Why, how snapdragon of you.

Illustrator Jason Logan gives his take on modern floriography-the practice of attaching meaning to particular specimens of flowers in a simple painting series at the New York Times.



Eight more illustrated definitions from the collection in "The Sweet Smell of Semantics".

If you're interested in the full list of flowers and their meanings-something I've always found interesting, but like horoscopes, only think about them occasionally when they strike a chord-you can peruse an extensive selection here.

So, you may want to think twice before getting me that bouquet of orange blossoms and Queen Anne's lace for Valentine's Day this year. I would take it to mean that you want my babies. Or, okay, maybe you might want that. I don't know.

New Blossoms

I got back to Seattle on New Years Eve just in time to run home, change, buy champagne and head over to a friend's house for a great pork roast dinner with potatoes, squash and caramelized onions accompanied by sparkling shiraz, rosés and French 75s. I'm still a bit jet-lagged and getting myself tired out by bringing in the New Year night after night has added to the fatigue-it's time for a break from the holiday season and a little bit of normalcy this month-and year-with the new job, new friends and academic prospects. Glad to be back "home."

Haiku time...still bringing out the haikus from my creative marathon a few weeks ago.

Do withered flowers
Fear being plucked? Or do they
Pine for human touch?

Artwork by yours truly, May '06

Old Books

Going through my old things has turned into some kind of strange, subtle torture punctuated by moments of lightness and bold indicators of the evolution of my character, sexuality and personality. Apparently, I feel the need to deal with this by turning it into some form of entertainment. I didn't end up making it into Germany this afternoon; on the agenda for today was childhood books-and making an Apple-Raspberry Pie which turned out marvelously. I felt a little like Ned in Pushing Daisies.

A few highlights or lowlights of the book fest depending on how you take it:

A selection of Misty of Chincoteague novels by Marguerite Henry from my lengthy "horse phase."

The Black Stallion by Walter Farley-one of my favorites from times past, again with the horse thing.

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit, a book I remember quite fondly-not so much the 2002 movie, however.

The Complete Pendragon Cycle by Stephen R. Lawhead which is still some good semi-historical fiction tracing the lives of Taliesin, Merlin and Arthur.

Aaaand, Help!: I'm Trapped in My Gym Teacher's Body! by Todd Strasser. An interesting concept-kind of kinky. I liked this book as an adolescent. This explains alot of things.

Please wrest me back to the present now.

France, Germany, Switzerland-Repeat

I have had a rather enjoyable time here thus far with my family in France. It is the first Christmas the family has spent together in three years! We were also here in France at that time, a little over a year after I graduated from my high school in Germany, just across the border from where my parents now. I give you fair warning for the long post ahead, dear readers.

I have to say that while I've been having a good time for the most part, it is more than a little odd to be all "living" under the same roof for a week. While it is nice to have the family in one place for the holiday, it doesn't give me all warm and fuzzy feelings but the realization that the time of being together as a unit is long over and can't happen naturally again. I think that because it seems unnatural, I have more of a tendency to feel pressure to "perform" or perhaps a better word is "restrain" in certain circumstances. That's rarely a pleasant behavior to enact. I have this desire that we could all relate to the place each of us are at in our lives and though I'm sure some families successfully navigate that process or make some semblance of that, it's seems impossible to do with those you left sometimes, especially when people treat each other as figures as they were in the past.

The past is something I always have to face when I visit with the family. This year is no exception. Last time I came it was my former alumni from high school; this time it is boxes. Twenty-some boxes of my life, from grade school onward. My parents want me to go through them and downsize all that I have in storage. They are full of papers mostly, personal and academic all jumbled together in a vague order. '98 in one box, '01 and '02 in the second, Biology, Statistics and Creative Writing in another. Sometimes it's not so simple and all kinds of writing falls out on my lap. Some of which are embarrassing, some cute, some useless now, and others...others I would care to forget. Then I realize that forgetting is the easy part, but there is a price in that some of what I wrote then stems from a world from anxiety and hurt. Writing regarding events or ideas that were certainly formative in making the man I am today, but that is too striking to read in the present. I was shocked to experience the feeling that I wish I never had to write certain things about family, for school or otherwise. Some things are better addressed than forgotten, regardless of how strong the drive is to move on. My mom turned to me at one point during my adventures in filing and in a light-hearted tone asked, "So, taking a trip down memory lane, huh?" I swallowed the lump in my throat and mumbled a non-committal reply. Sometimes memory lane is a dark and twisted alley. I've thrown out old math and german tests or the like, some history notes, but I've saved all my writing assignments, journals and drawings. Most of these will remain in boxes, but some I have to take back with me. I can't box them up again.

One of my favorite part of these days here may very well come at night when I can curl up on the couch with my yellow lab, Athena-how I've missed her- at my feet and touch my present life via the keys on my laptop.

That being said, today's trip to Lucerne, Switzerland was most pleasant and the weather cooperated marvelously-except for the temperature which was hovering above freezing with the wind chill. It is one of the most visited cities in Switzerland and for good reason. It is full of stunning architecture-castles, bridges, bell towers, monuments and stone walls. There's a great new vista behind every building. The bridge in the above photo is the oldest covered bridge in Europe. Being the day after Christmas, there were few people walking the streets. However, also being the day after Christmas, there were not many shops or restaurants open. We weren't going to the city for either particularly, so it was fine except when it came to eat. After looking up and down narrow streets, we found an open restaurant-a modern, sprawling three-floor McDonalds. As I said to my dad, menus at McDonalds do differ quite a bit around the world, so it was a cultural experience. I made up for it by having a vanilla Berliner post-"Chicken Mythic" sandwich. I'll share pictures of the whole trip as soon as I can gather them from the couple cameras we used. On our way back we cut across the German border and back into France with a great meal by Mom and a viewing of Iron Man with the family.

Tomorrow will be a quieter day for the most part. I will likely visit my old high school for a few photos along with my old dorm. I'll pick up a German pastry from the local bakery a few blocks from the campus. Tomorrow might also be the day I eat lunch at the best Turkish döner kebab in the world-no joke. In the evening, we will be having my dear, dear friend, professor, drama director and choir instructor, Michele, over for a dinner of Mom's homemade pizza! I'm very much looking forward to the good food and good company.

Not After Midnight

Gremlins is one of my favorite movies and if I kept a list of favorite Christmas movies it would surely appear close to the top.

Before the Furby and Tickle Me Elmo, there was:


and the dreamy Zach Gilligan as Billy Peltzer.



Gerald: If it isn't Captain Clip-On. Guess who almost signed for unemployment today?
Billy Peltzer: I give up.
Gerald: You... But Mr. Corben had second thoughts. He gets so sentimental around the holidays.
Billy Peltzer: Imagine that.
Gerald: If it was up to me, I would have fired you in a second.
Billy Peltzer: Well, a merry Christmas to you too.

If only real businesses worked that way. I was laid off early this month just in time for Christmas, but thankfully, I was offered a new and exciting job this past weekend. I hardly had time to celebrate before heading off to France! Champagne when I return to the US of A!

All Kinds of Shiny

A fantastic Christmas themed Firefly fan video.



Have a wonderful, shiny Christmas, everyone!

Christmas in Alsace

After literal days of travel-including cancellations, delays and flight connections, I finally touched down in Zurich, Switzerland around 2:00PM local time on Tuesday, December 23rd. On the way back to my parent's place, we stopped at the local butcher to pick up a ham for Christmas day and two baguettes from the bakery down the street. My dinner, was, naturally, bread and brie. And in fact, that may be what I have for the majority of my meals during my time here.

We spent a good portion of the evening in Basel, Switzerland sipping sweet, hot glühwein out of real mugs as we walked through the Weinachts market downtown. Basel was beautifully strung with lights of all kinds and huge Christmas trees were erected in every square and street corner including the Rathaus-Basel's red stone town hall as seen in the picture to the right. Within its courtyard, carolers surrounded the tree and sang traditional holiday songs in German. Basel is only twenty minutes away from our house here, so spending the day between Germany-ten minutes away-Switzerland and France is fairly typical for my family here. I look forward to going back to Basel during the day sometime this week and visiting all the great stores big shopping centers, modern European shops and quaint boutiques alike.

I stayed up until a typical bedtime as you're supposed to do and then slept for thirteen hours. So far so good-I'm sure the two cups of espresso this morning and afternoon helped a little. I'm ready to head out for an afternoon of traipsing about Alsacien villages along the Rhein River culminating in the town of Colmar for their Christmas market. Then its back to my family's house in Kembs Loechlee for an evening of decorating the tree, baking cookies and eating raclette-a delicious French meal with melted cheese and potatoes. Carbs and cheese-how could you possibly go wrong with that?

Of Grills & Microwaves

At work this morning, my coworkers and I were discussing the events of our respective Fourth of July celebrations. Kelli was telling me about how she hadn't been feeling well earlier in the day so she decided to just stay home and have a quiet evening at home. However, it being the Fourth of July and all she had a craving for a cheeseburger. She told me that she had never made a cheeseburger before, but "how hard could it be, right?" She opened up the grill, which was your standard gas grill and found the spark switch not to be working. She briefly thought about lighting a paper towel with a match and throwing it onto the grill to get it going. That didn't sound like the best idea so she decided to light a match and do it all manually. The gas had been on this whole time, so when she finally lit the match and leaned in to the grill pan, a huge fireball erupted from the surface and probably would have ignited her hair were her hair not still damp from her shower!

This conversation about fireballs then led us to discuss the dangers of microwaves. I told Kelli about a movie I saw on an airplane when I was about 4 that haunts me to this day. I think it starred Roseanne who was playing some psychotic female. I vividly remember her placing an aerosol can in the microwave, keying in the time...cut to wide exterior shot of the entire house BLOWING UP. So for the rest of my childhood I was deathly afraid of putting anything in the microwave that didn't have the explicit label of "Microwave Safe." I would ask my mom about everything. I admit that I am slightly apprehensive about what can and can't go in the microwave to this day. Does anyone have any idea what this movie I speak of may be?

I asked Kelli if she had seen any YouTube videos of CDs in microwaves and told her it was pretty much lightning in a box. We watched a couple of those involving people destroying CDs and their microwaves in the process.

Then, in a twisted YouTube suggestion, YouTube decided that the most relevant video that we may be interested next was this one:



A Furby being utterly annihilated in a microwave!

This, in turn, led us to discover an entire filthy underground world of Furby torture fetishism.

Watch if you dare!



Kelli and I were gasping out loud at this one, first at the brutality of the fur being shaved off of such a tender creature and then how the inflictor NAILED down the Furby's feet before DRILLING into its head!

Thus, from Fourth of July adventures in grilling and Kelli almost getting toasted, we managed to make our way into the dark recesses of the mind of a psycopathic Furby killer.

Oh, YouTube, we have so much to thank you for-not to mention being scarred for life...again.

UPDATE: After further investigation of this harrowing childhood memory, I have discovered that the aforementioned psycho-Roseanne movie is called She-Devil.

The plot-summery begins as follows:

Ruth (Barr) is a frumpy, overweight wife and mother as well, who tries to please her husband. Her husband Bob (Ed Begley, Jr.) is an accountant who is trying to boost his business, meets Mary Fisher (Streep), a romance novelist riding high on her fame and fortune, at a dinner party and begins to originate an affair with her. When Ruth displays much clumsiness, while Bob's parents are visiting, Bob uses that as an announcement that he is deserting her. As he is packing his bags and Babbage, he explains to Ruth that his assets are his home, his family, his career, and his freedom, but Ruth is a liability. Ruth vows to get revenge on him, as well as Mary when she says to herself "I hope Mary Fisher's pink palace crumbles and falls right into the sea". Ruth writes a list to herself titled "Bob's Assets" and lists the four assets that Bob has stated, and will cross off each one from the list when it is destroyed. While he is at work and the children are at school, she sets the house on fire (by overloading the electricity of the house by doing every possibly unsafe task with the household appliances) and it is obliterated in a gigantic explosion.

I must find every VHS tape of that movie and destroy every single one-just as George Lucas has vowed to do with the "Star Wars Holiday Special"! I will also be suing Hollywood for raping my innocent mind. Who's with me?

Some Kind of Holiday

This morning, I woke up early so that I could go to the gym. I rolled out of bed, packed my bag, grabbed a snack and headed out the door to meet Keith outside so that we could get all bulked up, you know, like you do at the gym. We got to the gym around 9:15, pulled the handle on the door and…no go. The gym is closed on the Fourth of July. It seems that this holiday is a big deal.

Keith suggested that we go do breakfast somewhere as he did not have to work today and I did not have to be in to work until 11:00AM. We had a great, big breakfast at Lola. I had a Dungeness Crab Omelet with toast, bacon and smashed garlic potatoes. Delicious. Our waiter-whose name is also Ian-said that he didn't expect the restaurant to be so busy today, even with it being a holiday. We declared that people getting up early in the morning of July 4th is decidedly un-American and that the common Fourth of July program should entail sleeping in, lounging around and not eating until the Bar-B-Cue in the afternoon prior to watching the fireworks in the evening. We then concluded that this obviously madeeveryone else in the restaurant foreigners and Ian-the waiter-joked that they were indeed preparing "Freedom Toast" in the back for the patrons of the restaurant as they intended to cater toward the true American way.

Having eaten well, essentially, Keith and I did the opposite of what we were intending to do at the gym.

I wanted to hit up Zanadu, the comic book store, afterwards before work to start reading Buffy Season Eight #16 but sadly, that establishment was also closed for business.

Now? Counting the hours until I am off work-yes, working on the 4th of July, hey, other people are welcome work, but I don't really care to. I will be going to a houseboat party later on this evening to see the fireworks on South Lake Union. According to TIME magazine, Washington Mutual’s Fireworks Display is on a list of the top fireworks displays in the country! In this picture, you can see these fireworks on Lake Union and the illuminated structures of Gasworks Park in the lower left hand corner.

I will say that last year's Fourth of July events were really incredible. I was also at a houseboat party with great friends and we were as close to the fireworks as you could legally be. At the start of the show they have a huge military helicopter with an equally large American flag draped beneath circle Lake Union just over the water with a massive spotlight. It was really great, so I look forward to another fun evening on the water this year!