[sic]

The storm may not have landed yet, but the fine flying folks at LAX aren’t taking any chances. In the four months I’ve been watching jets land and take off from my 10th floor Westchester office today is the first time I’ve seen outbound planes taking off heading inland instead of the usual route out over the ocean. And I’ve not seen a single inbound plane, meaning they’re probably coming in for landings from over the water. Kinda trippy to see things so turned around.

Just observing and reporting.

This is as frivolicious as it is lame (though that hasn’t stopped me before!), but ever since I discovered the east/west passage offered my bike and I by Washington Boulevard for our crosstown commutes I chuckle each time I pass this store on the corner of National and Washington, imagining the phone calls.

Never mind the 300-inspired “This! Is! Spartan!! Roofing Materials, how may I help you?” that one might conjure. Instead, I’m thinking more along the lines of how limited their actual inventory of roofing materials might be. After all they are “Spartan Supply.”

Hello, Spartan Supply.

Is. This. Spartan!?

Yep. That’s us. What can I help you with today?

I want to redo my roof with gray slate tiles.

Gray slate, eh? Right now we only have brown.

No gray?

Sorry, no.

All right, brown will do

Brown it is then. How much tile do you need?

1,500 square feet should cover it.

Oh, I’m sorry. We only have 45 square feet in stock.

Really? Why so little?

Because we’re Spartan Supply!

It’s been a looooong stretch since Susan left to catch a 6 a.m. flight to Chicago Saturday for a conference there. But yay! She’s coming home today!!

This is the longest we’ve ever been apart since…. well, last month when I went to Orlando. But before that I think the longest we’ve ever been in two different places has been like any given workday.

I miss my Bay-bee!

And so do the animalz. Except maybe Buster.

Phone rings at 11: 53 a.m. I answer on the second ring.

Me: Hello, this is Will.

Silence, only backgrounding telemarketing bullpen sounds are heard through the phone.

Me (after a pause): Hello. This is Will.

Her: Uh yes, may I speak to a Willy Campbell please?

Silence from me this time.

Her: I’m trying to reach a Willy Campbell?

Me: Really?

Her: Yes sir. Do I have the incorrect number?

Me: Indeed. There is no Willy here.

Her: Thank you.

Click. 

A year ago last month for various reasons and excuses I posted about a semi-ffrivolous desire to adopt the nickname “Dub,” and I was subsequently surprised and humored by the various comments from my friends and blog pals who pretty much summarily rejected or pfffft’d or chuckled at the idea.

So I let sleeping Dubs lie.

Thirteen months later I find an email in my inbox this morning alerting me to a new comment on the matter from a gentleman from the great state of Tennessee who — through the timeless wonders of the internest –  found my post and has signaled his time-tested approval of the idea.

His name? If you haven’t guessed it by now, read on:

Well, Dub, I say go for it!  It’s worked fine for me for almost 60 years.  It’s a tried and true name that is extremely hip and I highly recommend it to anyone who is not squeamish and who’s first name being replaced begins with the letter W.  And Dubby was ok for me as a kid but I don’t recommend handing it down to young offspring, as my own parents did to me.  I said bye to the “by” in Dubby right around the same time I lost my virginity.  Good luck to you!

Dub Campbell
Nashville, Tennessee

Thanks Dub! I do like the sound of it but have to say while I’d still be keen on the moniker, I’d need special dispensation from the proper authorities in order to violate the unwritten rule of self-bestowing a nickname.

My baby got a trio of packages today. Just anybody might stack them up biggest to smallest or heaviest to lightest, but not me. I decided to arrange them a bit more creatively, just so:

There I go again, making something outta nothing.

I’m thinking it’s time to retire these fine fellas:

They’ve served proud and done me well, but it’s time to say so long.

It’s being reported that astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that they believe may be potentially habitable with “earth-like temperatures” although the red dwarf it closely orbits is smaller and dimmer and not as hot as our sun.

But…

“The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away.”

That’s at least a day’s hike out. In galactic terms.

Sometimes you just gotta cut your losses.. You look back regretably knowing you got up waaaay early enough this morning to either bike or mass-transit your way into work like you wanted to do and promised to do, yet instead you got snared by various timesucking diversions and now you’re looking at the clock and its 7:45 and you come to the harsh realization that the only way you’re going to get to your gig on time is to drive… even though you despise doing that not just because you know that the 101 to the 110 southbound through downtown is a parking lot and because you detest getting another mile closer to the 100,000 mile mark on your truck’s odometer. Instead you’re pissed because you had made a deal with your better self and here’s yet another example of your inability to keep your end of the bargain.

Sure, you still could. The devil in you says the option’s there to scramble and get in the saddle or on the bus and fuck it be upwards of a half-hour late (or more). But you don’t succumb to that temptation. Instead now the goal of being at your desk at the stroke of 9 a.m. as you should be becomes something of a consolation prize. A redemption. A chance to take some of the bitterness out of the sour feeling that comes from letting yourself down even on such a small scale, all things considered.

And so you’re in your truck and out of the garage at 8:10, and you crawl across the 101 passing the public tennis courts on Glendale being played upon and wish you could be playing too. Then you creep with the slow flow spilling out of the bottleneck after joining the 110 and pick up a little speed south of downtown where you occasional watch your odometer tick of 99,617, 18, 19, 20 miles and then you get on the transition to the 105 and find that whatever agency in charge of doing it has finally and mercifully removed the decaying carcass of the pitbull dead on the shoulder since the previous Thursday and after exiting to surface streets you climb up to the fourth level and park in the massive garage and drape your ID badge around your neck and say good morning to the security guard and ride the elevator to the 7th floor and sit down in your cubicle at 8:58 a.m.

You’re pleased. And sad.

It may look like I know what I’m doing but truth is I don’t play the guitar. Three years after getting this acoustic I know a few chords and the four-notes of the theme music to Monday Night Football and a simple version of the famous part of Beethoven’s 9th and not much else and usually end up just goofing around for awhile wondering why it’s physically impossible for me to transition smoothly between the G, E, C and D7 chords. I’m passably good with the first three, but the C to G7… Gah!

Despite those frustrations I still like to pluck and strum and pretend and one of my favorite places to do so is out on the front porch in the late afternoon with birds flying around and people walking up and down the street and the sun dropping down toward the Micheltorena ridge to the west and its rays filtering through the rustling leaves of neighbor’s big tree whose limbs reach far across the frontyard.

Ever since the time change a few weekends ago I’ve been wanting to take advantage of the lengthened day, but work or chores or laziness has conspired to keep me from it until finally yesterday afternoon after some backyard work was complete I looked out the front window and found conditions ideal for me to grab up my geetar and have a seat.