Day 375
Hamster gets stuck under futon.
Human gets rid of futon.
Hamster gets stuck under bed.
Human gets rid of bed.
Human goes to Chicago.
Hamster goes to Chicago.
Cat goes to Chicago.
Human gets new futon.
Human gets new bed.
Hamster gets new bedding.
Cat looks in mirror.
Cat hides under bed.

Here we go.

Current standings
1) Human
2) Hamster
3) Cat

With who I was getting a ride from.

I say Morocco, he says surprising. It’s like a reflex.

“Break ground, buckle down / It's time…”
Time runs out.
“…Let's move from this underground / Shed some of this blacklight to surrounding towns…”
Go forth and shine.
“…How much responsibility do you bear / For the ill…”
Across state lines.
“…Line up, state your name, state your claims, claim your stakes…”
Get while the giving’s good.
“…Look ahead now / Oh, let the countdown usher / The philanthropic mimes…”
Nothing left to say.
“…And scrape the paint that hides the crimes / Of a silent kind…”
Let everything go.
“…Is the position that you hold one that could parallel / A synergistically greater plan? / Or would it force us all to be packed…”
The hourglass empties.
“…In a sloping, quickly given golden sand…”

“I want to know how Shakespeare in the Park's production of Hamlet is.”
I want to see it instead of packing and waiting for craigslist buyers and whining about how my final hours in STL are being spent packing and waiting for craigslist buyers instead of seeing it.

I never meta-reference I didn’t like.

When they ask for non-related references, I sometimes put Aunt L[].
I hope you just put L[].

Whoever designed the layout for yesterday’s NYT front cover should be shot.

What kind of answer are craigslist buyers looking for when they ask “Is the desk available?” Not just fraudspam- these are real people who seem to be expecting a certain reply, and I’m running out of guesses. Yes? Yes + Location? Yes + repeating contact information? No?

Economy of words.

'Is the desk available, because I don’t want it.' I mean, really, who does that? Why not, 'What’s a good time for me to not pick it up?', or 'How much won’t I be paying to not take it?'.

“I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment's gone…”

Don’t look back. The only visible part of the past lost to the present will be messes needing cleaning, and those get swept away regardless of what is done.

“…Everything is dust in the wind…”

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…”

Lost was the exploration of fantastic characters and plot. Halfway throught the pilot episode I was captivated by the correspondence of the questions “wherefore the polar bear?” and “whence the gun?”, and the pacing of the reveal of answers with the posing of new questions was remarkable, given the medium.

The weakest moments were explorations of plotless aspects of characters, or of characterless moments of plots. And this narrative flaw unfortunately was highlighted in the final season’s gimmick. Perhaps being too ambitious, or perhaps the original concept being unworkable led to massive late rewriting, but for whatever reason, the character/plot narratives got increasingly divorced, with neither half satisfying. And there are always quibbles of some unresolved mystery.

It is unfortunate for what did so incredibly well to have periods of detriment, especially in its final year, but it nevertheless ends with satisfying nostalgia. The 6 years between Fall 2004 until now have been an adventure; it’s time to leave the island.

“…Once was lost, but now I’m found / I was blind, but now I see…”

Read “Lost Books of the Odyssey” a narrative deconstruction of the Odyssey, Odysseus, Troy, and Homer. Each of the microshort stories pulls out a strand of epic, with which to weave a clever alternative within the most basic framework of the classics. The subtleties of this cleverness, required of any proper retelling of the tales of Odysseus and of Homer, tingle the spine with appreciation: even without the dactylic meter, this wonder is what the Muse infused into the Odyssey.

Uploading photos is a sure sign of procrastinating packing.

Everything must go.

“The time has come to say fair's fair / To pay the rent now, to pay our share…”

A piece into place: even with so much of an unknown journey to be embarked upon, one destination is known.

A place, and peace: one fewer reason to be sleepless.

“…How can we dance when our earth is turning / How do we sleep while our beds are burning…”

“Solicitiing and gambling are prohibited on CTA vehicles.”

Sending out sublet inquiries, and calculating odds for responses.

“Hot summer streets and the pavements are burning / I sit around / Trying…”

One tries to find what one doesn’t have, but one can’t know something until one has that experience; for experience is the greatest teacher, and the greatest ignorance is regarding oneself; and ignorance begets cruelty.

It’s trying, sometimes.

“…It's a cruel, cruel summer / Leaving…”

Daring to share, I was
Saddened because
My ears hear echoes of a buzz
You don’t, one which he does.

I don’t like writing. I like thinking, he thought and wrote.

Read “Overqualified” which is, appropriately enough, both more and less clever than I was hoping. It is half satire, half narrative of unique medium; unfortunately, the interplay between the halves des not extend past the initial amazement. Unhypocritically, I’ll take it.

A comic about how a fake wikipage about a word about the creation of fake words from improper usage satires the creation of wikipages from lack of notability. Then a real wikipage is created because it's notable, but only for having a fake wikipage in the comic satirizing non-notable pages. Then, the deletion of the real wikipage becomes notable because of the fact that it has been deleted, so the result is a wikipage that lacks encyclopedic content: a redirect which fails to explain the term, and a link to a discussion on the proper usage of a redirect!

Oh my God everyone what are you doing.

Semifortnightly.

“It’s been one week since you looked at me…”

Stretchy in the library with a mandolin.

All the classic warning signs: punching a street sign, massive wandering through NYC, asking me for advice.

Well it's just how I struggle with being seen, you know. How we feel and worry about others judging us, but people really don't. I don't know. It wrapped around on itself and got a little lost, so I can't much explain it.
Oh poor little idea. Ideas need shepherds. I mean, please tell me you can see the little idea shepherd tending to its flock?
They live in the pillow from my living room at Rosebury.

Dreams are meant to be silent, forgotten, or realized- not explained.

A decent setup and a Queensland Chief Justice away from making an original “Owed on a Grecian Earn” joke.

le sigh.
sighicus.

Chaos is the craziness between one breath and the next.

Doesn’t work in Italian, though: sighco.

“You’ll probably move right through / Me on my way…”

A dark lit place: the empty shadows of spines and faces, down the silent entomed aisles. The shroud of a false form is removed, and pinned to an empty wall. Memories are cleared out, what’s forgotten swept away, and the rest is peace. For Orpheus knew it a mistake to look back, but at least then he will have seen what will be lost as he exits the underworld. And then it’s over.

“…I’m not paralyzed…”

I just worked here.

All natural cola is a cross between flat Coke and flavored carbonated water, with the best qualities of each.

I can't remember the last time I was so enrapt by a book that I couldn't wait for my legs to stop moving before reading, until I’m interrupted by P[]'s voice on my walk home, asking if it's Latin; I instinctively apologize that it isn't (even though he's clearly kidding with that K[]-tone where you have to force your mind to accept the possibility that he's not serious) and show him the cover, and he nods and says that I'll like his poems.

The monster loves his labyrinth.

I'm afraid to quote, because I have to pick one, and then what if I pick one that you don't like, and you don't understand why I like it. (But, you do understand. Because you like things too.) The other option is to pick one for me instead of for you, but that's like asking, what's your favorite 1% of this painting- and could you rush your decision before seeing the entirety?

“I see no changes…”

A whirlwind afternoon, forgetting the morning.
New conversations in the final hours at the gates of the castle, recounting rediscovered explorations.
The sudden sodden rain, danced through a world short an umbrella.
Identity, so desperately trying to be reestablished, before the ultimatum given.
The introduction or closure good host Present so wants to give between guests Past and Future.

“…But things change, and that’s the way it is…”

Metamorphoses

“…Things’ll never be the same, that’s just the way it is…”

Date Night is incredibly funny when the person with who one is seeing it, when responding to her roommate asking where she is going, inadvertently conflates the name of the movie as “Hot Date”.

"I just realized I was thinking of Hot Tub Time Machine."