how many things have you done 15,000 times and aren't perfect at? for me that list is remarkably short. so short in fact there is only one thing i haven't perfected in that many attempts--living the perfect day. and doing so repeatedly.

i am 50 years old and on my 50 birthday i have gone through this exercise more than 15,000 times. now if we take away the child years, and even the adolescent years, and even the college years and just leave me the years where i have had a lot of control over my time, that means i have failed to figure it out in more than 7,500 attempts. this fact makes me absolutely mental.

so fixing this is my current obsession. well, one of my current obsessions at least. because a part of my perfect-day theory is that the more obsession-based activities your can sprinkle into the hours of the day, the better chance you have of milking every minute of that day in a meaningful and purposeful way.

excerpt from the website of friend of mine who is, professionally, a historical archivist.

I've been pretty obsessed with taking pictures of my toy collection and posting them to Flickr. My girlfriend's nerd alarm went off yesterday, I'm suprised I haven't worn it out.

but were he not setting off such alarms, wherever would we get great photography the likes of this ...

and, before you answer, consider that without people who enjoy the above, you may never benefit from the likes of these ...
and, i super-love this sort of stuff, which he seems to have tons of ...

i hope to see chavez at the pending everyman. which as i just consulted the website, and then my desktop calendar i see deadlines this monday. not exactly a good sign when the host gets caught by surprise. so, if you got 'em, bring 'em. time is rapidly dwindling away.



and, given the everyman's approach, our house is about to enter the time of year marty's nerd alarm gets chucked against every wall of our house, viciously.

regarding the new troyscript, SMELL MY FINGER, here are few more details about marty's finger sucking ritual:

she sucked on her ring finger, just up to the first knuckle. she did this so much she thought that finger was flatter than the rest.

she only sucked on this finger when upset. the story goes that after a bad day, she'd come home, curl up on the couch, suck on her left ring finger while woobying with her right hand (woobying deserves a week of explanation on its own and will NOT be tackled in the near future).

her three older brothers mocked her, quite mercilessly. the more i hear about childhood in a large family the more it sounds like being at school all the time. and on a semi-related side-note, it recently came to light that marty's second oldest brother once held her out of a second story window ... by the foot. marty does not remember this event.

marty sucked on this poor-ass finger till she was somewhere between eight and ten. when i tell people this story in person i usually add that she really didn't stop until her third year of college.

marty would prefer i didn't share this story on the site. i guess we'll get to see if she really kicked her ring-finger habit for good or not.

a couple of very nice mormon fellas stopped by the house to chat the other day. after some polite conversation and realizing the purpose of their visit, i decided to save them some time. i asked if their organization was the one that disallowed caffeine. in a surprisingly unabashed manner, they said they were.

i took a moment to describe my daily regimen, in regards to caffeine, to their dropped jaws. i then explained, in a very succinct manner, that i'd sooner give up my rights of reproduction as well as the body parts responsible for that reproduction before i would forfeit a single swig of my luscious and legal narcotic. it was here that they bid me a good day and went on their white-shirted way.