Parallel Parking PR

Finally got the pics up for an old, old blog. I've since moved to somewhere parking exists and never hope to achieve anything near this again. So I had to post it.

http://oodilolly.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2009-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2010-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=10

ESPN + Iceland

I now have proof that Sportscenter has had a positive, cultural impact on me. It was always a good thing, but now it's a better. One minute, I'm watching to see how the NFL playoffs are going, the next I'm remembering my favorite music video within the bounds of time because it has become apparent that Tom Coughlin starred in it. This isn't a roundabout way of saying I don't want the Giants to lose (I always do, almost, not really for any reason); if anything, it's a straightforward way of rooting for Iceland.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmXMA34CeoQ

The only thing that beats free laundry money

I almost didn't go, but as I thought about all the glittering silver at the bottom of the swimming pool, flashing as the coins flipped over and over, sinking to the floor, I realized that I had to. Dan Jones doesn't lead his men astray, and he said this lead was hot.

The Branbury Apartments had announced they were dumping $700 in quarters into a pool at 10 pm, and it was already 10:04 pm, which offered me an easy out to be lazy and not even try (the couch was so comfy) but I can't help but believe more and more in the idea that it's more important to fight in the face of futility than it is to win, so I threw on my swimsuit and ran to my car, hoping I wasn't too late. It was a good feeling, deciding to do it anyways, and it turned out, I was in luck, which I realized when I jogged up and a girl told me where the pool was, adding they had already done it once, but they were doing it in several rounds. "But it's not worth it--I got kicked in the head like three times when I went." Meh--I've been kicked in the head before. "Oh, dang. Sorry about that. Thanks." Kept jogging.

There was a dance party in the Branbury's indoor section of the pool--people dancing in the pool and near it--and a few people with goggles still diving for the remainders of the first round's booty. The pool was a beautiful turquoise infused with the color of the cloud that comes out of your vacuum when you clean it. Oo la la. Dan yelled hey about the time his brother Ryan started hollering triumphantly: he'd found a dustpan in the bottom of the pool, which, apparently, they'd needed.

Eventually the second round came and I applied Tom's advice of blocking your head with one arm and sweeping the ground with the other. I guess first several Branbury employees stood around the pool (all participants had to wait within the pool at the edge), sprinkling in quarters like pixie dust. Someone yelled go and I went under tried to see through the brownish grey cloud, found a quarter, fought off several people that tried to take it from me while I was struggling to get a fingertip under the thin edges. I was probably being touched by three bodies on average the entire time I was under the 6 feet of water. If you've seen the scene in Finding Nemo where the fish are netted at the end and flopping as the net leaves the water (before Nemo's clever idea) you'll know what I mean. Next dive I got pressed beneath people and panicked for a second as my air ran low enough for me to try to surface, which didn't work. Two seconds later bodies adjusted and I got up. Irrational but not a good feeling. Third dive I found two coins right away, got kicked pretty good (as opposed to indirect ones earlier), and realized there were better ways to get laundry money. So I called it good.

Of course, my opinion changed while recharging in the hot tub with the other guys, when I realized each coin was a dollar. Three might just be enough for ice cream at Macey's. I split and twenty minutes later stood in front of the ice cream aisle, damp but no longer dripping (in a swimsuit, t-shirt, chacos, and January), calculating sales tax. I'd found two quarters, a nickel, and 5 pennies in my car. $3.60. Most ice cream was 3.49 or more. Sales tax at 7%...twenty five cents or so...14 cents short. I felt like a kid ogling a lollipop outside a candy store, and honestly harbored a hope some compassionate passerby or paternalistic manager would put a hand on my shoulder and drop a dime or two in, maybe even another quarter, but no love came. Then I found Western Family at 2.99. Thank you, Invisible Hand. (Vote for Mitt.)

Also, on my way out of the pool area, still dripping but not so cold as you'd expect for being wet at 11 pm in January (go global warming), I passed a car with a lot of music bumping, surrounded by several dudes with one actually standing on top of it, who said, while the car started to move, "Don't go too crazy," which was probably a good idea.

You have six fingers on your right hand--someone was looking for you.

If you too have been looking for a man with six fingers, and would like to hear a lead, as did a few dozen people at The Porch, a crazy storytelling place here in Provo, then here ya go.

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Futahporch.org%2Faudience-stories-bentley-snow-and-dana-fleming&h=OAQHhFSGB

MmmBop

You, like my mom, may be wondering why this is the sight greeting you as you open the fridge. Really, is that Weight Watchers Key Lime pie I see? And what's that apple juice doing between prepared and unprepared salads? Also, is that a wild boar skull?

Yes.

I'd happened upon this boar skull, a souvenir from two years in the Patagonia, a gift from an amigo and a half, while sorting through my stuff. I felt it hadn't got enough attention, specifically from Mom. Where would she be sure to see it?

Malissa suggested "The fridge," and I cried in triumph, "YES!" as she, mortified a whit or two, audibly cringed and said, "Not really!" Oh yes really. Two seconds later she added, "You could put the milk out on the counter, so she'll open the fridge to put it back." I've got a twelve-year head start on her, and she's already outstripping my evil genius. That's okay--as long as evil wins.

How do you guys edit these things?

I think I've already spent my enthusiasm for tinkering with this sucker. Let it be. Hahaha. Props to Noah, who actually beams with the glory which here I've simply sought to echo. Aguante Noe.

9 Asians wearing identical cowboy hats

was almost my favorite sight in Zion National Park this morning. God bless funny people. Someday, I will wander around misty rice fields bearing bucketed bamboo and wearing a nifty oriental hat. I owe them an endearing. Plus, I owe myself a dream.

I had a stress fracture so I couldn't continue hiking into the Narrows with Dave, Derek, and Alan, so I ended up just writing poetry (of all things--I hadn't expected it). I'm not much of a poet, that is to say, I haven't made the money I hear a poet should; or been trained actually; or written more than a ditty to ask the occasional girl out in high school--so enter at your own risk.

Whatever happens, you'll know this:

you knew what I was when you picked me up.

Not Far From Angel’s Landing

Water a flowing jade

Etched with light,

The dimmest scratch

Of gold on living glass

Later sinking into a welcomed green oblivion,

Later contorting like obsidian

Born anew to motion

Celestial as the secret of

Sky slipping through this canyon

To touch the faintest turbulence;

And the fall of white,

From high, from megalithic red,

From unknown trails that it has tunneled:

A mist of flight,

A burst of winter’s melted memory,

Soon to be but the millionth streak

Discoloring the rocky haven I long love.

A dream that has not ceased

Is this ghost town come to life:

Every streak undry,

A cataract free falling,

Fed full within a storm with a thousand joyous fellows

All translating slotted cliffs into

A mystic burst of paradise—

Once that dream came true

And I saw heaven hanging in the valley—

Veiled not far from my precipice—

A hover and a hiding and a hint of what I knew

Could be my place most beautiful;

But now, while I see jade has changed,

See unfolding ripples slowly surge like hope,

See the scratches slipping by

On sleek duned mercury--

such emerald and ebony:

the river's ribboning and molten mirroring dreams' sheen for me--

I feel the same.

Words

In Memory of Tom Riddle, Jr.

(and Steve)

"You live in this"

--Shakespeare, Sonnet 55

I pour myself in vials

(the symbols you now see)

As if each were a horcrux—

hmm...

Maybe Voldemort

was just a poet

who hadn't heard of pens

And maybe I'm just a Dark Lord

who still remembers them (!)

Just You

I think the thought of you has been

Rewinding me to Eden:

Before I said what beauty was,

Where once I watched and knew.

Let There Be

From the wet moss’d rocks, a cool—

Where the rock has gills of green;

Where water scales it backward:

A pulse that’s shimmering;

Where tears fall barely staggered

Into black trickling

In which I saw six spanglings—

Sparking like the sun

At its first uneclipsing.

But Blessed Are Your Eyes

Mountains flicker in the foam,

Gliding white on sculpted glass;

Then veins shift on the sand:

The shallows’ dance with light;

And torturings, submerged things

Which blaze the mountains more,

Entirely undisturbing though

The intricate, set shadow:

Clustered leaflike answerers

to wind and sun alone—

And many things I've always seen

unattentively.