Miscellany on a lovely Winter Sunday.

- I got tired and lazy and never finished doing the 2009 Music Reviews. I likely won't ever get caught up with it, so I will just end all of your suspense and tell you that the best song released in 2009 was Major Lazer's Hold The Line. Wasn't close. You can now resume your lives.

- The weekend highlight was to not only go to the February Chihuahua Meetup in San Fran, but at the Meetup was our number one buddy, the Chiweenie girly-girl of our dreams, Pocket! We haven't seen little Pocky since last May - which is WAY too long - but we are getting reacquainted so that Ms. Pucky can come stay with me and the shrimp in March when her parents take a vacation. She was happy to see us and we were happy to see her. Yes, even Boomie was happy to see her! This really and truly is Boom's only dog buddy. She is super awesome and looking great. Can't wait to see her more. I think there is even a chance we will see her at more Chi'Meetups, including March's.

- Being a creature of habit is fine, but being boring sucks. I have become so stiflingly boring of late I am genuinely angry with myself. The worst part is that I have finally felt extricated from the long (nearly epic) period of chemical depression that ran over me for many moons in recent years. For the first time in a long time, my mind feels mostly uncluttered and I would describe the level of physical pain I experience as largely under control. Given this is the first time these two things have existed in tandem in as long as I can remember, I should be way more productive than I have been. It really is disgusting. I do the same shit every f'ing day, most of which is pointless. I kid ye not - I eat THE SAME THING every single damn day. I am lazy as all hell and have little to point to for the oxygen and space I consume. I have no idea what it is going to take for me to get my shit in gear. One thing I do know is that I usually address this situation by changing jobs or moving, but I have become convinced this never solved anything. Indeed, I am planning on moving this spring, but it is actually almost entirely a practical matter (I picked my current apartment for its proximity to awesome bus service - bus service that has now been totally gutted by budget cuts, leaving me no choice but to scramble for a solution.) I haven't really been keeping up here on ye olde weblogge, but that is because there is literally next to nothing worth documenting outside of the comings and goings of my chihuahua. It is really pathetic. I don't know what is going to take to break out of my life-stupor, but it has to come soon, and I think it will have to happen via some contrivance on my part. I am about to turn 40. I didn't think much about it until recently, and I can say without question, my 30's barely happened. They were a total waste on many levels. I have spent most of them dealing with physical pain and that took away from me much that won't be coming back. To be fair, I also did undergo a sort of revolution of spirit and mind as a by-product of all of that, and I don't want to discount that, but for every revelatory and pleasant aspect there has been to that, there has been something alienating or something that has made me feel out of sorts with the world. This is tough to explain. The book The Body In Pain makes the case that we totally lack a way to use language to communicate anything meaningful about pain. Nothing we say about it tells anyone much about what we are actually experiencing. Doctors can listen to the most accurate description there is and it means nothing until they see a diagnostic readout which shows a corresponding, observable malady. The pain and feelings aren't enough to get one help - they simply suggest where to look. Love too is indescribable at some level, so we developed poetry! There is no abstract or metaphorical descriptor available to help key in on the most intense experiences I have ever had. I feel mute, and this is something foreign to me. I live and die by the word and I totally lack them! Anyway, I don't feel like I have anymore time to waste in my life. I am pretty sure I am going to try to get my head shrunk. I don't feel like anti-depressants are what I need. I am going to be very wary of ever taking them again (I would if I felt overwhelmed and just wanted time to go by), but they are a coping mechanism (no shame in that), they don't actually solve problems. This is where I find myself - actually needing to solve these chronic unpleasantries. I am feeling the tick-tock and I don't have a ton of time left to waste.

- I have just finished one of the best books I have ever read, Life & Fate by Vassily Grossman. It was listed in the Wall Street Journal as being one of the best fiction works about war, and since it had Stalingrad as its subject, I went right for it. It happens to be about a topic that fascinates me, but more than being interesting from a historical perspective, it is written beautifully, and the book's existence really has such an incredible backstory, I am afraid one would have to read it (no small task, it is a cinder block of a book) to grasp it. In any event, I must pat myself on the back for polishing off another giant book - no small feat for me. I wish I could get away from the war theme, but if my choice is to stay with war books or not read, indulging this bizarre, transient fetish is the lesser evil.

- I need to go back and mention Field Roast. In my quest to break out of the culinary rut I am in (mac and cheese, gelato, tap water - EVERY NIGHT!), I bought something called a "Field Roast", which was new to me. It is fake meatloaf made out of plant material, seeds, and the like. It doesn't taste like meatloaf or roast, but it was very good. The necessary caveat is to mention that it had BBQ sauce on it as a glaze, and I am convinced that a leather work boot with BBQ sauce will taste good to me, so perhaps my experiment is tainted. Up next, I am going to try cooking vegetarian chorizo at home with some eggs and see how easy and/or tasty it is. After that, I am going to try the veggie bratwursts. There is no way those will ever be as good as real brats, but I have to try something (when I cheated on the veggie way a few weeks back, it was with the bratwurst from Suppenkuche in SF, which - with the fried potatoes - is worthy of the moral degradation I partook in by cheating.) I am convinced the vegetarianism isn't the problem in my dietary ennui, my laziness is. I don't want to eat out because I can't take the doggie in with me, and I don't want to drive around picking food up. I want to eat at home, but I am also not wanting to put any real effort into it. Since everything edible that one can microwave has been eaten to the point of bodily refusal to continue, I must branch out. It is tough work, especially for one who prefers to never wash a dish. Aren't I a complex creature?

- My sis and the Japan Away Team are back in the US this month. Trying to work out a way to go and visit. I know work is to be secondary to life, but I have so much on the work plate, it is tough to get free. I hope we can put something together, but if we don't, we will have twice the reason to get to Japan to see them this summer. Time will tell.