Okay, this isn’t one of my weird word substitutions, it’s a brand new word that Merriam Webster is totally going to thank me for. We all know that petrichor is the smell of the world after a rainfall on a warm day, right? If not, learn yourself some education. My new word is puprichor. The feeling you get when you’re in a comfortable warm room on a cold winter weekend day, listening to the chilly winds buffet the house when you look over and see a dog curled up and sleeping in its warm bed, happy and content. The feelings of puprichor can be increased if the dog is a rescue, if the dog is old, if the dog is young, if the dog is middle-aged, if the dog is a dog.

In the midst of the holiday season, people occasionally find themselves prone to making wishes. If I had one wish for these holidays, it would be that everyone would get to experience puprichor at least once in their life. Assuming that I would get other wishes later, of course. Otherwise, that holiday wish is for money and a case of banana Moon Pies.

Let’s talk about being scared. Well, again. It’s been a bit since I’ve written anything in here, so I should give a little background as to what’s been going on in your favorite Moondoggie’s life.

So I was out in Boston in mid-October, visiting the glorious Barb, love of my life. I come back home from a great almost-week to find the back door to my house open. Yes, my house had been broken into. Somehow, that doesn’t sound descriptive enough. Let’s try this: my house was broken into and my state of well-being had been anally raped. Yeah, that sounds a little closer.

The bastards didn’t get very much – looks like something scared them away in the process. The kind officer told me I’m more than likely not the one who did it, as this would probably have happened during the day as that’s when most residences are knocked over. Of course, a few minutes later as we’re walking the house, he gives me this worried look and asks if I’ve already looked through the house to see if they’re still here.

And oh, how I wanted them to still be here. Just a few prized moments with them before the police arrived, that’s all I asked. Alas, it was not to be as the cowards hightailed it out of there with a DVD player, a VCR, and half of my DVD collection. Like I said, they didn’t get very much, but it’s the violation that just kills you. Not to mention paying the insurance deductible. There’s no such thing as a victimless crime, kiddies.

So now I’m developing a nifty little obsessive-compulsive disorder to cope. Before I leave the house, every door inside must be shut. When I go to sleep, every door but the bedroom is shut, and I have a nice little Home Alone/Rube Goldberg alarm system going on. Not to mention my little arsenal next to my bed. No firearms or such – we’re talkin’ blunt instruments, baby – a gun’s too good for ’em. I find myself slipping into a specific routine to keep myself sane. To get back a little peace of mind.

Of course, since I’m exceedingly forgetful (my lawsuit against Memento is still pending), occasionally I don’t remember that I haven’t gone through all of the steps for whatever reason. This is why the habits must be formed. Last night I scared the bejeezus out of myself because I had forgotten to shut the door to the laundry room before going to sleep.

My latest fright was about an hour ago. I had left the door to my office open, since I was just going to take a short nap. It’s right around the corner from my bedroom, and since I left the monitor on, it lights up my bedroom door when darkness falls. Darkness dropped, and everything would’ve been fine. That is, if I didn’t have my hockey girdle (the big black shorts) hanging on the office door to dry. Imagine living alone, then waking up to find someone looming in the doorway, arms raised above their heads. If it helps, add in bad eyesight and no glasses. That’s what I thought too – “Holy FUCK!”

Latest interesting way my mind works: as soon as I saw the evil looming person, I realized it was the shadow of my hockey girdle being thrown onto the door. The part that realized this lives in .000001% of my brain, right by the ear. It told me I shouldn’t panic, but you know how mob scenes can get – it was more than a little overwhelmed.

So now I sit here, a couple more years removed from my life, though as Denis Leary says, they’re taken off of the bad part – the end. Here I had always thought it was the smell of my hockey gear that would kill me. Turns out it’s the shadows I have to watch out for.

Time to go watch some TV.

You know, it’s interesting the little tricks your mind plays on you to keep you going through life.

I’ve been thinking about fear a lot lately, what with all the craziness in the world and living in SF and all. I was on BART yesterday morning, picturing exactly what would happen to all of us on the train when the terrorists blew up the first car of the train. Actually, I think I was picturing what would happen if they just took out some of the tracks. Something like that.

Anyhoo, I was picturing a train wreck. Newton’s laws being what they are, things would be tossed about in the car as we quickly ceased our forward motion.

“Good thing I’m in a rear-facing seat,” I smugly thought to myself. Then it occurred to to me that I’m always in a rear-facing seat because it just feels more comfortable to me. Perhaps an imminent BART disaster lingers in my subconscious, pushing that pleasure button every time I sit down facing the back of the train. I typically stay away from the seats that face each other. with my new morbid outlook it makes sense – someone’s going to get thrown at the other people, therefore it’s best to be away from that section.

Interesting how the mind works.

I just went back into the archives to see how bad my color combos looked and… the purple has all changed to red. Weeeeeeird.

Well, this is my first post in our new world. I’ve held off from posting anything, mostly because I figured no one would really care to hear someone on the other side of the country talk about the effects of the events eleven days ago. Then I remembered that almost no one reads this, so what the hell.

First off, to those two or three of you who ordinarily stop by here, you’ll notice a patriotic little color change. One day the purple will come back, but until then, I’m flying my next three favorite colors. If you look back in the archives you’ll see some rather grim color combinations, just because I haven’t worked through all of the posts yet. Patience.

I guess the main thing I’m wondering (like everyone else in the country, I’m sure) is “when will I feel normal again?” Assuming I can ever feel normal again (as normalcy goes in my neck of woods). I was happy with my complacency. Reveled in it, in fact. Now I’m missing it like a long-lost friend. Everything in the world has taken on ominous overtones.

In those halcyon days of two weeks ago, I could see two police officers walk past without a second thought. Now I start to wonder. “Are they looking for someone? Did someone call in a bomb threat? Is this just a safety measure?” Two weeks ago, I would hear the sound of a fire engine’s siren (many times each day) and just assume that there was some small fire somewhere to be put out. As long as the sound didn’t get close, everything’s okay. Now I rush over to the news sites to see if we’ve been attacked. When I hear a plane fly overhead, my ears strain to detect a change in the sound of the engine and it’s all I can do to keep myself from running outside to make sure it stays in the air.

Now, before you start to think I’m waaaaay too paranoid, I’ll let you know that I live in the Bay Area and work in San Francisco. I feel my paranoia, while a little extreme, is at least partly justified. Especially when there’s talk of another attack on “a bridge in a major urban center.” Now you see why I’m going crazy.

So yesterday, I’m driving home across the Bay Bridge. I wound up having to leave at the peak of rush hour, so traffic was bumper to bumper. As soon as I pulled onto the bridge, the little reptilian part of my brain started piping up.

“Get the hell OUT of here? Don’t you read the news? A BRIDGE might get hit on Saturday, and Saturday is damn close to Friday. Maybe they’re in a different time zone and they really mean today! Get out of the car! Walk back to work and hide under the desk!”

Luckily for the other commuters, I like my car. I turned up the radio a little louder and looked around for a little distraction.

“Hmm hmm hmmmm… Lah de dah.. not listening to the voices… blue car next to me… yellow in front… orange car in front of the blue one… in front of that, and eighteen wheeler… lah de dahh… what store is that eighteen wheeler from? Target. Fuck me.”

Yes, I was on a bridge in a major urban center three cars away from a big white truck with the word “TARGET” plastered all over it with a GIANT FUCKING BULLSEYE!!!!

Not only do I really like my car, I don’t like to walk if I can help it. Plus, I needed to work on my deep breathing anyways. All I can say is, you’ve never seen someone so glad to get off of a bridge in your life.

So here I am, safely ensconced within my house, becoming even more of a recluse than usual. Those bastard terrorists have taken my complacency, but at least they’ve given me the opportunity to work on my site a little bit, do some house cleaning and watch some movies. Yes, the glass is half full, but the Mountain Dew bottle is only 1/4 full.

In all seriousness, my thoughts and prayers go out to all of those affected by the tragedies at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and that Pennsylvanian field.

Why is it again that I said last week I wouldn’t do any more of this all-nighter crap? Oh yeah – because of the way I feel right now. Ugh…

I’ve just come to a startling revelation – I can’t eat tacos if I have a hood on. No, I’m not a B/D freak – I’m talking sweatshirt hood here, you sickos. I’ve also discovered that if you have your eyedrops in the pocket of your pocket T and you put a hooded sweatshirt on, it’s pretty tough to get said eyedrops back out. The perils of Dry Eye Syndrome. Feel my pain.

Oh my God, it just keeps getting better and better. Why do I get the feeling that both of these pictures were taken in Sacramento in the past week?

Guess who’s on track to get NO work done tonight.

Sometimes, it is absolutely, positively astounding what you can find on the web nowadays. A good deal of it has the ability to make me chortle for hours. Ah, Starbuck. I had wondered where you went. And to think – I could go on a cruise with him! And if that little site doesn’t make you laugh (and if not, you’re a pretty humorless bastard – just read the URL for goshsakes) check out the picture for his entry in the IMDb. Be still, my lungs.

What a messed up day. Several things didn’t go right and traffic was even more idiotic on the drive home than it was on the way to work. I’m starting to see where those nutjobs up in Sacramento were coming from.

Speaking of nutjob, I had a nice little forty minute monologue from one of our glorious city’s crazy homeless. Lucky me, he caught me just as I was getting in my car where I usually park. Didn’t want to piss him off and bring down divine retribution on my car (he told me he was an angel) so I sat there an humored him. It was quite humorous for awhile, then just got tiring. Let’s see what I can remember from “The Life of a Rebel”, apparently the title of his memoirs.

First off, he was killed in a car wreck a few years back. Being the angel that he is/has become, he took the money he got from being killed (somewhere between $2000 and $36,000 depending upon which point in the story he had reached) and bought his friend’s dead mother a tombstone. Of course, thanks to “caramel” (you know, everything that goes around, comes around with a sweet candy coating) or perhaps from the spirit of his friend’s dead mother (both theories were presented) he was able to eventually buy a $17,000 Harley he wanted for $6000 cash. And boy can he ride Harleys – wheelies, standing on the seat, starting it – you name it, he does it.

So let’s see, he’s an angel, I’m an angel because I’m nodding at the right bits… oh, women are the devil. Well, not necessarily the devil, but certainly filled with the devil. He’s 50 years old and has been married at least once before. He has a 29 year old son and a father who’s either 54 or (after hurried calculation) 70. His wife cheated on him once, so he left her because “you can always tell.” Of course this was a few years after she left him at a bar and to prove a point to her, he “fucked” (his angelic terminology – I would’ve used the saintly “boinked”) three women at the same time from a Friday night through Sunday night, in which he “did everything,” which I’m sure meant some sort of religious purification ritual. Naturally, she made him do it. My thoughts exactly. Why isn’t this guy running for President?

Women have the devil in them, and as if to prove a point, God sent one past us at that point, so he could turn around and bless her with his words – “Hey baby, how you doin’?” After getting no response (other than a slightly quicker step), he confided in me that she was avoiding him because of the devil in her, personified by appointments and cellphones (I started wandering a bit here – I think it was the whiskey fumes). ‘Cause he could pick her up, take her out and wine her and dine her (he also used the word “bone” at this point, as if sent from Above) but he would just wind up dumping her because she wasn’t a nice person.

He’s a Vietnam Vet (here we go) and either teaches kids kickboxing at the YMCA (at which point he shows me a frightening looking calf. Leg muscle, not bovine) or works at Amtrak or is some kind of construction worker. I have GOT to start carrying a tape recorder with me. Upon telling him that I really needed to be getting along to the optometrist’s, he healed my vision with a prayer (oh yeah, he’s Navajo too) and said he’d know it worked when later on in the day his vision went blurry. My guess is, he must heal a lot of people’s vision.

That’s it, tomorrow I’m making an appointment with the dermatologist to get this “sucker” birthmark dermabrased off my forehead.