John Burridge

July is almost half-way done and our yard is flowering. This year we have an abundance of artichokes blooming; their purple crowns are a favorite with the bees. The gladiolas Mark planted earlier are growing taller than the foxglove; the hummingbirds love them. And the iris has given way to purple phlox.

After about six months of Mark dropping hints that I could join him for yoga at the local YMCA (yoga isn’t my cup of tea, though), I’ve re-started my fitness regime. This involves wearing a fitness tracker that talks with my mobile, and spending time on a health app keeping a food diary of weighed out serving portions. And waking up early and going to the Y to either swim, or run on an elliptical, or clink weights. Or sit in the hot tub.

I want to say the increase in activity has been good for my mood, so yay. If I can continue to exercise consistently through September, I’m hoping habit will carry me through the Very Very Long Grey Months around the Winter Solstice. I also want to say that my body is thinking about beginning to look a little more toned, so also yay.

I’m surprised by my sleep patterns: based on motion and heart rate, I wake up a lot more during the night than I realized and I actually sleep a lot less than the seven or eight hours I thought I was getting. It would be interesting to correlate when the tracker thinks I’m in REM sleep with an actual EEG.

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The other weekend I went dancing. Mark opted out. The producers of the dance were the same folks who produced the Pride After-party.

I arrived at a local Queer/Pagan bar a little after 9 PM, when the event started. The music was pumping out, folks were around the bar and tables, and the dance floor was empty.

The theme of the dance was “Hanky Panky”; folks were supposed to wear a colored bandana in one of their back pockets to signify what kind of sexual activities they’re into. Since there is no hanky for “My husband stayed home, and I’m just here to dance,” my back pockets were bare and I wore a black T-shirt with a rampant rainbow unicorn on it. In retrospect, I should have worn a mirror-ball keychain… perhaps with a T-shirt reading “My ball-and-chain is a disco ball.”

I ordered a cola product and inspected the decor. This is somewhere between a theatre production of the Addams Family, an occult bookstore, a Hot Topic shop, and a leather bar—with a covered and fenced-in porch on the side.

I finished my drink, figured someone had to be the first person dancing, and headed to the stage end of the bar. The DJ, smiling, left his control panel, bounded past a Saint Andrew’s Cross and a bondage bench, underneath the big screen showing campy and risqué videos, through the strobing and whirling stage lights, past a dancer’s cage, and met me on the dance floor. “You’re early!” he said, and then introduced himself. Technically the dance’s start time was 9—but things wouldn’t get started until about 10 or 10:30.

This was fine by me, because I wouldn’t have to worry about stepping on somebody or thwacking them with an upthrust arm accidentally while I shook the rust off of my dance moves—which I’ll be the first to admit are a cross between cha-cha, the fox-trot, an aerobics routine, and a ritual summoning.

The music was a fun repeat of the mix during the previous week’s After Party, and, luckily, not quite as loud, as I had forgotten my ear plugs at home. The video on the big screen was a slightly more X-rated version of the previous week’s PG-13 video.

The dance floor filled up, and then go-go boys in day-glow fetish-wear jumped onto the stage. I’m not sure if they were dancers who strip, or strippers who dance, but at least they seemed to be having fun. Especially in the cage. My sense is that they had friends in the audience.

I danced and danced, and briefly re-connected with a queer pagan acquaintance I hadn’t seen in about two years; he went back to dancing with his partner, who was in a wheelchair.

Just a quickly as it had filled up, around 11:30, the dance floor cleared. I remember this used to happen thirty years ago at Perry’s On Pearl: you’d be dancing to the music, look up, and realize that about half of the dancers had left, presumably with each other. The energy of the room would shift from summer lovin’ to autumnal lean and prowling.

When I stepped out onto the smoking patio looking to chat up my acquaintance and his partner, I realized A) it was cooler out here; B) oh yeah, this was where people actually smoked, and; C) a bear in a leather jockstrap and harness wasn’t just waving hi, he was offering me a joint.

Actually, I’m pretty sure he was offering my hair a joint.

I smiled and said, “Thanks; I don’t smoke.”

“What?” he said in mock-horror. “A man dancing with long grey hippie hair doesn’t smoke weed?” (See, I was right; my hair had scored.)

“It’s true,” I said. “Thanks anyway.” —Not realizing until the next day when Mark told me that the leather bear was flirting with me that I missed the sub-text and was completely off script.

Note To Self: Next time, compliment a leather bear on his gear and ask him where he shops.

I went back inside. While the fantasy cater-waiter dance scene from the movie “Jeffry” played on the screen behind him, a lone go-go boy whirled some LED poi in front of a mostly empty dance floor. Which was too bad, because if I had to choose, the go-go boy with the whirling lights was the most interesting one on stage, and he deserved more of an audience.

The night had reached an inflection point. A long time ago, someone taught me the difference between staying at a party because you’re having fun and staying at a party because you’re waiting for something to happen. If one is waiting for something to happen, one either needs to make something happen or leave. Even with the disco nap I’d taken that afternoon, I was feeling a little tired after about two and a half hours of almost solid dancing. So it was time to leave.

The next day my fitness tracker reported that I’d taken 6,183 steps and that I’d burned through 586 calories during my 95 minute “Aerobic Workout.” I can tell from the graph of my heart rate when I was enjoying dancing the most, but, alas, I can’t tell from the valleys and peaks where the poi-whirling go-go boy or the leather bear are.

I can, however, find Mark.

Tuesday, Dec 19, 2023

Off to Las Vegas!

We left the house and pets under the eye of The Child, who had returned home from college for Winter Break. Our flight was delayed at the gate for an hour due to another passenger’s medical emergency. We never did find out what was wrong, but airport firemen escorted them off of the plane along with their oxygen cylinder! 

We flew over west Eugene—saw Target and then had a view of Spencer Butte and Mt. Pisgah. Then the cloud layer turned white with amber highlight and obscured the view of Southern Oregon and most of the rest of the flight.

It will be different being in Las Vegas over the Solstice—we’ll have to have late Solstice or Birthday Fire! when we’re back home in Eugene. I can’t recall when we were away in late December last… it was before COVID… Arthur was… twelve?… so six year ago (at least).

We landed in Las Vegas around 3:30; there were some light clouds and the sun felt like it was about to set at any moment. As we were walking through the security exit, the guy sitting there looked up, took in my grey-green wool cloak and long hair, paused, and said, “You look wise.”

Mark and I thought that was fairly amusing, partially because Mark was offered a “Wisdom Discount” at a Eugene store recently.

I’d forgotten how close the airport is to the strip. The most confusing visual was The Sphere: it’s so large that it shows up over the tops of all the other buildings long before you actually get to it, and with every turn on your approach you think that surely you’re going to get to its base only to realize that it’s still blocks away.

Las Vegas in winter smells like wet concrete and chlorine; like cigars, tobacco, and cannabis; like potpourri pumped up on steroids and mixed in an old ash tray; like fried food, tequila, daiquiris, and body axe spray; like automobile exhaust, Bounce sheets, and old airport carpeting; very occasionally it smells like mostly empty bottles and urine.

We stayed at a Hilton property connected to The Flamingo. Since it was winter and there was some problem with the pool, there was no obnoxiously loud pool music playing. The Flamingo was between us and the strip, which shielded us from the flashing lights and noise. Our room number was 700, which felt auspicious; the suite was pleasant and laid out so that you could have slept four people without them tripping over each other (too much). We were just above the crowns of some palm trees growing next to the building. 

For our first night out, we ate at Giada De Laurentiis. Mark described her as a Food Network presenter who tended to show her boobies, sort of like that one time in that one Star Trek: The Next Generation pan across Dianna Troi’s breasts as she poured tea. I confused her with Rachel Ray. 

“No no,” he said. “See?” and pointed to a picture of her prominently displaying some food. 

“Oh. Well. That’s a nice blouse, but she doesn’t seem to be showing her breasts.” 

Mark said, “John, take another look.” 

“Oh. That’s a peek-a-boo top, isn’t it? Hmm.” (I recalled previous non-reactions to Lee Meriwether as Catwoman and Jeri Ryan as Seven-of-Nine.) “You know, I guess women’s breasts are sort of invisible to me.” 

We had a very nice meal; I ordered a shrimp dish and Mark had something with the World’s Best Lentils. I ordered a tequila drink called, “The Destroyer.” We had a passible view of the fountains at the Bellagio.

Afterward, we went to a nightclub.
The attendants who admitted us were kind of mean; I’d say some of them came to work looking for problems their attitude created; the coat check staff were nice. 

The dance floor was an oval bracketed by two bars and ringed by VIP seating. A series of lighted rings hung over the floor, and a pendulous assemblage of illuminated crystals hung from the center, giving the whole thing the feel of a giant cyborg space jellyfish mother-ship. The widest ring was about twenty-five feet in diameter. All the rings moved up-and-down independently, and could tilt. At times it looked like a mothership was landing on Devil’s Tower, other times it looked like a multi-dimensional portal. Over a hundred LED flatscreens arranged in a checkerboard pattern along the bar’s walls echoed the color scheme of the rings. A marquee player ran along the second floor balcony’s railing. 

Mark had read that the club was a multi-level club, but the upper floors were closed that night. It was billed as a smoke free club, but the no smoking rule was unenforced. The dress code of collared shirts and slacks was also loosely enforced. The cover was slightly more than we’d read; and the mandatory coat check was ten times more expensive. 

However, we soldiered on and were the first folks on the dance floor. It was fun at the beginning, although the music was a little slow. Mark laughed a couple of times and said, “Well it’s not techno enough,” when I would just be getting into the music, and then it would turn into a slow hip-hop beat and my face would fall (and undoubtedly my eyes rolled). Then the music would get better.

 
As the dance floor filled, the marquee player would read things like “Happy Birthday Ethan.” The “Congratulations, Class of 2023” did make me wonder if we were at an underage club. A few more birthday greetings ran through. And then we saw a clutch of sequin-spangled women with sparkling flares, flashing light wands, and a large green bottle, strut over to a VIP seating area, shake a flashing cue card which read, “Happy Birthday Josh,” and dance around for thirty seconds while shaking celebratory props over their heads. This happened throughout the night, occasionally accompanied with banners which would drop from the ceilings onto which would be projected birthday greetings like “Happy Birthday Alexis” and a photo (sometimes four) of the birthday celebrant. 

The music went through an uninspiring phase, and we left the filling dance floor to rest. Mark ordered a simple rum drink, and had to tell the bartender how to make it. I took a look at the light show, which took turns looking like a cool oscilloscope display and possibly a flow cytometry display. The music turned back into something one could dance to and got louder; we happily put in ear plugs and squeezed back onto the dance floor. 

We danced for a little while more. Mark is adorable when he dances; someone even complemented us. Then another couple asked us if we had extra earplugs and Mark gave him his extra set. Then some guy decided I was a stile he could use to exit a roped off VIP seating area and onto the dance floor. 

It became more crowded and more difficult to dance. Folks brought their drinks to the floor with predictable results. While some folks danced in tight little circles, others just stood on the floor chatting in clumps. Vapers were everywhere. Two girls lit up blunts next to us and Mark managed to back them away. The music turned into anthems featuring the word “way-oh;” the accompanying movement was for folks to shift their weight between their feet, flex their knees, raise one hand, and point in time with the syllables of the song, which they sang. Apparently this is how twenty-somethings dance. People got pushy. 

The music got a little more danceable and reached for a climax. Mark maneuvered us beneath the rings, which rose and rose and rose and then dropped and tilted. Spotlights like retro-rockets fired, and the crystalline assemblage lowered to just above our heads. Cold theatre mist blasted from horns surrounding the dance floor and reduced visibility to six inches. At first I thought Mark was using the mist as a cover for some scandalously dirty dancing, but he was really ducking and closing his eyes, nose, and mouth against the vapors.
We concluded going to the club was like trying to dance with smoking and vaping children at a Chuck E Cheese’s—but with an amazing light show.

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Today we did a lot of sightseeing, starting with a viewing of live flamingos, a walk to The Sphere, a monorail trip to Mandalay Bay, working our way through the Luxor and Excalibur and back to the High Roller (and more Sphere viewing) and off to a mystery show. 

The Flamingo Casino has a wildlife area wrapped around wings of the building. Eight flamingos live on an island in an artificial river shaded by palm trees. Mandarin Ducks, Grackles, White Faced Ducks, and Hummingbirds are in the sanctuary. Koi, Catfish, and Sturgeon swim in the waters. I believe the sturgeon was thirty years old. We visited the flamingos at least once every day. 

Getting to The Sphere was challenging; the monorail passes by it and the nearest stop is blocks away, so we did a lot of walking along side busy roads and construction zones. The Sphere is a giant computer screen wrapped around an eight story sphere. The pixels on the sphere are rings of LEDs about a handspan wide and about four feet from each other. From a distance, all of the LEDs blend together like a Seurat painting. Sometimes during the day, you can see through the skin of the Sphere, which covers a concert hall. We didn’t make it inside, partially because the Sphere wasn’t open and partially because any apparent motion caused by the inside’s display would have made Mark sick.

We wended our way back to a monorail station. Singing “Monorail!” we boarded and zipped to the other end of the strip. Our aim was to have a 2PM Afternoon Tea, but all of the Really Nice Tea Places were already booked. Mark located an alternative venue, which turned out to be a Irish Pub Sports Bar. We confused t he waitress with talk of Ceylon OP and Bergamont, (“We’re a sports bar, not a tea house.”) but she brought us a very tasty Irish Breakfast tea. In lieu of savories and finger sandwiches, we ate sports bar fare.

The Luxor twenty years ago was more of a faux Egyptian museum exhibit than it was during this visit. Mark was aghast at the giant “Doritos” advertisement taking up one triangular side of the casino’s pyramid, and I’m pretty sure the hieroglyphics on some of the older set pieces are pretty gibberish. The newer construction did have the Middle Kingdom word “miw” or “cat” in hieroglyphs, so there’s that.

After some selfies with the Anubis statue, we moved on to the Excalibur Casino.
The Excalibur was very simple, and we concluded that it was probably easier to clean than some of the more elaborate casinos.
We ended our sightseeing with a ride in The High Roller; a London Eye-like ferris wheel with encapsulated gondolas. It’s 550 feet high and takes thirty minutes to do a complete revolution. We boarded a capsule with about nine other people, a family of four and a group of two couples.

We chose an excellent time, around 4:30, to rise above the strip and The Sphere. The sun was set behind scattered clouds, turned the western horizon orange, and lit up the Sierra Nevada mountain range. High-rises glowed in the deepening shadows, and we had an unobstructed view of The Sphere for most of our ride.
The mystery show turned out to be “Love,” the Beatles-themed Cirque du Soleil show at the Mirage Casino. “Love” gave me a greater appreciation for the post World War II culture and counter-culture in England.

The opening was a dance reenactment of the Blitz, complete with Blue Meanies and tumblers leaping off of exploding brick chimneys. The show was mostly dance and aerial work, with lots of tumbling. I liked the transition into “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” which filled the performance space with glittering LEDs. There was a fun sequence where sheets streamed out of a bed, which rose and became a circus tent; we were seated above the tent and saw aerialists dancing upside-down beneath very large beach balls. The contortionist bothered Mark, but I thought he was cool.
After the show, we wandered past the Mirage’s volcano show. The heat from the flame made me wince.

Thursday, December 21, 2023

Winter Solstice

A slow morning in Las Vegas. Mark went off to look at sturgeon in the Flamingo’s pools and I stayed in our room and drank tea and scrolled social media. It seems strange to be in a mostly sunny place with palm trees during the Winter Solstice. This is such an urban environment—with artificial volcanoes and canyons of glass—that it doesn’t feel Wintery at all (even with the artificial, twenty-feet-tall Christmas Trees that show up in every lobby and outdoor walkway intersections). The only real sign of the season is that the sun sets at 4:30 and it feels like evening starts at 3:30.

We survived the Bacchanal at Ceasar’s Plaace. There was lots of very good food, but no actual bacchanalia! I was surprised that a buffet breakfast could be so good. Mark said the cheeses were obviously well cared for. We had to walk off the meal by visiting the shops in the Forum Shopping area. We loitered a while and saw a very hokey Atlantis Fountain show (old animatronics, hammy voice acting, hokey plot—but there was a fun flaming pterodactyl/dragon at the end), which, sadly was a waste of time. 

We made our way back to our room for a brief reset and then I was off to ride a zip line over the Linq Properties. The lines aimed straight at the High Roller. I was hoping to ride like Superman, but that wasn’t an option, so basically I flew over the Las Vegas crowds in a sling (Mark and I had a good laugh at that burlesque image). Mark stayed on the plaza below and captured fun video of me zipping overhead, my hair trailing like a comet’s tail. 

My hair (and cloak) keeps attracting attention from valets, cab drivers, show girls, and, most recently, Captain America. Mark’s been a good sport about it, but is wishing my “NYC Don’t Engage” skills were stronger. 

We saw “O”, our second (and originally planned) Cirque du Soleil show. It was fun and I remembered much of the show from when we saw it twenty years ago. Like many Cirque du Soleil performances, there’s so much happening that I’m never quite sure where I should be looking, and so performers and props appeared and disappeared while my glance darted all over the stage.

I, of course, wore the World's Most Fabulous Shirt: a shirt covered in small prismatic, reflective squares. When I wore it to a previous Cirque show years ago, one of the clowns nearly broke character to ask where I had gotten it. When we entered the theatre, one of the ushers smiled and said, "Oh my! You look festive!"

"Oh, thank you," I said.

"Frisky?!" Mark said.

The usher and I turned to Mark and said, "Festive!"

"She said I looked 'festive!'" I continued. "Ugh. Here are our tickets."

"Oh, you're seated right over here. Enjoy the show and make sure you two behave!" 

It’s hard to say what my favorite vignette was; like a dream, the images blend into each other and the recall is difficult. I enjoyed the four hoop aerialists. Certainly the most gasp-inducing was when one of the catamaran aerialists missed their landing and arced into the pool (they crawled out of the pool and waited by its edge until that act concluded). 

The audience was odd; lots of families and groups chattering the entire show, but the weirdest thing was how often folks got out of their seats. In at least three instances The Unseated got in the way of roving performers. Mark attributed it to Belagio “I’m Specialness.”

Afterward, we walked through the Cosmopolitan and weighed having a drink in The Chandelier, but Mark wanted to be outside, so we walked along sidewalks and walked over bridges and managed to find a beer garden which was up over the street and had a marvelous view of the fountain show at the Bellagio. Mark insisted that I eat a salad; we also had cheesy tater-tots and I ordered a blue-tinged drink. The fountain was on a short schedule and we were treated to several shows; Mark’s favorite number was “Hey Big Spender,” when the water gets waved back and forth like legs. Overhead, the waxing crescent moon shone near a brilliant Jupiter.

Friday, December 22, 2023

We had a quiet morning in our room watching wide tailed Grackles forage for bugs in the crown of the palm trees outside the windows.

Breakfast for me was tea, pills, and an In And Out burger. Mark got a Subway salad. Afterward, I confessed my secret desire “to win a fortune in a game” by playing an Egyptian themed slot machine. We wandered through two casinos filled with Asian-themed slots before Mark pointed out a Cleopatra slot machine I’d walked right past. I put in $5 and managed to win $15. Hmm, the agency is wrong on that: I put in $5, set the betting, chose which lines across the slots to play, and pressed the PLAY button. The random sequences generated by the machine resulted a slow bleeding away of my money until there was a substantial credit result. Then Mark reminded me that we had a plane to catch, that I had “won a fortune” three times my initial investment, and that I should cash out.

My hair and green wool cloak continued to enjoy celebrity treatment.

Unfortunately, during our last walk of the strip, I lost my reading glasses somewhere, so while I was journaling on the flight home, I couldn’t see what I was writing very well—luckily, not being able to see didn’t have too large an impact on my penmanship (and my text is legible with proper eyewear). But it was a pain because I’d hoped to get some writing in on the flight. At least I could peer over Mark and see the sunset turning the clouds pink and the horizon green.

It was interesting to see who was friendly and who was gruff on the strip. I’d say the Ceasar’s Palace staff was the most stressed. Cashiers seemed friendly. Hilton at the Flamingo were friendly. Folks who managed queues seemed grumpy. Zip-line staff seemed firm but upbeat.

When we got home, the Willamette Valley was still grey, the house was still standing and the pets were still alive (Aoife was ecstatic to see us), and it was obvious from the over-filled garbage bin (uncollected by the service), dirty dishes (mostly piled in the dishwasher), the wads of blankets and pillows, and a collection of wet mats and towels in the bathroom that The Child had turned the home into a crash-space for some of his friends.

I guess what happens at home stays at home.

Tuesday (4/10).  Went to the gym.  Felt a little rushed.  25 minutes and 300 cal on the Nordic Elliptical.  13x(30+50+60)lbs on the pec fly.  13x(30+40+50)lbs on the deltoid fly.  13x(60++70+80)lbs+8x90lbs on the lat pull down.  3x13x35lbs barbell curls 13x3x(30)lbs on the tricepcs pulldown.   

Tuesday Night Writing went slowly: I had misplaced my keyboard, so I wrote longhand.  Writing longhand results in (mostly) better prose as my fingers don't get ahead of my head and I come up better phrases as I'm writing instead of writing whatever and adding synonyms if the first word isn't write (and editing later).



Thursday  (4/12) Feeling fallow.  The other day I was looking through some pictures of a relative's wedding and there I was, sitting in a pew, with what looked like someone's white purse perched on my head.  Or maybe somebody behind me had a white hat.  I stared and stared at the picture, trying to make sense of what I was looking at when I realized it was my hair:  the combination of the long top and close cropped sides had come together to make me look like some old punk rocker or Blank-Reg from Max Headroom.  Comments from my family involving "your grandma Agnes" and
 "cockatoo" were not helpful. 



Saturday (4/14).  35 minutes and 310 cal on the Nordic Elliptical.  13x(30+50+60)lbs on the pec fly.  13x(30+40+50+50)lbs on the deltoid fly.  13x(60++70+80+80)lbs+8x90lbs on the lat pull down.  3X13 Roman Chair curl-ups.  3x13x35lbs barbell curls 13x3x(30)lbs on the tricepcs pulldown.  2x8x7.5lbs front and side pull-ups.  

Writing this week has gone slowly.  I think I'd call it editing more than anything else.  The project is holding steady at 40,000 words.  I'm at that point where it feels like the piece is more a collection of events with the same characters... and the character motivation and emotions need work.First 



Sunday (4/15).   I came across a Facebook posting from Selena Fox:  a picture of a dark disk surrounded by Celtic knot-work and the phrase "Dark moon. Dark moon.  We attune."  I like that, and I added "sometimes "we attune" feels like "we crave dark chocolate to stave off the feelings of listlessness and depression and to dampen the Call of The Void."  

I suppose that I should look into what it is about new moons that is connected to my low energy / uncreative state  (it's something I've noticed since the 1980's) so I can figure out if it's a circadian rythem or a self-induced placebo effect, or what.

Monday, July 31

I woke up at 6 AM EST and crept around the kitchen to boil water for tea.  Then I wrote... kind of.   Mostly I wrote journal entries and edited them a bit to polish the prose and add Fosterian WHYs to the already existing WHATs.  I figure any writing is better than no writing, and if I can get into the swing of writing blog entries in a different time zone, I can transition into some early morning short story writing.

We went to the beach.  This time I brought along my newly-constructed shish-kabob compass, my Book of Art (with decagram design) and water shoes (because I'd sun-burnt the tops of my feet the previous day).

The difficulty with making geometric designs in the sand with a compass is that sometimes you want a straight edge.  The stakes I had were fairly good for a cobbled-together compass, but they were too bendy to use as a straight edge.  I settled on using a yard-stick, but there were none to be found in any of the small shops near the house.

After swimming in the Atlantic, I tried to make some constructions, but the tide was too high.

As I was swimming for a second time, a young man waded up and said, "Hi John!"  I thought for a moment it was someone I knew from Carleton College, but it was Connor, Mark's nephew.

"Ah!" I said, "I didn't recognize your red hair (it was longer and redder).  You've got a beard!"

"You've cut your hair," he said.

Mark swam up.  "You've finally grown a proper Kringle Beard!"

Me, playing the harp over the December holiday.
























More adventures with hair.  I got a hair tattoo, which I like and I think I'll extend upward next time I get a haircut.

So... last Thursday I cut my hair back from sixteen inches to about a quarter of an inch.  I've done this before, with similar feelings.  I'm still sometimes feeling a phantom pony-tail, especially when I wash or when I drive a car.

Wow. I was going through photos and came across this one.  It's from 2007.  All I can say is, "Mark, honey, you were right: cutting my hair back was the smartest thing I did for that week."

I think this really needs some sort of caption contest or possibly to become a story prompt (the gala party, spies or lovers, waiting for the limo...)











To contrast and compare... here's a more recent photo.

My hair's at an in-between stage right now, about shoulder length.  This is an old picture from several years ago.  When my hair is this long, it tends to get stuck on shoulder bag straps.  Also, I need to take better care of the ends, which have a tendency to dry out.
I'm growing it out, at least for a few more months.  Although, hmm, when it gets long, it tends to pull back and give me tension headaches.
It's always instructive to see what it looks like when it's really short.  It's fun when it's this short, because it's really easy to care for.

An older post here:  http://johnburridge.blogspot.com/2007/07/john-look.html

I like to keep track of when the Equinoxes, Solstices, and "Seasonal Ides" (some folks call these the cross-quarter days) are. I went to the US Naval Astronomy site and got the Equinox and Solstice dates, then took the average between the them to compute the Ides. All times are in Universal Time (UT), which is the time at Greenwich.

Spring Equinox 3/20/2011 23:21:00
Spring Ides 5/6/2011 8:18:30
Summer Solstice 6/21/2011 17:16:00
Summer Ides 8/7/2011 13:10:30
Fall Equinox 9/23/2011 9:05:00


It turns out the Ides dates are not as exact as the Solstice and Equinox dates. I'm guessing that since the Earth moves in an ellipse, taking an average between two dates does not jive with the sun's apparent position in the sky.

Technically, the Ides should be when the meridian sun is at a height of 44.06 (Eugene's latitude) plus or minus 11°43' (half the distance in degrees between a solstice and an equinox). Going back to http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/AltAz.php plugging in the date 5/6/2011 for Eugene, the computed table says that when the sun is near the azimuth of 180, it's altitude is ... 62.6 (higher than the mid-point, 55.-uh-75, by about seven degrees). Fiddling with dates, around April 20, 2011, the sun will pass through 55.6 at noon. (April 21, it overshoots slightly.)

Oh well; so much for using The Gregorian Calendar to calculate solar events.

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On a completely different topic, I looked in the mirror this morning and there's no denying it: my current hair arrangement makes me look like the Thunderbird Mail icon. I think it's time for a trim.

For a few weeks an uneasy feeling stirred within me. This usually happens around Halloween and Groundhog Day. I resisted it last spring.

I thought I'd resist it this fall, too; but I was wrong.

Something had to change, and it was going to be my hair.

I will miss the Fabio Moments, and the Byronic Deliveries when I clinch an argument by unbinding my hair. I will miss being the envy of people who want long hair. I will miss those autumn afternoons when the wind, the leaves, and my cloak orchestrate with my hair to pause traffic. I will miss ruffling locks flowing behind me on moonlit RollerBlade nights.

And so I got the scissors. When I managed to get my hands into the thicket closer to my skull, I realized how the three-year-old, twelve inch ends were dryer and more brittle.

I will not miss the pony tail induced headaches. I will not miss waking up with my face underneath a tangled veil. I will not miss my hair falling into my food, toothpaste, or shaving cream. I will not miss ineffectual hair scrunchies failing to reign in my hair after twenty minutes. I will not miss Mark complaining about John-hairs in the drains, on the floors, in the car, in our bed, in the dryer filter or in our dishwasher.

I finished up with some electric clippers.

I will save lots of money on Aveda Products. I will enjoy the security of hats Velcroed to my head. I will rediscover the sensuous electrical bristly nape of my neck. I will enjoy the startled looks of surprise and delayed recognition. I will take advantage of the unconscious increase in respect people give me when my hair is this short.

A few more images at Picasa.

Bad hair! No biscuit!

This is what the masses (well, OK, 19 of you) have chosen. With a more trimmed beard. Right now, of course, my hair is behaving... so I may just trim my beard and take my chances. We'll see what happens a few days before I actually leave.

Right Now... ... I've got a problem. The Writers of the Future workshop is in about a month and my hair looks like something Peter Brady wore in the late seventies. So do I A) Cut my hair; B) Trim back my beard; C) Let my beard get fuller; or D) Something else? [EDITOR'S Note:  There was a poll where folks could vote, but that was seven years ago...]

The Deiter Look I could shave everything back to 1/8th of an inch and give myself a "King Phillip of France II" / Timothy Dalton beard. PROS: very low maintenance. CONS: Mark says it's too bristly.

Stay the Course Unfortunately, I probably won't look like this in a month. Depending on where my hair is on its wave, I'll have another set of "hair wings" or else it will hang down in a mostly behaved fashion. PROS: No drastic encounters with shears. CONS: Mark will complain about long John hairs on the floor.

Patriot & Brewer Um... No.

Ride the Savage Wave Well, OK; I won't look like this in a month, either; more like a year. But this is what the beard looks like when it's fuller. PROS: Fabio hair when the wind blows the right direction. CONS: Mark makes "horse hair" comments.

Hippie Dentist If I start now, I'll have the beard in time for the workshop. I'm guessing my hair's about an inch long in this photo. PROS: Venerable, yet approachable. CONS: Mark will complain the beard pokes him too much.

Winter Frosting As you can see, I am a winter. I think this is Lesbian Haircut #2. As an honorary lesbian, it's OK for me to wear. PROS: Good for fundraising events. CONS: Mark will be more likely to sing "Kumbaya" at the drop of a hat.

Mystic Sage I might be able to pull this off in a month, but I'll only have a two inch ponytail in the back. When I pull my hair back now, the white streak is still mostly there; although in a year or two it will be a brown streak. PROS: With the full beard (and the right robe) I could probably pass as Obi-Wan Kenobi. CONS: Mark will complain about finding hair scrunchies all over the place. OK, and ponytails give me headaches.

Rapunzel This is me, moments before I buzzed my hair back to almost nothing (Arthur was pulling it and it kept falling into... well... I won't go into that). It will probably take me two years to get it this length again, but it gives you an idea of what really long hair and a really short beard look like together. PROS: I am the envy of everyone who wants long hair. CONS: Mark points out that stray strands of hair become Velcroed to my beard .

OK.

Let's see. Lots has happened and I've been too busy to post.

Mark's mother, Mary, and his sister, Melora, visited us from the east coast earlier this month. Mary is Arthur's great-grandmother and Melora is Arthur's grandma. We had a good time visiting with them and eating out. We went to the beach around Cook's Chasm and collected driftwood. Driftwood sticks are now Arthur's favorite toy, and I'm sure it will only be a matter of time before all sorts of things become cudgeled.

Oh yeah. I cut my hair. Just like I did in 2001. I'd been contemplating the cut for a month or two. I realized that I was spending a lot of time combing, washing, untangling, tying back, brushing, and cleaning up after my hair. I was also wearing it tied back so much of the time I figured, "Why bother?" And when I had it tied back in a pony tail it gave me headaches, and if I drove anywhere, the ponytail would poke into the back of my neck. I could also say, "Daddy's hair is not a toy!" way too quickly.

When I went to Unitarian Church the very next day, so very few people recognized me that I had to go up during the candle lighting and sharing section of the service to announce who I was and light a candle for my hair. The minister did a double-take. "I'm lighting this candle for my hair," I said, "which I will miss... the same way one would miss a useless pet."

Spring is trying to come to the Willamette Valley. So the worms are mating (see picture). Worms are hermaphrodites. I'm not sure what's going on with the rubber band in the lower-left-hand corner of this picture, and I'm not sure I want to know.

---

Mark was singing a song to Arthur.

Every day you should be kissed by a duck.
Every day get a kiss for luck.
A kiss by a duck is very sweet.
And maybe he'll even kiss your feet.

Every day you should be kissed by a duck.
And it only costs a buck.
Oh duck prostitution is rampant now
And watch out for those painted cows --

(at this point I scowled at Mark)
"Well, said Mark. "Fischer-Price told me to make up songs..."

---

It's happened. Arthur is crawling. On all fours, not the zombie-army crawl he's been doing. Last Friday (April 15), I was craving some Newman's Fish. It's bad, it's evil, and the healthiest thing about it is that it's salmon. I also got a bright blue paper cup full of Evil Pepsi. I've actually been quite good lately, and the last two weeks I've cut my Pepsi intake down to about twenty-four ounces a week.

Anyway, Mark came home, saw I was jonesing for some fish, and sent me off. When I got back with my fish and chips (and Pepsi) Mark and Arthur were playing on Sarah and Gretchen's front garden area. So I sat down on their steps.

Arthur saw The Blue Cup of Evil and started crawling. Real fast. Before you could say "pesticide-free organic baby food," Arthur had chased me up all six of Sarah and Gretchen's front porch steps. I never did manage to get a bite of my salmon. Mark laughed and laughed. "He knows the logo," he said as I retreated inside to our house to the dining room table.

Easter Sunday I went to the Unitarian Church Service. Now in case some of you are wondering, this Sunday is the first time in about three months the name "Jesus" has been mentioned, and the first hymn we sung was a chant to the Goddess. I was sitting right next to an older, conservative looking man, one who sends old-fashioned jokes to e-mail lists, and he belted out "We are one with the Goddess." And he wasn't even wearing patchouli.

Later we had our annual Easter Bunny Nuke. This year we had an overabundance of Peeps. So Mark made Peep S'mores. We also made grapes arc in the microwave (which was difficult to do this year for some reason). Mark W and his daughters were in attendance, and they brought a chocolate Nascar. Other friends brought a chocolate fountain (filled with really good chocolate, not that crappy oily brown stuff).

We had a couple of folks new to Bunny Nuking. One in particular -- a friend of Sarah and Gretchen's (and incidentally a Unitarian) -- was introduced to Easter Microwave Fun AND the results of several years of Anti-Valentine's in one short afternoon. I thought we might have frightened him off for a moment. But a minute later he was back. With fireworks. From his car. For the chocolate bunnies.

Wow, Unitarians learn fast!

---

Today Arthur picked imaginary nits off of Mark when he came home.

Mark got him back. As he was tying his shoes he said the following:

Criss-cross Apple Sauce.
Then the bunny goes around the tree and through
the whole and then gets tied up in the barbed wire and strangles.  
And that's how you tie a shoe.  (Mr. McGregor Style)

Afterwards, as we were coming back from an evening at the library, Mark wanted to know what Arthur had eaten today.

Mark: What did you feed Arthur today?

John: Well, we had cheese chunks and formula and carrots and broccoli and those organic white carrots.

Mark: Organic? White? Those weren't carrots! Those were parsnips!

John: They were with the carrots. I thought they were some kind of funky organic white carrots you bought at the Kiva.

Mark: 'White Carrots' sounds like a perfume for Liz Taylor. Did you taste the food you made for Arthur?

John: No!

Mark: If you didn't know what food they were, why did you feed them to the baby?

John: I thought they were white carrots!

Mark: There's no such thing as white carrots! 'I don't know what this food is, I think I'll feed it to the baby' should not be a thought process that goes through your head!

John: They were in the same place as the carrots. Given the context of being next to real carrots, my brain was primed for them to be carrots.

Mark: Am I going to have to put 'Mr. Yuck' stickers on things?

John: They were in the 'fridge.

Mark: So was the burrito!

John: But I made the burrito, so I knew what that was!

Mark: Some people need culinary literacy tests.


So here: Since I'm not Mr. McGregor, I have a picture. If you saw those vegetables, wouldn't you think the white thing was some kind of white carrot?