final moments with her. I don’t know how much comfort I was for Goldy because I was pretty much a mess too. But she was there for me for both Rattle and Hum so I was definitely going (and wanting) to be there for her when PJ’s time came.

Luckily I didn’t have to make any decisions for putting The Twins™ down, they both went on their own time. And for our family dog, Tip, I was away at college for that. So actually witnessing the injections was upsetting but I still knew it was the right thing for Goldy to be doing at this time. The vet said it was a good time now before any onset of suffering really started.

RIP, PJ Goldy.