The Styrofoam Cup

After a recent visit to my mother's house, Judy and I decided to get coffees to enjoy on the drive home. My mother lives near a nice, old-fashioned village with the type of Main Street you can't walk down without seeing friends and neighbors. I parked in front of the bagel place and opened my door.



"No, wait a second," Judy said as she peered out the passenger side window at red block letters reading, "HOT BAGELS." "I think there’s a slightly nicer coffee place on the other end of town."

I re-entered traffic, and after a red light and a couple of near "cell phone wrecks," I pulled into another parking spot near where she thought the coffee place was. But there was no obvious coffee shop, just a clothing store, a pizza place and a florist.

“Just get out and walk around a minute,” she said. “It’s there.”

I opened my car door and stepped out into the Main Street traffic. A woman driving a white Cadillac Escalade and, yes, talking on her cell phone, nearly ended my life. I made it onto the sidewalk, walked a few hundred feet from the car, found no coffee shop, and walked back to the car.

Through the windshield I saw Judy leaning over the front seat playing with our daughter who was in her carseat. When my daughter saw me approach, I ran up to the car door and smushed my face against the window making "farty noises." A woman walked by and shook her head in disapproval but my daughter went wild with laughter. Judy rolled down her window. I put my hand on the roof of the car, leaned close, and dropped the bad news, “I see the place you’re talking about, but it’s out of business.” "Okay," Judy said, "Just turn around and we’ll get it from the bagel shop.”

Now there are a couple of things in life that I am rather stubborn about. One is that I’ll never, under no circumstances, pull over to ask for directions. The other, is that I hate to retrace my steps.

“No,” I said. "We’ll find another place. There are loads of bagel shops around here.” Judy rolled her eyes.

Outside of the main village now, there was nothing but depressing strip malls, newspaper-strewn roads, auto collision shops, self-defense centers, gas stations, and chain stores. Everything was gray. I saw a flock of Starlings lined up along the top of a large green road sign and a flock of Pigeons roosting in the shelter of an overpass. I noticed sagging electrical wires hanging from their splintered telephone poles. A dog with three legs hobbled along the shoulder of the road, stumbled and landed on its little doggie face. A flock of crows watched hungrily as it struggled to regain its footing. A man in a wheelchair wept.

The situation appeared hopeless but I desperately wanted a coffee. It was time to make the easy decision and get on with our trip. Against all of my better judgements and instincts, I pulled into a Dunkin' Donuts Drive Thru and narrowly missed hitting a confused-looking old woman who was wandering around aimlessly in her pajamas.

"Get out of the fucking road, you hag!" Judy yelled from the car window.

"Damn Judy, chill." I said. She really has no patience for old people... Anyway, just then she realized where I was going for our coffees and her jaw dropped in amazement. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Nothing," I said. Keep playing with Chela. Chela chirped from the backseat, "What Mommy? What Mommy?" And then, "Mommy, why is that lady in her pajamas? Does her nose bleeding?"

I pulled up and a man’s voice, heavy with accent, crackled through the brown speaker of the Drive-Thru menu. “Hello! Welcome to Dunkin Donuts, may I take your order please?”


I ordered the coffees. However, immediately after I placed the order, I took a good look at the pictures on the huge menu. Cups of Dunkin Donuts coffee posed alongside various breakfast items... here with an egg sandwich; there, with a bagel. In each of these pictures the coffee was pictured in a styrofoam cup, with a little curl of steam, shaped approximately like a question mark, rising from the surface of the coffee. The styrofoam cups bothered me and my conscious stirred. I thought of a local wildlife refuge near my house and a display they have of certain items and how long it takes them to decompose.

The display is simple. It starts with an orange. A small white sign over the orange says, "Two weeks." Next to the orange is something that takes longer, like a chicken bone, and it says "Two months." To be honest, I don't remember how long it takes for each different thing to decompose, okay? But I do remember that the sign over the styrofoam cup reads, “NEVER.” Styrofoam never goes away. Not in this lifetime, not in the next, never...

I had yet to pull away from the window and I decided I had to act.

“Excuse me?” I said to the menu.

“Yes sir?” crackled the brown drive-thru speaker.

“Can you put those coffees in paper cups? Or do you only have styrofoam cups?”

An unsteady pause told me that taking this dude out of his normal transaction conversation was not a good idea.

“I’m sorry sir…" The man sounded impatient. "You ordered two coffees, correct?”

“Yes, I just don’t want them in sty…”

“Okay then sir," he interrupted, "please drive around.”

“No, wait," I persisted. "See, I don’t want the coffees if they’re in Styrofoam cups.”

“Okay sir, now you are saying that you do not want the coffees.”

“No, I want the coffees, I don’t want the cups.”

“I do not understand sir.”



At this point I stepped on the gas, tore around the drive thru, and gave the worker “the business” with my left hand. The man slid open the drive thru window and yelled, "Fuck you! Fucker man!" as I pulled back onto the depressing road.

Judy looked alarmed. "What the hell are you doing?"

“We'll find a place with PAPER cups!" I yelled in a sort of crazed tone as I swerved to miss a cluster of people protesting a larger cluster of hispanic day-laborers.

However, it wasn’t so simple. At this point, our options had become severely limited. We pointed the car towards the expressway and hoped to find some welcoming little shop that we had somehow overlooked on our many trips. In the rearview mirror I caught Chela's eyes. She was smiling and singing, "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music.

To be continued...

A Warning From Hank Brummel

On a recent afternoon, I drove to the local hardware store. I had to buy some rock salt to melt the ice covering the brick steps that lead to our back door. Ice clings stubbornly to brick.

Last month, my father-in-law slipped on some ice and landed flat on his back. He couldn't get into his car for 2 weeks. The same thing happened to my father a couple of years ago, except he wasn't so lucky. He broke 4 ribs, punctured a lung, and spent a few nights in the hospital. I still remember visiting him...

From the door of his room I looked in to find him sitting up in his bed, wearing one of those hospital gowns that were designed by armless blind people: the kind that expose your ass when you stand. He was staring idly at the thin gray curtains that separated him from his roommate, an angry old man who was mumbling something about laxatives.

Hospitals gowns, old people and laxatives... Incidentally, all great conversation starters if you ever find yourself burning in hell.

Dad's thoughts seemed scattered. We were at some sort of "teaching hospital" and minutes after I arrived, 8 or 9 doctors stood conferring over a clipboard at the foot of his bed. They were debating the best way to re-inflate my father's lung. Many of them seemed young. My father had this idea that his lung would get better on its own; however, the hospital people wanted to put in a chest pump and re-inflate it for him.

"DT," he whispered to me, "this place is like a veterinary hospital. Of course they want to give me a chest pump! Where else are these kids going to learn how to do this?"

I won't say that he panicked, but my father looked fearful. It was awful seeing him in that condition, and it has stuck in my head. He's not paranoid like I am... actually, quite the opposite. Anyway, he got out of there and his lung inflated just fine: no chest pump.

What's the point of this? Ice has been trying to kill my family for years. As a result, each winter when it shows up on my steps it's a sort of "revenge play" for me to melt it all. Ice isn't welcome at my house; when it shows up, I take it personally.

So, as I was saying... hardware store, rock salt.

The hardware store is always uncomfortably warm and smells of herbicides and fertilizer. The man who works the section by the entrance constantly wears a stoned, glazed-over, look. And, in fact, he is always stoned. In another lifetime, I got heavily into darts and joined a pub's "dart team." Clearly, this topic needs its own post... However, let's just say I really got to know a lot of the local degenerates and "Bob the builder" here was one of them. I asked him where the rock salt was and without looking up from what he was doing, (trying to release a gumball from the gumball machine) he said, "automotive."

So I was on my way to the automotive section when I bumped into Hank Brummel. He was stacking suet blocks into his basket. When he looked at me, his face immediately went dark.

Hank is a celebrated figure around town. He's 95 or so, but you'd think he was 80. He's still very independent and mobile, and you'll see him strolling around in a fashionable cardigan sweater, hair fuller and whiter than a blizzard, waving to everyone he passes and making small talk. I've heard that he developed the first motors for windshield wipers. GM had bought his patent and he became very rich.

Without a greeting, he grabbed me by the elbow and said in a low voice, "Bad times are ahead." I made some hopeful gesture and said, "Barack Obama!"

Hank wasn't impressed. He stood there next to a display of window washer fluid and blinked patiently at me. "DT, we've been building up to this for years and years. It will take years and years for things to get back to normal." He looked thoughtfully at the floor and shook his head. "Even then," he said flatly, "things will just be different." Brummel's eyes grew nebulous. "I mean, it's not for me I worry. I'm going to die soon... hopefully anyway. But I have 30 grandkids to think about."

I knew Hank had lived through the Great Depression and so I asked him, "What do I do if things get as bad as you think?"

He looked right through me with his cloudy old man's eyes and said, "Plant a garden, raise chickens, and buy a gun."

"Jesus, Hank," I said as some nervous laughter escaped, "a gun?"

"Yes, DT. A gun."

And with that, Hank Brummel darted down an aisle full of cabinet hinges and disappeared.

I purchased my rock salt no longer confident that ice was worth all the worry.

There's No Place Like Home

Judy teaches yoga. She's a great person, full of positivity and love.

On the other hand, I hate people.

Anyway, one night after dinner while we were preparing our daughter's, okay wait... who am I kidding, while SHE was preparing our daughter's lunch for school, it became clear that her new "Wizard of Oz" lunchbox had disappeared. A crisis involving thrown carrots, peas, and feline abuse ensued. The good news was that Judy quickly remembered where she last saw it, at the yoga studio. The cats were spared.

Since I had been locked inside the house all day, I volunteered to go down to the studio when the last class of the day ended, at 7pm.

"Who's teaching?" I asked.

"Belinda," said Judy with a little smile.

Belinda, you see, is hotter than tabasco sauce on a camel and Judy likes to poke fun at me since she knows I think she's hawt. She only gets away with this because she knows that Belinda wouldn't take a second glance at me even if I was, say, the only heterosexual man at a gay parade. Does that make sense? No bother...

Whatever, I thought... Belinda is going to notice me, I'll show Judy!

And so I drove down to the studio, the whole way playing out the scenario in my head.

I'd walk in all casual and say, "Oh, hey Belinda, how'd class go?"

Chances are she'd look confused and ask me who I was.

"Oh yeah, you don't remember me? DT? Judy's husband?"

She would say she didn't remember meeting me and take a step or two back.

"Bah!" I'd say, waving a hand at her, "We've met before, like 7 times!"

No, she'd say... we'd never met. She slowly start to reach for the phone receiver, most likely to call the cops.

"Right..." I'd continue with a knowing wink. "Anyway, you see a Wizard of OZ lunchbox laying around?"

Not exactly porn material, but I was praying that she had a thing for the "caring Dad" type, so I'd play that up... "Yeah, my daughter was just all broken up about it, but I told her, 'Don't worry honey, Daddy will find your lunchbox!'"

That'd get her. Fast forward to a little "downward dog" action and I'd be in.

Anyway, so here's what really happened...

I drove the 5 minutes into town while blasting the Animal Collective song "Hey Light." It was pouring rain. I highly suggest purchasing that song and driving through the rain in the dark while it's playing at an obscenely loud level.

So I arrived at the studio just as class was ending. It smelled of Nag Champra and was about 99 degrees. Candlelight filled the room and everyone was glowing orange and completely blissed out. I, on the other hand, was newspaper-colored and freezing cold. The positive energy crowd parted like the red sea as I entered the studio.

Now, a note about my personal appearance. I have a large unruly beard. I'm a winter surfer in a region of the world where the water temperature drops into the 30s... every hair helps, believe me. Also, I don't leave my house for days on end... why shave? I hate to shave!

So picture the scene. Me, wet, grey and hairy,entering this blissy room all orange and yellow with "good vibe" and "positive energy."

Through the dudes who looked like Jesus and the girls who looked like flowers, I spotted the lunchbox. My daughter had placed it under what passed as a "desk."

I bent down to pick it up.

Now, at this point, I kind of lost track of time. As I reached down for the box I noticed, there, under the desk, the exposed legs of Belinda. My GOD they were beautiful; glistening and dewey with sweat. The smell... it was something like the best parts of the earth... I must have gone into some sort of trance. Later I would blame the heat, but really, it was the legs... the naked, perfect legs of Belinda.

After some time, 20 seconds? 2 minutes? I really couldn't say, I stood up, Wizard of Oz lunchbox in hand. The positve energy people were staring at me... In fact, they had sort of closed me in. What was UP with these people? FUCK! It was orange and hot in this place. And quiet. Were these people humming? I was all disoriented. It suddenly seemed to get very quiet...

Belinda's boyfriend, a nationally-known weight lifter and ultimate fighter dude, was staring at me.

This was it... the end for me.

"Hey dude," he said gesturing under the desk, "Nice view?" He looked down at my Dorothy lunchbox, smirked, and shook his head in disgust, or perhaps disbelief.

Now, I could either play stupid, or be straight up about the situation. I decided to play it straight up.

"Man," I began, "you're a lucky guy." His face tightened. "Good thing for you I like men, eh?" I said, winking at him. At this point I held up the Dorothy lunchbox somewhat emphatically. I figured if he made a move for me, I could smash it across his face.

But he didn't. My act had thrown him off his game and I made for the exit, positive energy crew parting once more like the red sea.

DT. Wins. Again.

See You Later Happy Birthday "Munch"

Solid surf and my daughter's fourth birthday means I won't be trading this market until the late afternoon.

Don't blow up.

UPDATE: Surfing trip cancelled due to the impending Great Depression/riots.

That's right. I left the house pre-dawn, stepping out into a tremendous gale (I think "tremendous gale" sounds very 1930s, no?) and drove to my surf buddy's house. Water had flooded the back room of his house and he didn't look like a millionaire... he looked haggard. Still, we pressed on.

As we sped down the local turnpike, his thumbs were flying all over his Blackberry as he shot emails off to important clients. He's a real estate agent, and he's working on a couple of large deals. Anyway, despite the fact that I left my house without looking at the market on purpose, so as not to be detracted from my decision to "take off," I gave in and said, "Dude, anyway you can get me a futures quote on that thing?"

He looked at me like I was from 1996 and said, "Yeah, it's called CNBC." Seconds later he was staring down at the screen, face blue from the illumination and said, all too calmly, "The futures are down 311 points."

311 points!

"Dude," I said. "I can't surf if the fucking futures are down 311 points," and I made a hasty U-turn, much to his chagrin. His Blackberry flew out of his hands and slid down into the netherworld that exists between my passenger seat and the door. "Fuck man," he said. "Chill out!"

"Dude," I said. "Don't you get it? They're gonna drive the market down to the lows again! Citigroup is gonna die! The fucking REITs are gonna be fucking worthless! My mother is gonna be living in my fucking basement and there's gonna be riots in New York FUCKING City if the fucking terrorists don't blow it up first! FUCK DEVILDOG!"

"Dude.... what???" he said, looking scared. "What the fuck is a "Devildog?"

Perspective washed over me now that I had released my fears. I looked over at him. He seemed so innocent and somewhat naive. "Ah, nothing... don't worry. Look, the Great Depression may come, but the winds will still blow, waves will still break. I'll surf with you tomorrow morning. It's supposed to me nice and clean."

In a span of 10 seconds, I went from "the world is ending" to "the waves will still break" and I understood, briefly, why I'm a daytrader.

For the next few minutes, we drove in silence. I dropped him off and stopped for a coffee in town. I ran the 20 feet from my car to the entrance of the coffee shop, arm up to brace myself against the wind (again very 1930s, no?). The cafe door slammed behind me and it was like I had entered a new world.

The store was overly bright, peaceful, and quiet. The dulcet tones of an instrumental version of "Morning Has Broken" streamed out from behind a speaker camouflaged to look like a Santa Claus. I walked over to the "coffee station" and studied the 6 pots of coffee in front of me, each with a different colored handle.

"Are these all the same?" I asked the man behind the counter. "No, my friend" he said, and pointed to what looked like a "coffee chart" that was in a stand up frame next to the pots.

The hopeful music coupled with the 6 flavors of coffee made me feel like this place was sure to go out of business sooner, rather than later. Still, I paid over $8 for two coffees and a hunk of blueberry crumb cake... so perhaps they'll make it after all.

I got home and crept upstairs. My daughter was still asleep. It's her fourth birthday. Her foot was sticking out of the bottom of her comforter and I kissed it. She woke up.

"Daddy!" she said, beaming. "Happy Birthday, sweetness!" I said, beaming now too.

She stood in the middle of her mattress, chin up and shoulders back to make herself appear "super-tall." "See how big I am now, Daddy?" she asked. "I'm four!"

Judy stumbled into the room, wrapped in a blanket, squinting. "What are you doing home?"

Forgetting about the Dow for a moment and taking a glance at my daughter who was now jumping up and down on her bed I said, "I wanted to wish 'Chela' a Happy Birthday before she went to school."

Meals In Front Of The Tree

4 year olds are interesting creatures. My daughter has become obsessed with our Christmas tree and now takes all her meals at a little table (previously used for crafts) she set up about 4 feet away from it.

The first thing she does upon waking up is to run downstairs and turn on the lights.

But in a sure sign that she doesn't yet fully grasp Christmas cheer and the meaning of the holiday, last night she remarked that, "when people die, we can steal their houses."

The trader inside of me smiled, but the father was somewhat alarmed.

The Great Depression Visits DT's House

Two years ago had I walked into the middle of my town with a bloodied Pomeranian and thrown it, I probably would have ruined a real estate broker's shirt. People who I drank with at grungy bars during my "dart phase," who were previously unkempt and dirty, suddenly cleaned themselves up and were handing me business cards and asking for referrals.

They were pretending to be "positive" and healthy. "Fuck them all," I often thought. "Fuck them all..."

Anyway, fast forward to yesterday. I'm still unkempt and dirty and trading from the spare room of my house. And, despite my attempts to follow the thoughtful advice from my therapist to "be aware of my breath," I haven't changed much. I'm staring intently at my screens and cursing myself for purchasing DLR "too early." I'm doubling my position to an uncomfortable 1200 shares when I hear a knock at the front door. No one I know comes to the front door, but we're having a new countertop installed so I figure I should answer it. One last glance at my screen tells me my most recent purchase is already unprofitable. Cursing, I turn away from my desk and walk downstairs to open the door.

I didn't recognize the woman immediately but she looked vaguely familiar. In fact, the first thing I noticed was her very expensive set of glasses (definitely 2 or 3 years old). She stammered, "Hi, DT! I know it's been awhile, but I'm cleaning houses now!" She was straining to sound positive. "I just wanted to give you my card and ask for any referrals if you know anyone in the area" (and here she turned around and looked at the house across the street and spread her arms out) "who needs their house cleaned!"

I felt immediately uncomfortable by the situation, especially once I realized that 3 years ago, this same woman had sold the house across the street for a couple million. She had been known all around my area as "the one" to call if you needed to get your house sold. And here she was trying to make $20 an hour scrubbing my toilet. But I couldn't get all empathetic, and "human" with her, I had 1200 shares of DLR working against me. I told her I'd "keep my ears open" and I closed the door to rush back to my turret.

DLR had dropped further and I sold out for a loss.

Now I had time to think about the woman some more. I wondered how she must have felt walking across my front lawn and getting into her car. I remembered a conversation I had with her a couple of years back. She had adopted a daughter from China and was asking me about saving for college. People sometimes think that because I trade stock everyday that I have some kind of knowledge about how to invest; they're wrong. I told her I hadn't the slightest idea... I just traded. She laughed and said, "Well, as long as the housing market keeps this up, I won't have to worry about it anyway!"

Things can change quickly... I thought about how desperate she must be, to be looking for a job cleaning houses from which she once made huge commissions. Then I thought with some humor about my cleaning lady, an "illegal" from Poland who had a son. I wondered if she ever thought an ex-real estate broker would be her competition.

I thought, and admittedly, this wasn't a nice thought, "Looks like Dominika is due for a pay cut." I smiled.

Suddenly, the drop in DLR made sense to me.

I'm Like, So Tough.

I have a head cold. Actually, I've had it for 4 or 5 days.

But check this out... I can hardly breathe through my nose right now. Nonetheless, I am breathing through my nose.

It makes a thin whistling sound inside my head, and if I suck in really hard, a sliver of air seems to reach my brain.

Last night, while I lay in bed in the dark, receiving only trace amounts of oxygen, I imagined that I was a rubble-covered earthquake victim. In fact, I was an 8 year old named "Weisheng" and my school had just collapsed due to a 6.8 magnitude earthquake and poor local construction standards.

Anyway, I imagined that my mouth was smushed shut by a concrete cinder block and that my arms and legs were trapped, preventing me from moving. All I had, was an air-pocket created by the space under my desk and the barely existent nasal passage in my left nostril. The right nostril was completely blocked. Sometimes, (because I wasn't receiving enough oxygen) I'd get a little panicky, and think about opening my mouth to gasp for air, but then I'd remember that I couldn't, because of the cinder block.

I thought to myself, imagine this was it, and I had to remain calm and breathe like this while waiting for the authorities to dig me out. I couldn't move at all, and the only thing that separated me from life and death, was that thin little air passage through the thick mucus in my nasal passage.

The point is, I do little "exercises" like this all the time. They make me tougher. Ultimately, the cumulative effect of all these little "exercises" is victory in the stock market, because I can handle the pain, far better than you can.

Pussy.

Finance Is Boring, Admit It

Yesterday, at a party, I was cornered by a man with fancy pants who found out that I was a trader. He started to talk to me about all kinds of "economic theory" and "exotic financial instruments." He was in his mid 40s and retired.

Now, I have no financial background and I'm just not interested in financial talk, unless it's from a human perspective. Like, I enjoy talking about how people react to crazy news events, depressions, etc.

People who jump out of windows and horde food supplies and gold... that makes for good conversation. Talking about how one financial instrument influences another is not.

So anyway, after listening to this guy for probably 15 minutes and retaining absolutely nothing, minus some interesting tidbit about the government banning the purchase of gold in 1931 or something, he started asking me questions about stuff.

Without being a dick about it, I just said that I knew nothing about finance, and didn't care to clutter my head that sort of knowledge.

"In fact," I said, "if I knew too much, it could hinder my ability to trade, because I might come up with bad reasons to stay in trades that were going against me," and I cited the famous quote from John Maynard Keynes about "the market staying irrational longer than you can stay solvent."

He liked that. Happily, we moved on to discuss something more interesting, like "how to manipulate people." Still, in the back of my head, I felt a little guilty, being a writer for a blog that's somewhat about finance, while knowing nothing about it.

So, in order to feel better about this situation, I spent a few minutes this morning reading an article about Fannie Mae. It's a good one, and I suggest you check it out, so that you too can bore people about your "financial knowledge" at dinner parties.

Judy's Trip To The Bank

After the almost reckless profits I've made in the last couple of weeks, it was time to get paid and deposit the money in the bank.

In normal times, I'd just take the full amount and throw it into my savings, or put a portion of it in a CD. I have enough market risk each day, so my daytrading profits go largely to cash, not back into the market.

Anyway, I told Judy to take about 10% of the money out, in cash. A decent sum. In addition, I told her to get a safe-deposit box, and put the lions-share of that money into the box.

She told me that as she instructed the teller of her plans that there was lots of murmuring behind the counter and that people were looking at her like she was "crazy."

Naturally, I wish I could have been there to get more detail.

Anyway, next week I'll discuss buying bars of gold. After that, I'll move the discussion over to purchasing firearms.

In other words, I think this bounce will fade eventually... maybe even by the end of the day.

Living Manliness

This morning, after I went surfing, I stopped to get some coffee. I was feeling charitable, so I picked one up for Judy as well.

When I got to the counter to pay, I even decided to pick up a blueberry and banana smoothie for my daughter. I was in a really good mood.

Anyway, so I had two large coffees and a smoothie. I paid, and the woman asked me if I wanted a carrying tray.

"No thanks," I said. "I got it." I felt really green, and I could see that my masculinity was almost too much for the woman to bear... I stacked the three cups and head for the door.

My car was probably 200 feet from the coffee shop. It became clear to me as I walked down the steps, that the cups were in a rather precarious position and that the bottom of the paper coffee cup was digging uncomfortably into my thumb.

But I soldiered on, carrying the cups in that position, through the pain, and even managed to smile at a couple of people as I passed. I could see, by the expressions on their faces, that they thought I was one "bad customer" carrying the cups like that.

When I got to the car, there was an indent in my thumb. I didn't even complain about it much to myself in my head. I just told myself, "shit like that happens to tough guys" and I got in my car and drove home, ready to battle the markets.

Dinosaur Trader... trader, tough guy.

Costco Part 2

(in case you missed Part 1 of this epic tale, it's here.)

Now, as you all know, I'm a very cultured guy, but I've never been in a Costco.

The gray cinder-block walls gave the place a "jail chic" kind of appeal and observing a few of the patrons I wouldn't be surprised if a few had "washed" someone in their past.

After a few minutes of walking around aisles wide enough to allow the easy passage of very obese people and wondering if we really needed 28 glue sticks, I started thinking bad thoughts about Obama.

"Fucking elitist," I thought. "Dude can't even bowl without looking like a girl. How the hell is he gonna stand up to the terrorists?" I grabbed a sleeve of 36 D-size batteries and threw it into our cart.

I looked at Judy, my waifish yoga wife, and compared her to a 300-pound woman riding around in one of those electric wheelchairs. I thought of three Judys in one big "Judy body" while I reached for a "Red Cross Emergency Kit." 

"Maybe Judy needs to gain a little weight," I thought to myself.   And I threw a 3 million candle spotlight into our cart.

A mom and her son, both huge, were looking at bags of chips. 

"Those bags are bigger than the other ones we got," the son said while giggling. 

The mom giggled back at him. They stood there like that, in front of the chips, shoulders shaking, necks all loose, laughing.  I walked by them and picked up 1000 feet of aluminum foil. 

"McCain isn't really that old," I thought. 

I spent a long time contemplating a generator. I was pulled away from said generator by Judy. I listened to a salesman talking to an old guy about Tums. 

"If you have a few people in your family taking these," the salesman explained slowly in a serious tone, "buying in this quantity is a very economical way to go." 

The old guy nodded thoughtfully, and added the gallon-sized tub of Tums to his cart.

All around me, different people were having different conversations but the words I heard were the same... "big," "bigger," and "biggest."

An 87 year old woman wearing a Costco visor was handing out free samples of grape juice. 

"Where could I find the green tea?" I asked. 

"Aisle 32,148," she said, as she continued to pour the juice into tiny plastic cups. 

She didn't even look up. She was like an 87 year old robot, lifting the plastic cup from the stack, placing it on the counter, and then filling it with purple... over and over. I felt a pang of sympathy for her and remembered how it used to be when old people retired. But hey, she probably had credit card debt, and should be happy Costco gave her the opportunity to pay it off.

Behind me, a lady was struggling to carry a huge bag of red meat. She was grunting as she lugged it toward her double-size shopping cart. I imagined her, as a cavewoman or something, trying to drag a dead boar to her fire... she was hunting here, at Costco. 

Other people were pawing over discounted books. One large woman was reading the back cover of a book about the South Beach diet and another, equally large woman, came over and told her that it changed her life. 

Men were buying quantities of meat, and cases of beer. They wore sports jerseys and Nascar caps. The mood was light. The people were happy. The people were filling their carts. The people were getting good deals on big stuff. 

What more was there?

We got to the checkout and I realized, in a panic, that there was no way we could fit this stuff into my small car.  I worried about this, out loud, to my mother.  A man in the next checkout lane overheard our conversation. 

"Oh, you find ways to fit it all in. You always do," he said.  Lightheartedly, he laughed, and I felt like I was a member of some new club. 

This man was my brother. He spoke in open-ended terms, he sounded wise. He too had found it difficult to fit the absurdly large quantities of stuff into his car, but he had managed. I would manage too... everything would be okay. I could consume. For a flashing moment, I understood the psyche of a Hummer driver.

And then, as if to complete the scene, upon exiting Costco through the automatic sliding doors, I looked out over the vast parking lot towards where the horizon should be (instead there was a BestBuy or something) and saw a funnel cloud descending, slowly and silently from the black heavens. It was the first time in my entire life that I had ever seen a funnel cloud. I thought the coincidence of me going to a Costco and witnessing my first funnel cloud was just too much.

Compared to the Costco and that funnel cloud, I had never felt so... small before.

But ironically enough, I also felt very American.

DT Visits Costco, Part 1

(I've decided to chop this post into 2 parts, since it's kind of long...)

This past weekend, Judy and I took a road trip to visit her brother, who lives in the "cradle of civilization," Staten Island, New York. Staten Island is a classic place, and worth visiting if you miss the 80s.

Bring your "wifebeater," sweat suit, and hair gel.

Anyway, on our way home, I decided to be a good son and stop at my mother's house. Shortly after we arrived, the skies darkened, winds turned the leaves on trees, and a bizarre light suffused the area. In a matter of minutes, the power was out and we were in the basement rummaging for candles.

All weekend long I felt very in touch with my mortality. Perhaps it was because we hadn't seen Judy's brother in a while and his hairline had receded a bit, or perhaps it was because when we sat down to play Risk we found tallies of games played years ago. I don't know exactly. But for whatever reason, I had this feeling that my daughter was growing quickly, and that people I love were getting old while I wasn't paying attention.

I felt the power of time.

And on another level, thoughts of my own mortality paid me a visit as I lay in bed unable to sleep at 2am on Saturday night. The bedroom window was open, and sitting on a concrete wall in front of the house, a girl spoke on her phone.

Her half of the conversation went something like this:

"He will be WASHED. I'm gonna WASH his ass!" Pause. "BITCH, I already been in jail so don't think I fucking care. He's gonna git WASHED."

I crept over to the window holding my breath, and looked down. She shone yellow under the streetlight, her back to the house, hand waving in the night, alone, yelling into her phone. I was waiting for a gunshot. I was hoping her mother would come and find her or something...

So the thing is, once the power went out at my mom's house, I suddenly felt the urge to "stock up" on supplies. To get stuff. I said to Judy, "Let's go shopping." I don't think I've said those three words, in that order, to Judy, ever. She looked at me as if I was about to die or something. She was seriously concerned.

"What's wrong with you?" she questioned.

"Nothing," I said. "Let's go get stuff."

"What stuff?" she wanted to know.

"I dunno. I just feel the need to get some stuff. I'll know what I need, when I see it."

And so 15 minutes later, my mom was flashing her "membership card" at some 90 year-old security guy, and we were strolling into a Costco.

Another Lesson In Perspective

Last night, I caught the best wave of my life and it taught me a lesson.

The wave taught me the following, (I'm paraphrasing) it said, "DT, stop being such a dick."

All day, my head was full of fuzz because some poor Hispanic dudes were outside cutting down trees. All day I forgot that I have a healthy family, live in a beautiful spot in the world and altogether, have it pretty damn good.

I just forgot and I let some bullshit trump the larger picture.

I paddled out into uncomfortably large surf. The report put the swell at 5-7 feet but it was clean and deep (high tide) so it felt even larger. All of my close friends were on the beach as were my wife and daughter. We were all eating dinner when I decided to "go take a few."

Earlier, some kid in a pink ocean kayak tried paddling directly into the break. Within 2 minutes, he was separated from the kayak and getting sucked out by a strong rip current. On the shore, no one seemed to notice.

I was talking to a friend about nothing... he was there, talking about real estate, and I just started walking away, following the kid's head as it was pulled out deeper with the current. He was probably 20 yards out, past the main shorebreak, but getting rolled by the constant white water from the larger waves breaking further out. I watched, feeling pretty helpless, as I walked down the beach closer to where he was.

He started to flail his arms and panic.

Jesus Fucking Christ, I thought.

I bumped into a hot blond in a pink bikini taking pictures of the whole thing with a fancy camera. I couldn't take my eyes off of that head. I was just walking completely transfixed and terrified. I couldn't swim out there and get him, even though I surf, I'm just not the strongest swimmer. I mean I can swim well, but I didn't have a board, or any flotation device... it would have been a questionable procedure.

There were surfers out to the right. That's where the "takeoff" is. The wave rolls in and peels to the left (surfers right) and basically ends close to the where the rip current was pulling. So it was maddening to watch 3 or 4 surfers pull off of waves not 20 feet from the kid and not even notice him there.

Thank goodness for the fat longboarder.

Honestly, I had never seen this dude before. He was fat like a dumptruck and on a huge yellow and pink longboard. The thing must have been over 10 feet long, wide, and thick. The first thing he did after splashing off the wave, was to go over to the kid and let him grab onto his board. Then the two of them proceeded to kick together out of the rip and towards the shore. They got completely pummeled by the shorebreak... but made it to dry sand.

The kayak kid just bent over at his knees and heaved for about 30 seconds. The fat longboarder walked right by me. He had a face, wide, dark, and deeply carved, that had seen a lot of sun.

He came from the ocean and he saved the guy's life.

There was no applause. No one slapped him on the back. No one had even noticed. And I was lost in a state of bewilderment. I couldn't believe that someone could just die like that, so easily, on a perfect summer night, on a beach full of people eating grilled chicken and drinking white wine.

But man, people die all the time. And why should we deny it?

I couldn't stop talking about it for the rest of the evening.

"Did you see the dude on the pink kayak?" I'd say.

No one had.

So I had this all on my mind when I took that same rip current out to the lineup. I paddled right over the spot where that kid had flailed. The surf was big for me and my heart was beating faster than it really needed to.

Just then I heard a familiar voice. "Hey DT!" It was a relatively new friend of mine and he was paddling up next to me. "You look like you saw a ghost, man. What's up?"

"It's huge out here. I'm just a bit out of my league." I explained.

"Ah, you're fine. Enjoy this. It's not going to be here much longer." And off he paddled, the picture of insouciance.

As he said this, someone in the lineup yelled "Outside!" and the horizon seemed to lift. A huge set was feathering out there and was sure to break before it reached us. It did, heavily and with a rumble that gave the water some extra texture. With a deafening hiss, the white water rushed to where I straddled my board.

Now I have a longboard. It's thick and buoyant. When a large wave breaks over me, I have to "turtle roll" which means I paddled towards the white water, take a deep breath, and then grasp both rails of my board, and roll over with it into the wave, fin side of the board facing the sky.

Then, with my legs, I kick towards the wave for all I'm worth.

I rolled through that first wave and looked around. Heads were popping up here and there, many separated from their boards, and a foam was sizzling on the surface. Oddly, and I remember this exactly, it smelled of fresh laundry.

The second wall of white water rolled toward me with the same force and speed as the first and I "turtled" under it as well. Man, my heart was thumping. I saw my friend paddling further outside, i.e., away from the shore, towards the open ocean horizon. The third wave just swallowed him and I was forced to roll again.

After that huge set, a calm descended onto the scene.

In the setting sun, most surfers looked kind of yellow. Due to all the white water, the surface of the sea was soft and foamy and the rising air bubbles touching the face of the water made a cool "shhhhhhh" sound. In this peaceful moment, I began to paddle for the next wave.

After the last set, the wave didn't seem like much. But it was my perspective playing games with me. It was large enough. I paddled and the wave picked me up easily. I slid down the drop and just saw it stretch out ahead to my right. A slowly building wall of light green water, and white foam.

I didn't "work it" by tearing up and down it like a maniac. I managed a couple of turns up and down the face of the wave but quickly realized I needed more speed if I was to continue along the line without getting "closed out" on. So I stepped up on my board, gained speed, and tore down the line.

The wave changed character as I moved closer to shore. What really happened, is that I had reached the rip, and so the water rushing out to the horizon from the shore met the wall of water that I was on, which was racing towards the shore. At this point, I got completely "destructed" as the wave picked right up and threw me down, hard.

Under the water, which was now, quite dark and gloomy, I searched for light to find the "top." It seemed like forever under there, always does, and I wondered if anyone was watching my drama unfold from the shore, as I had watched the pink kayak guy. But you know, it wasn't all that dramatic afterall, I quickly surfaced, in the rip of course, and was lucky enough to jump onto my board just before another avalanche of white water pushed me to shore.

That one wave was my entire session.

I pulled myself out of the water (which, given the circumstances of the shorebreak and the rip, was quite difficult) slid my board under my arm, and walked over to Judy.

"You see that?" I said, all excited.

"No. What?" She was brushing some sand off our daughter's butt.

"That wave I caught! It was massive! My best ride ever!"

"No, sorry... it's hard to watch all the time. By the way, Frank's birthday is gonna be this Saturday. Jill just told me."

And I thought then about that kid on the pink kayak again. And about perspective. And the difference between being out in the rip, in the waves, and standing on the shore. And the horizon, and how even it changes and is inconstant.

And just writing this now, I think about my best friend, who died almost 9 years ago, suddenly, and I wish that he could've been there tonight, standing on the shore with his kid and Judy, not watching me catch the ride of my life.

And I figured that most of the time I'm a selfish fuck, but every now and then, you catch a glimpse of light. And how important it is to remember what the light looks like when things go dark so that you know how to find your way back up to the "top."

Fuck Tupperware

Seriously, I just spent 10 minutes trying to find a lid to match a bowl. And the whole time, as I knelt on the floor wading through our Tupperware collection (which has now been infiltrated by Gladware and shit like that), the sink was running.

But I couldn't tear myself away to turn it off.

I had to find the lid. Had to.

In the end, I didn't find the lid.

Instead, I had to use a piece of Tupperware that was really far too large for my needs and has now stressed out the refrigerator situation.

I hate the shit, and tomorrow, purely out of revenge, I plan on selling short 100,000 shares of the company.

UPDATE: Had I sold that 100,000 shares, I would have made $77,000. Ah well...

Just Bad...

Not so much my trading (although I'm down a little today while the RO rips it...) but my neighbor clear-cutting the half acre behind my house.



The local government is corrupt, I'm sure of it... they have all sorts of "review boards" and shit that are not supposed to let this stuff happen. After all, if people want to live in suburbia with an above ground pool 20 feet from their house, they can do that... just about everywhere. It's these last spots that have a somewhat rural nature that should really be preserved.

I feel very dark today after I had a great start to the day at the beach.

The sound of chainsaws 30 feet from my office is getting a little old, so I'm getting out of here. I'll have an RO post up later this evening...

I will be putting all my spare energy going forward into selling my house. It's been a long time coming.

A Short Day, Goodbye June

I made a few trades right off the bat this morning, took my customary small monies from the stock market, and invested the gained confidence right back into my "trading confidence" account.

The account is rapidly growing in interest.

I will detail said growth in an upcoming June review post.

For now, I will take my daughter down to the bay beach, stand her up on my surfboard and push it around, all the while making swishy noises with my mouth.

We have beautiful weather here and she's not getting any younger.

Poundcake

I don't like to fly, but a couple of weeks ago, I had no choice but to fly.

It's mostly a control thing. I like to feel as if I'm in control, and when I have to sit, in one place, for hours, I am being controlled by the situation and not vice versa.

Incidentally,, I think it's why I took to the occupation of trading. Yes, it's stressful to not make money, or worse, to lose money, but at least (in theory) I'm in control. I'm losing money because of decisions that only I can make. I find a stock to trade, I click "buy," I click "sell," and I decide what quantity. There's really nothing outside of my control.

Well, that's not entirely true. There's Esiggy. It "loses data" and goes down all the time, and that's why they suck. I hate Esiggy because I have no control over Esiggy.

And, let's face it, their customer service is the worst.

Anyway, back to flying. I'm here at LaGuardia, sitting in a pretty empty terminal with time to kill and anxiety to burn. I haven't flown in nearly 5 years. There are trees in large white square pots lining the terminal with it's short blue rugs and pale gray walls. The seats are also pale gray and mostly stained. There is a trapped bird, a House Sparrow of course, hopping on the blue rug avoiding the chrome garbage bins.

What must that bird be thinking?

Anyway, shit... I have time and I digress. Judy is next to me, in her stained gray chair, reading The Yoga Journal and lightly bouncing her foot.

She loves to fly. Absolutely loves it.

Meanwhile, I'm here scribbling nervously into a small pad with large earphones on my head glancing up now and then to see who is walking down the terminal. I'd say that conservatively, 90% of the people are fat. It's disgusting. Worse, it's 90 degrees and humid and they're all wearing jean shorts and t-shirts.

Anyway, let me get back to the beginning... you know what my sister-in-law calls all the fat pasty people (women, specifically) of America? "POUNDCAKE." As in, "check out that poundcake in the jean shorts eating that donut."


-"poundcake #1327"

But you know, Judy got her "feet done" for the wedding we're going to and she told me about how the salon was like a factory, with all these women getting something "done" while reading magazines like Allure, wide-eyed, trying to find ways to improve the way they look.

She said there was a 5-year old girl in there. Made me think about our 3.5 year old. Made me think about her trying to fit into someone else's idea about "how you should look" and it got me depressed and even a little angry.

I thought, well, better to just be happy with who you are, and with your body image. The beauty factory is just as scary as the "poundcake," but in a different way.

To be continued... probably after my exam.

Nightmares, Air Supply And Cat Pee, Oh My!

I made a point on my first trade of the day, and on my second trade of the day, I lost a point.

That was enough to give me pause.

I had just come back from surfing, and hadn't done much research or eaten breakfast. So I stared at the screens for a moment and just took a big breath. Let me give you a little background.

My alarm went off at 4:30, so I could pick up my friend and be in the water by 5:30. I was having this wild dream. I live not far from some water, and across from that water is an island. There are no bridges to this island, but in my dream, there were bridges, long rope bridges like the kind you see over gorges, and I was walking across one when a huge set of waves started rolling towards me. There was no way off the bridge since I was right in the middle, so I just wrapped myself up in some of the rope and hung on. The wave was about to hit me when I woke up. Anyway, I got my shit together and drove to pick up my friend.

A little while later, we were surfing. The sun had just risen and I was enjoying nice big breaths of the clean ocean air. Everything was perfect. But then, since the surf was on the small side, I said to my friend something like, "wow, we're out here making waves out of nothing at all." Not a second later, the Air Supply song "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All" entered my head and wouldn't leave. I mean, it had a real grip. I was trying to think of any other song, because it was ruining my beautiful morning.

That's when Pat Fucking Benatar and "Love Is A Battlefield" popped in.

At this point, I was rather beside myself. I mean, if you read this blog you know how I am about music. But then, in order to rid myself of Air Supply and Pat Benatar, I started thinking, "what could be the exact opposite of that shit?" And that's when I got the "America, Fuck Yeah!" song in my head from the South Park movie. That was in there for awhile, but eventually it disappeared and I was able to surf in peace. In fact, I had a great session.

I drove home in a big rush and was greeted at the back door by my daughter. "Daddy," she said, "Docky peed not in his box." In other words, our fucking cat, the same fucking cat that terrorized us last summer by making our house smell like a goddamn urinal, is at it again.

I stepped in, got a good whiff of that sour smell, and asked Judy, "Where's the cat?"

She said, "He knows he did something wrong. He's under the bed."

She told me that because she figured that because "he knew" he did something wrong that that was somehow punishment in itself.

Not so.

I ran upstairs (with my daughter following fast on my footsteps) and lifted the bed skirt. The cat let out a low growl and shimmied back a couple of inches, just out of my reach.

What happened next is really surprising, even to me, but it speaks to what your body can accomplish when enough adrenaline is flowing through it.

With one arm, I lifted the bed (it's low to the ground and not easy to fit under) and with the other, I made a grab for the cat's head. I got the scruff behind his neck and dragged him out. What he did to my arm is somewhat like this... it was painful. I threatened him in some crazy way (I told him I'd "ruin his face") and threw him in the bathroom.

I looked at the clock. It was 9:23.

Now, you must be wondering, why the fuck is he telling me this shit? It's simply because I wanted to lend some insight into what had already happened in my crazy head BEFORE 9:35 when I made, and then lost, a point in the same stock, on two successive trades.

In short, I was scared. Anything could have happened next.

Instead, all the excitement was behind me, and things settled down.

I made a nice trade in CMI, and scratched in everything else.



I'll take it.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $251
Best, CMI, $301
Worst, XCO, -$51

4400 shares traded.
6 stocks traded, 3 winners, 3 losers.

NOTE: That Air Supply video is perhaps the best music video ever... my question to you is, were they being ironic?

A Relaxing Morning

This one kills me... I just like the way the kid sidles up to the horsies... sizes them up and then just goes for it.


Horse Takes Kid for a Ride - Watch more free videos

Anyway, I've had a sweet morning. I was in the water at 5:30 catching clean 2 foot waves that were breaking outside and moving all the way to shore. I was on 6 or 7 for the entire move. Great way to wake up.

I rushed home with my hair still wet and sand behind my ears, sat down at 9:25 and made a quick point on my first trade in CF. Great. Problem was that my next trade, also in CF, I lost a point. Still, I kept my cool and made a few decent trades to be up my customary $200. We'll see if anything develops for the afternoon.

As for now, I'm heading off to the local dump. A friend let me borrow his truck and I have it loaded with branches. Remains of the storm that ripped through here the other day. Also, I cleared out all my woodpiles, since they're good tick habitat. Naturally, I refuse to spray pesticides, so the only thing I can really do is reduce the habitat around here... fuck ticks.

STARI or Lyme

We've had a long day here as our daughter received a diagnosis of Lyme disease. The problem is, I know for a fact that she wasn't bitten by a deer tick, but by a Lone Star Tick. Lone Star Ticks don't carry Lyme disease.

I tell you, since becoming a parent I have really begun to strongly question the competency of most medical professionals I've come across. To say that they are diagnosing to prevent litigation most of the time wouldn't be going too far...

Anyway, this has led to a very slow trading day for me. I missed some amazing trades in the morning... I mean, just missed. Perhaps I will be able to detail this in a daily post later tonight, but I rather doubt it, as I have plans immediately after the close.

Die, LEH die!!!