Home of the Soul Cookie

How cool is this?

So this quartet of intergalactic jewelry salesmen is holding a slumber party….

A writing/brainstorming site that I relish is the Random Log-line Generator, an online tool that generates random “log lines”— simple plot descriptions like what you might read in TV Guide. Some sample log-lines that I generated this morning:

• A boxer and a trio of Swedish zombies hide out in a pastry shop.
• A sophisticated prophet and a pyromaniac axe murderer plot to take over the world.
• A flesh-eating chiropractor has a crush on the mother of a courtesy clerk.

Check it out!

I finally beat Jay at racquetball last night!

He’s a much better player than I am, so it’s seldom even been close when we played. But last night, I was apparently in the zone, as I beat him two games out of four.

Okay, I’ll admit it: The title of this post is cockier than a 0.500 average would tend to support, but still… I won! (That and all four games were good, hard-won battles for each of us.)

Weh.

(Tip o’ the hat to the blogmistress for the link.)

How does one figure out the answer when one isn’t even sure of what the question is?

Is it better to postpone fulfilling your dreams in order to be better prepared, economically, to undertake them, or should one carpe diem and just “go for it,” not worrying about such things?

Can it ever be too late to discover yourself?

As I was drifting to sleep last night, my brain came up with a “little ditty” about how I was feeling after my separation. I got up, sleepily wrote it out on a 3×5 card, and went back to bed.

This is what I discovered this morning:

Ev’ry right made wrong,
Ev’ry fact made conjecture.
Chaos rules my soul.

Had an interesting discussion with one of my friends here in town yesterday which has led me to wonder: How many of us walk around with deeply personal secrets hidden in our souls?

What is it that keeps us from revealing those secrets to the ones closest to us?

It’s been a busy couple o’ weeks for yours truly, but my blogmistress demanded more bloggy goodness, so here’s what I’ve been up to, in a nutshell:

Tom’s Wedding: Tom Bender, a long-time friend from high school, got married on the 9th. I drove out to Rancho Cucamonga on Thursday, and hung out with Scott (who’d flown in from Florida) for the weekend. Met Tom’s new bride, Sarah - a really neat person - I wish I’d gotten to spend even more time with the two of them.

Learned that Scott’s rental car, a Sebring convertible, had an emergency escape handle inside the trunk, which, thanks to application of the Scientific Process, can be reported as having day-glo properties.

Hung out with Tom’s sister Buffy (known her for years), Sarah’s friend Rebecca (felt like I’ve known her for years), and another high school compatriot, Jeff (with whom I have some… issues from the time my marriage was collapsing) over Saturday night. I even (gasp!) tried some alcohol! (If you’re keeping score, A. get a life, and B. it was champagne and rum & coke. I even tried a tiny little bit of Jack Daniel’s. Ugh.)

Borderlink “Advance”: I got back from the wedding last Sunday morning.

Monday evening, I got on a plane and flew back to the L.A. area for the annual “advance” the BorderLink Project has. (It’s called an advance because it’s like a retreat, except we’re going forward. It strikes me as a bit of semantic tomfoolery.)

Had dinner at an extremely expensive seafood restaurant Monday night (but didn’t have to pay for it, so it was all good), then spent Tuesday in planning meetings for the next year of the project. Contrary to past years’ planning sessions, Tuesday’s meeting went smoothly and actually made some progress! I was pleasantly surprised.

The meetings had actually started on that Monday and ended that Wednesday. I, however, flew back home on Tuesday evening. I missed out on group karaoke on Tuesday evening (thank the maker!), but also didn’t get to see some TV production that occurred right outside the hotel in San Pedro later that night (which I would’ve liked to see). Oh well.

Movielicious: I’ve seen Moulin Rouge a couple of times lately (recommended!), and saw Tomb Raider on Sunday evening (only slightly better than Highlander 2).

Umm… That’s all I have to say about that.

Talk show makeover: Not really, but it kinda feels like it.

I shaved off my goatee and got a haircut for Tom’s wedding. I’m kinda surprised at the number of positive reactions I’ve gotten to it since returning to work. I figured it’d be no big deal, but evidence has been to the contrary. (I actually even got told I looked “hot” today, which I think marks the first time that’s been said of me, other than in the temperature sense. I was totally ill-equipped to respond to such a comment.)

All that, and I even cleaned out the back seat of my car! If you hadn’t seen the clusterfuck that was my back seat, rest assured: this is quite an accomplishment. I pulled many trash bags’ worth of junk outta there.