Also?

He was a bad man, no doubt about it.

But it’s a weird world we live in.

I was just on my knees in front of my TV, thanking God for giving those kids a different reason to gather than we had.  ABC was signing off with close-ups of the kids singing; “Hey Hey Goodbye,” and that awesome “O-le, ole ole ole!” soccer song, and of course chants of USA, USA, USA!

And then there’s a graphic that comes up, all stylized and whatnot, titled “The Killing of Osama Bin Ladin – Live Coverage.”

And I just thought, this is a weird world we live in, where the death of one man can be such good reason to celebrate.

It’s maybe the best evidence I’ve ever come across that the world is not running the way God originally intended it to run.  It’s too much of a disconnect—we’re not supposed to kill each other, but it is an unequivocally good thing that this man is dead.

It’s a weird world.

Holy shit.

Osama Bin Ladin is dead now.

So I’m watching this footage outside the White House, and I almost don’t know how to feel.

They’re kids out there, college kids who you’d expect to be awake and Tweeting at midnight; they were among the first to know, and they’re out there shouting and laughing and dancing and just rejoicing.  And they should.

These kids are in their late teens and early twenties, and Osama Bin Laden’s master plan has dominated their lives.  They were children ten years ago, and, for them, there’s almost never been an America that wasn’t under the shadow of September 11th.

I was their age ten years ago, and we gathered too, but we were subdued and fearful, angry and full of sorrow.  It changed the world that we’d been expecting to join, as soon-to-be college graduates.  And just like these kids today have never been kids without the reality of 9/11, I have never been an adult without it.

Tonight, the soon-to-be graduates are dancing in the streets, elated and proud and so, so relieved.  It’s almost like that footage you’ll see from some countries where the people take to the streets—but where they fire off guns into the air and burn flags, our kids are Tweeting, singing, their arms around each other, flashing peace signs.  All races, all together, white kids and black kids and Middle-Eastern kids; every one of them proud to be American.

Congratulations, class of 2011   I am filled with a bittersweet gratitude tonight, and tomorrow is going to be very interesting.  If you’d told me back then that it would take ten years to reach this goal, I don’t know how I would have felt.  And I don’t really know how to feel now.  But while I kind of wish I could be out there dancing with you, I’d rather my class hadn’t had to go through it in the first place.

Tomorrow is a new day.  Here’s hoping it’s a new world again, like it was ten years ago, but better this time. Those kids outside the White House, and all the kids around the world, deserve it.

~Domo

Class of 2002

News Flash

If you ever love someone?

And I mean really love him, not “OMG I LOVE PETE WEN TZ!!!1!”

If you ever really love someone, truly and for reals, yo?

You never get to stop.  You will always love that person, in some small corner of your heart.

It is both beautiful and really, really crappy.  I guess that’s love, though.

SIGH

I heart him.

Just back from a trip down the pub with Mr. Schue.  Got in the car and Peter Cetera was playing; it’s a long story but I was confusing him with Peter Gabriel earlier in the evening, and saying how much I loved his voice, and then to hear it immediately upon turning on the car as I was leaving the pub?  One of those awesome moments where God is like, “Here, have a tune, just for you.”

Haven’t stopped smiling since.  My face almost hurts.

Wow.  I could be seriously loopy about Mr. Schue, you guys.  I think I have the potential to go completely over the moon.

The Unbearable Lightness of Cobwebbs

Or, Change is Inevitable and Usually Scary.  So are spiders.

So, tonight I took my garbage out to the curb for the first time in at least a month.  Before you get all judgey, remember that Domo lives alone and doesn’t create that much in the way of waste.  I have a whacking great Town of Citiesville trash-can, and I don’t fill it up every week, so I don’t take it to the curb every week.  Also, it’s back behind the house and I have to drag it across the communal lawn and I’m lazy.

So I’m taking the trash out tonight, and in doing so, I knew I was going to bring a great upheaval into Eduardo’s life.  Eduardo is the male writing spider who’s taken up residence in the vicinity of my back porch, and ever since I destroyed his first web, which was spun directly across the back steps, he’s been living in a great big new web stretching from the back of the house to the edge of the trash can.

 

Eduardo is a scion of Edwina (pictured), who lived on my back porch last year. At least, I assume they're related. That does not make me racist, spiders aren't a race.

 

I knew I’d be having to take the garbage out tonight, and for the past week I’ve been thinking that it was going to be hard on Eduardo.  Here he is, just living his creepy little spider life in his web, eating bugs and probably freezing.  (Do spiders get cold?  I have no idea.)  And all that time, Big Change was coming at him slowly and inexorably.  And he didn’t know it.

Life is like that, no matter what the scale.  Here you are, living your lovely little human life in your house, or your apartment, or your van down by the river, eating tacos and knitting a hat.  And at any time, BANG, big change can come along and just tear the corner right off.

Changes can be for the better, or they can be for the worse, but the simple fact of life is that they will be.  Live long enough, and a change is gonna come.

I fear change.  I’ve been enduring it on a large scale for most of my life, in ways many people don’t ever think about.

Example: One of the simplest questions in the world is, “Where are you from?”  I have no simple answer to that question.  I am from EVERYWHERE.  Domo-dad was in the Air Force for most of my life, and I lived in seven states growing up.  I went to three high schools.  I have been the New Kid more times than I care to count, and while it was a great life and I wouldn’t trade it, it kind of wore me out on the concept of change.

However, I’ve reached a point where change is necessary.  I’ve been down and depressed for months now, and more than that, I’ve been drifting for the past ten years of my life.  Don’t get me wrong—my life is pretty sweet.  I have a good job, great friends, I own a house all by my by-self, my cats are awesome and my Halloween-costume-making skills are unparalleled.  I’ve got it pretty good.

But I’m not big-H Happy, and I think that’s because I’ve just been drifting along from week to week, doing a job because you gotta have a job, especially in this economy.  I’ve been anesthetized* by television and beer, and I’ve been okay with that up until now.

But I’m coming up to a fork in the road.  I’ll be turning 31 in a few days’ time, and the time has come to stop drifting and figure out what I want to do with my life.  Not that I’m quitting my job or anything—I’m not an idiot, and people on the TV keep shouting that the country is in the toilet so I assume quitting my job to blog full-time would be really stupid.

But I’d like to meet someone really great and fall in love.  I’d like to write something that thousands of people will read and love.  I’d like to make a mark of some kind, something to say I was here, whether that be a kick-ass book or a really cute, fat little baby.

I want to grow up and start being more.

Eduardo’s going to have to do that too, now that I’ve wrecked up his house.  It probably would have been less of a dick-move on my part if I’d done it during the daylight.  But you don’t always know when change is gonna come, so it’s best to keep a fresh spool of silk concealed somewhere on your person at all times.

That metaphor really fell apart at the end, there.

*spelled it right on the first try! I win!

DomoPhotos

Domo on the Town

So, Charlotte’s Halloween/birthday party was awesome.  I got there right around 7:30 and was shocked to see that I seemed to be late.  Charlotte knows every single person in Citiesville, and they all appeared to be crammed into her kitchen.

I unloaded my party-offerings first.  Miranda and I had decided to bring a giant gummy bear and put it on a platter with a knife sticking out of it—interestingly, she had always pictured the bear standing up, with a knife in his head, while I had always pictured him lying down with the knife in his chest.  Weird, how your friends can be picturing a totally different kind of gummy-dismemberment than you yourself were planning.

 

Beneath the trees, where nobody sees, they'll hide and seek as long as they please, 'cuz that's the way the gummy bears have their OH MY GOD THE HORROR!!!

After setting up the gummy bear and taking some photos, Miranda and I went back out to my car.  I needed assistance putting on the Domo, and she helped me get up to the house and inside.

That’s when I realized I had a problem.

Everyone turned to stare, which was awesome except for a moment where I thought it had gone way over everyone’s head and I was just going to be a freak in a box, rather than the maker of the World’s Most Awesome Costume.  Then Charlotte came in and announced, in wonder and awe, “You’re going to catch on fire!”

You see, there were about a billion people in the house, and one candle seemed to be lit for each person.  It was actually a little dangerous; “I think you’re going to have to go to the back porch!” was Charlotte’s verdict.  Miranda guided me through the crowd and I ensconced myself on the back porch, talking to various friends and wigging them out because while I could see them, they couldn’t see me.

They mostly saw this.

I discovered that my shoulders got to hurting from holding them at the weird angle required to keep my arms outside the Domo, so when Miranda got me a beer I pulled my arms in and drank behind the screen.  Which was awesome.

Miranda was super-awesome; she acted as official Domo-Minder for at least an hour or so after I got there.

Once everyone I knew had arrived and seen the Domo, I took him off and stood around in the bitchin’ hoodie my uncle had made for me.  It took several party-goers a while to put it together, that the girl in the brown monster hoodie was also the girl wearing the giant brown monster-box, but they got there in the end.

All in all, a fantastic party where I talked to fun people, had an awesome costume admired by all, and didn’t drink too much.  Here’s a list of everyone’s costumes; if I get pictures and permission later, I’ll put them in.

Clarence and Alabama were Ash and Taylor Swift; Alabama had a gorgeous sparkly dress and boots, while Clarence had an actual toy chainsaw attached to his hand.  It really whirred and everything.

"That's my boomstick."

Alabama's right, it's always sparkly dresses with this girl.

Bingo and Mrs.Bingo were John Daly and Carmen Sandiego, respectively.  The awesomest part of Mrs.Bingo’s costume is that she wasn’t wearing one; she was just wearing her regular clothes and her regular awesome trenchcoat.  But add a fedora from the Gellers, and BAM, Carmen Sandiego.  Bingo carried a putter, but was regrettably unable to find super-loud pants at the last minute.

The theme song is now in your head.

Also, Bingo's gut is nowhere near this magnitude. That thing has its own weather system.

Charlotte and Harry were Fred and Wilma Flintstone, and I had to give them both props for keeping their wigs on all night.  I would have bailed after a few hours or a few beers, whichever came first.

Also, Harry wore awesome giant feet all night.

Rounding out the gang were Ex as a welder (wearing all of his own equipment, including the helmet), Jennifer as a Sexy Nurse and Ben as her patient (he incorporated his actual, real-life sling into the costume since he ripped his shoulder to pieces while mountain biking about two weeks ago).

And Miranda came as Meg from Family Guy (she found Harry Potter glasses sold separately, which was an awesome stroke of luck),

Also, apparently it's easy to find pink toboggans this time of year.

and Boone, who came as The Most Interesting man in the world.  Here he is with Domo while I’m taking the picture:

His mother has a tattoo that reads "Son."

Other great costumes of the night included:

• A guy wearing a black t-shirt and triangular signs around his neck reading “ASK AGAIN LATER,” “YES DEFINITELY” and “BETTER NOT TELL YOU NOW.”  (Magic 8-ball)
• A girl wearing an orange jack-o’lantern shirt, and her husband/boyfriend wearing a shirt with 3.14159265 on the front.  Together, they were pumpkin-pi.
• My friend Anna wearing a little pig nose and a big pink blanket (pig in a blanket).
• My friend Leigh wearing a gypsy costume with little fortune cookies stapled to the skirt (fortune-teller).
• A couple in Dharma Initiative jumpsuits, with Dharma Initiative beer bottles.
• A guy wearing a fake giant white belly with a yellow circle on the front, and devil horns (I’ll let you wait till the end of the post).
• A guy with a shake-weight and a huge fake beer gut and short-shorts.  It was the beer gut that really made the outfit, and I told him so.

But beyond Domo, I think the best costume of the night had to go to Buddha.  I didn’t meet the guy officially, but he was a super-confident, awesome, gigantic man who wore gold shorts and a cape and painted his entire body with gold glitter.

BEHOLD! YOU CANNOT UN-SEE IT!

All in all, it was an excellent night

After some modifications to the Domo, who is now sitting at my dining room table staring at me as I blog about his escapades, I think I’m going to go roaming about campus and downtown and stuff.  Boone says he’ll come and take pictures, because he works from home for himself, and as he put it, it’s not like he’s got shit to do

*Deviled egg. He was a deviled egg.

Nirvana

I has it.

Excellent day today, tooling around Citiesville with Mrs.Bingo and going to the new CONTAINER STORE.  It’s a magical place.

But the main thing about today is…

The Domo.  It is complete.

I shall update all the final bits about how to make him as soon as I can.  But for now, I am going to get ready to go out and enjoy the fruits of my labor.

Behold, it is awesome.

It is also my Facebook photo.

Awwww yeah.