GRABBINGSAND

in half an hour or so, i will no longer be 29 years old. or rather, the meter will click over sometime tomorrow morning. close to 8am or close to 10am. at the moment, i cannot remember the time i’ve been told, and newborns rarely wear watches. 29 and holding? no. why do that? why tell yourself that time moves on without you? such logic serves only to deny opportunity and postpone hope.

and what about turning thirty? turning thirty? i am reminded of a use of the word “turn” familiar primarily to those of us who spent our formative junior high years rolling a 20-sided die and attempting to slay imagined dragons. as i remember it, turning was an act performed by a cleric, a spellcasting character who drew power from faith. turning was defence against the unwanted undead, and so you would roll your dice to determine if you had successfully turned (away) oncoming vampires and ghouls. so let’s say in that sense that i am not turning thirty, but rather welcoming it willingly and kindly.

from where i stand, thirty is not so important a benchmark as other ages. you look forward to 16 because that meant you could be licensed to legally drive. 18 brings adulthood in the eyes of the state, as well as the responsibility of voting and the uneasy application to selective service. the state recognizes your age again at 21, deciding that you may now consume and purchase alcohol. the only real first benchmark, at least to me, comes at 25. the quarter-century mark. man, now that phrase has some weight to it. you’re contemplating calculations in a scope of a hundred years.

but 30? no longer a quarter, not even a third. its really just a percentage, isn’t it?

“do you feel that life has passed you by?” i was asked this question just a few minutes ago, and my answer is an unyielding “no” — not a defensive statement, but one born of a deserved pride. i enjoy my work, working for a company i respect, making a positive contribution to the whole and surrounded by people i admire. i love my family, still as and even more supportive and loving as they have always been. my friends, they are wonderful and i could not ask for sweeter strings to weave into the tapestry of my human experience. thank you.

and i like me. with my faults and issues, my occasional successes and failures, my decisions wise and unwise, i am ever grateful for the next morning’s waking, even if i do need at least a cup of coffee to function properly.

at this moment i am 29 years old. in a short while, i will be 30 years old. at both points in the timeline, i will be who i am. and who i am considers where i will be a blessing.

there are far too many online quizzes. what brand of cereal are you? which letter of the ancient cuniform alphabet are you? which robot car from knight rider are you? and while i do think i am more of a kitt than a karr, i avoid these little inquisitive wastes of time like a venomous adder. however, i maintain a lingering interest in psychology from those early college days spent pursueing a major in the stuff (before i “came to my senses” and went with literature instead). so when i was led to the enneagram test, i had to take it. as it turns out, i am a 5, followed closely by a 2. an investigator and a helper.

so what are you?

the show was odd. practically bipolar in its approach. ever the hand that gives as it takes away, the academy managed to simultaneously commend and dismiss so many of the exceptional films of last year. it recognized the costuming and art direction of moulin rouge! without even nominating the film’s director. it awarded the makeup and musical score of fellowship of the ring while giving its highest honor to the latest ron howard emota-flick.

time for a disclaimer. i’ve not seen a beautiful mind. in fact, of the five nominees for best picture, i have only seen two. gosford park failed to catch my attention, though many trusted friends have recommended it. in the bedroom just seemed and still seems too depressing for my tastes these days. and i just cannot bear russell crowe.

none of the songs for moulin rouge! were eligible for best song nomination, but still some justice was to be found in that award as randy newman was the single, solitary moment of oscar recognition for monsters, inc., as the first ever award for best animated film was given to the lower quality (and much lower brow) shrek. my friends and i called the best foreign film back in february, just because we know from recent years how politics can influence an outcome. by all rights, the award belonged to amelie. i know this. the academy knows this. if you have seen the film, you know this, and if you haven’t then for the love of all that is holy you need to go now and see it. just go. take the afternoon off from work if you must. but instead, the academy bestowed blessings upon no man’s land. why? because it was filmed in the trenches of war-torn bosnia, and apparently human conflict is more oscar-worthy than romance.

ian mckellan received no oscar, but judging by the the strapping young thing seated to his left, he did not go home empty-handed. cameron diaz was wearing a kimono of some sort with a hairstyle that can only be described as bedhead after a bender. tom cruise was the first one on stage, apparently drawing the short straw when deciding who would make the “in the light of national tragedy we’re still important” speech, and you know i wish i could have had almost-invisible braces like his went i was in high school. and then you have whoopi. dear god, what an abyssmal host. words cannot even describe.

so i guess i am supposed to go see last year’s best picture. perhaps i have been avoiding something earth-shattering and life-changing. but i won’t, because i haven’t. instead, i will look for a theatre still playing iris, or gosford park. maybe monster’s ball, or a rental of training day, because despite what ron howard said, russell crowe is not a “sublime” actor, nor is he a “profound” actor. and for that reason, i am glad denzel washington walked away with a little gold man, because that’s one less chance for russell to try to impress us with his polished thuggery.

on second thought, forget all that. the next thing i want to do is watch in the heat of the night again, because sidney poitier is better than all of ‘em. heck, i’d even go for some brother john right now. or sneakers…. yeah, that’d do just fine…..

i have a library. i am reminded of its sheer mass every single time i move to a new domecile. paper in such a thin and inconsequential thing until you stack several hundred sheets together and bind them into a shell of cardboard or hardcover. once you pack several of these bound copies into an empty typing paper box, well, you’ve got the potential for doing some serious back damage. worse than the inconvenience of transport, however, is the inability to consistently organize and keep track of just what books you have.

perhaps i have found a solution. singlefile. the site is very slow, but i am hoping that the sludgery is just a symptom of opening day overload. you can list and categorize all of your books just by entering the ISBN number from the back — then keep track of where they are (at home, at work) or who is borrowing a particular one. the icing is that you can share your list with the world at large. this is mine, but it is not at all finished. so far it only contains just the pair of books that live on my workdesk.

(credit is due to kottke, since he found it first.)

not sure what to get the wife for her anniversary? unsure of what trinket best befits a best man? looking for that perfect piece of polished metal to accommodate your heartfelt engraving? well, you could go to the mall, sure, but have you considered an ipod? yes, apple will not only sell you a glorified mp3 player for half a grand, but you can personalize it as well. here’s my contribution:

(thanks unxmaal.)

trust me. just go with me on this one. the song is really great, i promise. and the lyrics make much more sense with the bending acoustic guitar strings and the steady rhythm and just the way it’s sung. i mean… well, just read it and listen to this little snip of an mp3.

ive got a sister with an open mind
and my friends are all junkies
but they’re still my friends,
as long as they dont use monkeys,
we enjoy the heat of stolen days in the summer of 93.
Well the future boy said, “ive got friends but you know sometimes
it all depends on how tall they are
against yourself.”
I’m still the future boy.

- turin brakes, “future boy” from the optimist lp

as he mentioned in a comment on my last post, cordle and i share the same birthday. cordle is a ferocious librarian living in the wilds of washington state. we know this because the globe of blogs is growing by a steady creep, compiling weblogs by location, gender, birthday and author. we are all in this together, don’t you know?

i’m just a guy with a lightsaber and a few questions.”

ah, yeah… not only is next friday my birthday (see last post), but it is also the official release date for lucasart’s jedi knight 2: jedi outcast.

i’ve been looking forward to this one. but now i can’t seem to get this odd thought out of my head…. what if the game were called jedi outkast? hmmm, i wonder?

a week from friday. about two-hundred and twenty-something hours. and i am looking forward to it. to what? my 30th birthday. and why shouldn’t i? eight years out of college and i am more stable than i have ever been, at least financially. i can finally get a clear view of the world around me and of the face i shave every morning. it is like my father would say, usually when i had made one bad decision or another in school… he would tell me, “son, you’re just going to have to take a good, hard look in the mirror and make up your mind.”

and he was right.

do i fear thirty? no. the number seems more ominous to my friends and coworkers than it is to me. i am happy to be here, glad that i grew up when i did, being in college in the alternative 90s. there was perhaps nothing so good as being a child of the plastic 80s. wandering about at knee-level around adults i could admire in the early 70s. three decades in and i am ready for six more. or seven. maybe ten. let’s keep going, shall we?

now… is this the part where i try to draw your attention to my wish list?

i dream of touring like duke ellington
in my own railroad car
i dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches
in a grand station aglow with grace
and then standing out on the platform
and feeling the air on my face

- from ani difranco’s poem-in-progress following the events of 11 september 2001