the tinyblog

In my new life as a householder, I'm pretty selective about what I read. I don't have much time and I read plenty of pulp as a kid. The problem is, that I don't have the fortitude for most of the classics. I feel stupid because I literally cannot get past page three of any book by James Joyce. I'm sure he made a great contibution to fiction, but I'll just have to read the people he influenced. I guiltily stick to modern Pulitzer winners with their restrained cultural prose (and undeniable skill) hoping to find that golden balance between revolutionary and readable.

Posted by tiny daniel at 4:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In my new life as a householder, sometimes I'm acutely aware of all I'm missing. I wonder if I'm being dampened, like my creativity could go off like a rocket now that my Saturn is returning or something, and I could be writing and doing business and wooing expatriate plus-size models in Nepal. I see Richard Gere at the Dalai Lama's Kalachakra empowerment, and he actually comes up to me and says he really digs the teaching work I'm doing in prisons and wants to know if he can get involved. I greet him a little coolly in spite of myself. I'm not sure I want this prison thing to be the next celebrity 'thing'. Besides, Richard doesn't really pick projects that I feel are in line with his Buddhist ideals. I give him a card and tell him to call the PrisonMind office. He seems genuinely excited at this blatant brush-off.

Posted by tiny daniel at 4:36 PM | Permalink

Well, in short, it's a word made up by Loverzan. It's roughly translated as hunk, but usually is used to describe some quantity between a teaspoon and three tablespoons of some semi-liquid (like yogurt or sour cream).

In this case, I am mixing that meaning with the Tibetan word shloka, which is basically translated as stanza, and usually means a group of four lines in a Tibetan prayer, poem or liturgy.

Posted by tiny daniel at 4:31 PM | Permalink

In my new life as a householder, my newest fascination is weeding. It's sort of like a waste of time, but also very pragmatic. And also dirty. I like that. I won't have a single pair of nice pants soon. I do not weed with a trowel, just my grubby fingers. I should probably use a trowel for morning glories and horsetails; they are tenacious plants with freakishly long roots, but I am too stubborn. I can get everything else by hand. I just pull slowly by the base, so slowly, because the stem is the most fragile. I ease it out until I can get my fingers around some root. Then I stick in a finger and pry it up a little. Then I just pull slow and firm and almost nothing can resist. Except himalayan blackberries. The spade is the only way to go for them.

Posted by tiny daniel at 4:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

In my new life as a householder, I am very glad that we don't have TV, because this kind of life would make me very susceptible to the Comedy Channel, Cartoon Network, and Court TV. Law and Order has wasted enough hours of my life already.

In my new life as a householder, if I have an idea about how I want to change my life, I have to chew on it awhile, and then clear it with the committee, and perhaps the sub-committee, and in the meantime my little stream that once curled around many a rock, now starts to seem like a fat, silty river.

Posted by tiny daniel at 4:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In my new life as a householder, I live in an overgrown hobbit hole and what I do has more to do with the needs and feelings of those around me than my own nightly whims.

In my new life as a householder, I get to be generous and inscrutable to newcomers: feeding whoever comes to my door with fish soup, wine, and tea made from plants in the backyard.

In my new life as a householder I don't have to keep a tally of all the women I know and how likely they are to become romantic interests. In my new life I do not read poetry naked. I don't advertise. I have some of that precious unattainability, but strangely, nothing to do with it.

In my new life as a householder, I am trying to think of the long term plan.

Posted by tiny daniel at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I do a lot of weeding. We have a garden. We planted garlic when it was still all cold, and now it's getting really tall. We have herbs and flowers. There's almost always something happening in the garden year round. I'm also starting to learn what all the weeds are and their root patterns and such. I'm starting to walk down the street and think about what the names for all the plants are. I'm a little less likely to destroy plants idly as I'm walking around in the forest. Oooh...so druidic!

I wrote a poem about domestic tranquility, but I'm not quite ready to release it yet.

Feels normal now to wake up in the morning when Ben comes over and shuffle groggily in, check blogs, and then be a Robotic Cat for awhile. We have clients, and we're courting more. We find people who might be interested in our services who have the money to pay for them at a steady trickle. Once we get all the details worked out, this is going to start to make us a pretty decent living.

A couple of our closest friends broke up recently. We went on countless trips and dinners and hikes and movies and game nights with them. Now they're not a couple anymore and there's bitterness and loyalty issues and bad behaviour on everyone's part (definately myself included). I thought it would be at least medium cool, but it really sucked and affected every part of my life. Even professionally.

I'm getting married in July, then the situation will be as it should, with Roseanne and I as husband and wife. It's so sweet and stressful. We kind of wish we had the money to go see a counselor or something, because we hear it's a really good idea for people to do before they get married. But man, to go see someone it's hundreds of dollars, and it's hard to prioritize that before car insurance. Plus, we're really working hard to communicate, and pull together, and compromise, and all that. I think we'll be okay.

Roseanne got a job at the SJCC doing massage two days a week. How cool. Her first two days filled up right away. Her arms are gonna get strong.

Sam's doing good. He cracks me up, he can read at probably the 2nd or 3rd grade level at least (he's 6) but he doesn't know the alphabet. Freaky progressive education. He's into Legos and really likes to garden with us.

My good friend Cara came up from New Jersey at the tracker school and had her birthday party at our house, then Sunday Suki had a wicked BBQ and I got to see my awesome NYC friend Shiela Joon. She's just a powerhouse of love and innocence and sexuality and friendship and pathos. I heart both of them bigtime, and it's precious to see them since they live all the way across the country now.

Been really grokking Prefuse 73... what an awesome DJ! Seems like it's a lot harder to get music off the internet these days. I think all those lawsuits really did have a chilling effect. I'd really like to expand out a little and hear some new stuff. We listen to music a lot. That Bob Dylan guy's pretty damn good, too.

Other than that, I've just been being a good Neo-Hippie.

Hmn...I think that's it. Now when people ask me, "so daniel, what's up witchu?", I can credibly refer them to my blog, like a good blogger.

Posted by tiny daniel at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

We had a really good time reading the movie review quotes on Rotten Tomatoes for the Mike Meyers version of Cat in the Hat. There's like three pages, it's a hoot.

Posted by tiny daniel at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Graumagus admitted that when replying to an earlier post, that he was deciding what to post based on 'How can I make Dan's head explode...hmmmm'.

I thought maybe this link to the Understanding Terror Online Coloring Book (thanks, Steph) would be a good way to pay him back. Many unfortunate spelling and grammatical errors abound (even the most cursory critical eye would have helped it's credibility a great deal) but I still think it makes some salient points.

In spite of some flaws, I think it advances a basic view of the 'War on Terror' that I don't think makes it to mainstream media much. No doubt Grau is familiar with the arguments presented in this book and could easily make a point-by-point refutation of each humorous accusation, but I guess I'm posting this cause I'd really like to hear those refutations.

When I read this book it reminds me of why I think the otherwise brilliantly intelligent Grau, is a serious patsy for the Bush administration.

(you know, these back and forth posts are making me start to think about installing trackbacks on the tinyblog)

And Speaking of Grau, when he's not busy being a Right Wing Nut, he's also a funny funny funny funny funny funny man.

Posted by tiny daniel at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

If you would like to be considered for a wedding invite, please Email me your street address. (daniel@danieltalsky.com). For many many reasons we have to limit the amount of people we're inviting, but it's safe to say all my old Illinois friends are invited (Bill, I already have your address.)

This is basically a call for people who aren't sure if I have their address...or people who really would like to come, but I might not have thought of due to limited wedding brain space.

Also, someone requested the link to our wedding registry.

Posted by tiny daniel at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

GodDAMN taxes hurt me this year. I made some money in unemployment, some money as an independant contractor, and some money as a partnership.

All those years I did massage trades for someone to do my stupid 1040EZ. Now I'm doing it myself and I filled out seven tax forms..no shit. A 1040, a schedule C for the business, a schedule E, a 1065, and a schedule K-1 for the partnership, and then a schedule SE for the self-employment tax, and then one more form to beg for payments since I don't happen to have 3 large just laying around.

Man, I hid my head in the sand this year. I knew it was going to hurt, and it did.

Posted by tiny daniel at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)