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In the following picture, you can see Sarah during a recent trip to the coast when we were sick of house guests:

Here you can see Sarah in our kitchen finding out what pomegranates say when they die:

We got tired of house guests because we love house guests too much. That means that you should come visit for a couple days so we can feed you and show you around the city. We might for you to eat beignets at Just For You Cafe across the street. EAT THEM. Otherwise, you’ll have fun. We promise.

By the way, it’s up to you to complain to or thank Sarah for the lack of photos of me.

Also, in case you didn’t see the link above: http://dogpatchhowler.com/.

Sarah:

OMG i remember my dream last night

Sarah:

or part of it

Sarah:

i was engaged to be married to steve buscemi

Sarah:

and i was really creeped out by him

me:

sorry about that

me:

I am Steve Buscemi

Lately I have been using three more variable names:
foo
bar
baz
monkey
pirate
ninja
robot
zombie
samurai

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So I emailed a pastor from Norway, and she even responded!

Hello from the USA! I have been researching the history of my family, and I think that Falla is the farm from which my great-great-grandfather emigrated.

In this article, it looks like you performed a church service at the
farm. Is there anything that you can tell me about it?

Thank you!

But, would she respond?

Yes. We celebrated an outdoor church service at the Falla farm last August.
Quite many were gathered there.
In former days the Falla farm was located in the community of Gran, Hadeland, and it was a quite big forest farm (big after Norwegian standards in those days). However, borders between Gran and Hurdal were changed many years ago, and after that the farm was located in Hurdal, as it is today.

Today Falla is owned by Mathisen Eidsvoll Verk, wich is a private family company that owns much of the forest land in Hurdal and surrounding communities. Nobody lives at Falla any longer, but the Andersen family rent it for vacation purpose. They invited the Hurdal congregation to have a summer service at Falla. The house has simpel electricity. No indoor bathroom or other modern facilities.

The house for cows and horses is still there, and also the barn for storing hay. The soil is not kept for farm harvesting any more. There is grass around the houses and forest is planted at former farmland. The weather was fine, and we had a nice celebration there. You can go by car to Falla, but the road is not very good for cars. Consequently many of us walked up there, at a nice path through the old forest. In former days they did not have cars, and the old path was for people and horses. From the main road it is about 1/2 hour’s walk.

If anyone is interested, I’ll post the results of our correspondence.

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35* showed up. O HAI, I’m old. All of a sudden, but in slow motion, my age is a car accident. I can see the ditch coming up: I’m sliding left and downhill but the direction is independent of my desire. At least, despite the proclamations of ex-girlfriends over the past few years, my hairline seems to be mostly along for the ride, albeit more frequently speckled with gray.

“I didn’t say that you weren’t going gray, Honey,” Sarah has said, “just that you aren’t more gray now that you were a year ago.”

My birthday was a ski jump of chaos: I planned a pub crawl through the various drinking establishments of the San Francisco Brewer’s Guild. My Californian friends were aghast that the event began at one in the afternoon, but by the time we parted ways with Frank the Irish Tennis Pro from the Cayman Islands it was an indeterminably early hour of the morning and we had sampled the wares of five or six bars, a sausage shop, and an open-bar hat-party in the Mission. Unless you were Paul, Stan, Me, or Sarah, you probably missed some barefoot-on-Haight-at-midnight part of it.

I finally found a California beer that satisfies my palate: Anchor Steam Humming. Having a go-to beer, even if it is a seasonal, makes all the other beers taste better. I still miss Summit EPA, just like I miss Mom and that particular kind of blue sky streaked with woolly clouds. Well, not quite like I miss my mother: Summit EPA doesn’t mail me lovely retro robot nightlights to assuage my fear of the dark**.

I switched jobs not too long ago to work at IMVU. I really liked Yahoo! Inc., but getting to work with Paul again is really satisfying. My mother was a little upset that I didn’t issue a press release, but it’s Silicon Valley and I’m a software engineer: it’s not as big of a deal and you go where you will (hopefully) fit best. Just make sure that you do good work along the way.

*In my defense, neither Elliot Smith nor ODB made it to 36.

**I am not afraid of the dark, but I did just receive a lovely retro robot nightlight.

Awake, befogged, I blinked and struggled into dim reality. Sarah hadn’t turned any lights on and the sky was darkly overcast.

“Oh, wow, what time is it?” I asked no one in particular.

“It’s like ten fifteen,” answered Delsym, the cough medicine I had taken the night before*.

“What?” I hollered, sitting bolt upright.

“You looked so cute sleeping there, I figured that you could use an extra couple of hours of sleep.”

“I? What?”

“…and some crazy dreams. You liked running in them, right?”

“I will be so glad when I’m feeling better.”

*Note: this is an intentionally imagined conversation, although it is possible that the cold medicine left me weirder than usual.

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So, there you have it, an opaque job description and my start date, which are the two things that people seem to want. Well, maybe not an opaque description, but that’s what I have for you.

Oh, maybe you don’t know what Yahoo does. Maybe this video will help:

If you like that song (which I do), you might enjoy the full version. Warning: the video is crazy. Crazy awesome. Like a fox.

A year ago I woke up from trying to sleep sideways in my mostly broken armchair after making one last push to pack up my things for the movers to take to California. It was an inauspicious start to my the day, which ended up being pretty darn awesome. I left Minnesota with a heart so heavy that it dragged on the ground, but something about the endless blue of the sky and the intensity of the sun has kept me sold. A couple of weeks ago Sarah and I walked along the beach — me waist deep in the icy Pacific and her skipping through the frothy edge of the waves — and it felt like what should have been happening all my life.

Sarah is here now, living with me, and my huge one bedroom has become a little claustrophobic: we have two offices, a dining table, and a living room jammed into the living room. When I work from home, Sarah makes me the most amazing turkey avocado sandwiches with smoked cheddar and red onions. Eating one is like being punched in the face with happiness. Not that Sarah punches me in the face — that would leave visible marks.

Call the police, she hits me!

(this is just a joke)

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Here are my contributions:

Besos

Untitled

The 400 pixel width diminishes them somewhat, I suppose. There is still something to be said for the printed form, no matter how digital I have become.

After the show — or rather mid-show — we lit out for Buster’s and got lit.

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The motion. The endless movement, the endless workings inside of him. He knew not what they built, but they seemed to be making ready.

The day stretched on endlessly, and he slept, awakening to stars above. He squinted and made out the silhouette of his car where he had gotten out to pee by the side of the road, not twenty feet away. The door was still open, but the battery had run out, leaving only darkness. His eyes closed. Morning arrived, bringing the sun and a distinct hum.

He felt his pinky curl, but it seemed beyond his control. The humming grew nearer and sharper. A fist made itself from his hand, then opened again. He coughed. Was he regaining his body?

A shadow fell across him. The hum became a drowning buzz. His legs shook and stiffened. He coughed and the phlegm ran down his cheek. It was sweet in taste. The shadow surrounded him in a blur of black and yellow. Their wings trumpeted. He could feel the sound in his sinuses. Suddenly, he rolled over onto his stomach. His lips pressed against gravel and his arms jerked wildly. His legs curled under him, then all at once he stood — no, he was made to stand — stood up, dragged up, hauled into motion from inside like a waxy marionette.

Bees swarmed him, crawling over his skin, into his nose, his mouth. He couldn’t scream, couldn’t move, couldn’t close his eyes. The swirl parted in front of him, and a gleaming insect the size of his fist appeared, flying slowly, inexorably towards him. It — she — was flanked by several thumb sized attendants, and they in turn were orbited by bees that in any other company would be considered horrifyingly enormous.

He knew at once that this was his queen.

He reached down and put fingers into the hole in his stomach. Pulling. Honey ran down his abdomen and stained his pants.

He was ready for his queen.

Okay, sleep tight!