i've not forgotten geof's meme. the past week i'd go thru my archives and find that i've been blogging since april '04. that's seems to me a long time. so finding faves thru my stacks of posts proved a daunting task. i asked anna if she had any favorite pieces of mine and she said yes. there was one where i'd written about death that she liked so much that she shared it with her co-workers. when i asked when i wrote it she couldn't remember, and because i'm an idiot, i don't title or tag my posts, i couldn't find it.

so i limited my search to the year 2005, which is the beginning of our life with nicholas. as i've just said, i don't title my posts so i'll use the categories as links to my favorite pieces.

here goes:

family

the birth of nicholas bronson lopez was the most momentous, the most important, the wildest, craziest, and the most cherished and beloved, event that happened in my life. this photo of nicholas is my favorite of my favorites pics of nicholas. i can't describe it other than i think anna, who took the pic, captured an essence of our son that is serious, playful, and just really cute.

friends

oz poet/editor mark young is one of my first friends i found in the ether. i dedicated this poem to him because of mark's acute intellect and love of strange details in life and science. plus i think that the poem may not be perfect, well far from perfect, it is i think an interesting prose poem, a form that i find difficult to write in. in other words, the poem written in friendship ia a noble failure on my part.

myself

i hate 2nd hand smoke, but i love the paraphernalia of smoking. i used to smoke and i used to enjoy smoking. i gave it up permanently when both anna and agreed to stop. i was 25 and anna i think 23. society has come down hard on smoking and smokers in the past 15-20 years. a shame really. perhaps it has something to do with our ideas of youth and the vain desire to live forever. i don't know but i still like the stuff of smoking and this post i think illustrates why.

something i love

my own sentimental education was earned at the movies. not only do i love watching films, i love the stuff of movies: posters, lobby cards, and theaters. but what i love most of all was watching flicks at the drive-in. sac had an abundance of them when i was a wee lad in the 1970s and since it was cheap entertainment my mom and dad would take me and my 2 younger bros. i'd beg and plead to go to the drive-ins. and since my parents didn't censor my viewing my life-long love of horror and exploitation movies were formed at the drive-in. now whether that is for good or ill is up for debate.

free choice

this last post is a case in point regarding my love of really bad movies. i enjoy writing movie reviews and this post is about one of my favorite films of the past 5 years or so. and hopefully there are a few readers who also enjoy these sorts of films. but what i hope about writing reviews is not to convince the reader to go see the movie in question but to enjoy the review as an entertainment in itself. that's what i look for in other bloggers' pieces. my obsessions are not, can not be, the same as yours. and vice versa. what i want is a writing that takes the whole of the subject with an enthusiasm and joy. even if that joy might be of a negative variety, and yes i think there is such a thing, without defining it here, as negative joy. so my reviews, and i think i've written far too few of them, are pieces that i hope convey my love for the movies. even those movies i loathe.

okay that's it. i've promised anna that i'll link to the piece that she enjoyed soon as i find it. and yes, i'm gonna tag a few brethren too. so get ready. but if you don't want to do it, as mike myers used to say in that old saturday night live skit: no big whoop.

so i tag:

steve caratzas

gina myers

ernesto priego

w. b. keckler

logan ryan smith

jean vengua

and

alex gildzen