“A classic is a book that one cannot read for the first time.”

The swift-footed route ends in Homerathon; but that’s just the first book of An Iliad.

Feeling warm, inside.

Happiness is a multisensory expression.

“...Just dance, gonna be okay...”

News Feed : “on Washington Post Social Media” :: Fortune Cookies : “in bed”

The extension fairy left a quarter under my pillow.  (Q1)

The gyroscopic cycle between culture and counter will ultimately, like washing machine and dryer, end in nihilism.  Not all breaks are clean.

Wordplay is my trashtalk.

Ides of March suffers from telling a famillar story oversimply.  While unfamiliar with the Howard Dean-based source “Farragut North”, the Shakespearean parallels are intriguing enough, for their divergences.  Brutus does not suffer any nobility in betraying Caesar; Cassius no conspirator; Antony is stabbed not spared.  Instead of tragic collapse, Rome shuffles onward.  Like perhaps Gosford Park, the film will be nominated and forgotten within a year.

Racing for cures, matching fundraising, money culled from the taxed and extorted in order to fund efforts to provide further medical benefits to a hypochondriacally overinsured plutocratic elite, of a society which chooses to pour out wealth, ironically exhausting their gold in an attempt to transmute lead into it, all in order to chase the alchemy of immortality.  For the ultimate irony is that this society is so incompetent at economic evaluation that it fails at recognizing that it already has found a cure for cancer.  Yet instead of stopping smoking, people would rather opt to pay pounds of a foot-stompingly presumably cure rather than a fraction of known prevention.  Even when most sufferers will not even benefit from their suffering; they will have to repurchase a presumably discovered cure should it even be discovered.  Like the Northwest Passage, future historians will laugh at our folly.

And yet, maybe I am wrong.

You will be told if and when you are awkward; until then, put away your prism.

Okay.  I’m going to make a pact with you right now.  We both need to change our voicemails to not the automated one.  Because I’ve been meaning to do it forever, and I imagine you have been too.  And I just remembered, hearing yours, that it’s something I need to do.  So in the case that that’s your situation also, remember to change your voicemail. 

I’m going to miss not having this in my pocket. 

Why in English does it matter to distinguish between whether you’re coming or leaving.  You know?  There are languages that don’t do that.  Ciao, I think- oh maybe you just say that when you’re leaving.  Aloha you say both ways, shalom you say, you know, in greeting and in leaving.  Why, in English, is it so important whether you’re beginning a conversation or ending one?  Um.  Which leads me to wonder, since we both are good writers but can’t really, like, believe that in ourselves or the world, and we’re both good editors, which we kind of know- why don’t we ever write a book, together.  Just an idea.  Um.  We also have similar interests.  Um.  Anyway.  I am glad you didn’t pick up, because it means you’re asleep and I know you needed to sleep.  So I hope you are sleeping well and I will talk to you later.  Bye.

Prism is wrong, I think. More like, awkward-co​lored cellophane​.

Happy makeup palindrome day because we missed the real one on 11/02/2011.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeehw

If I cared about twitter, I’d be using #notanonionarticle.

The hashtag is the idea that you could put the title at the end of the story.

“A ship is safe in its harbor, but that's not what ships are for."

Foulweather friends, guidance.

In one year, too late, I fear the country unravels rather than elegantly the Gordian knot.

Disappointed in Reuters.  For any quotation at all from Netanyahu in response would have been delicious.

Don’t make too much light of it.  (Can’t stand the blinding sight.)

The plural of triceratops is hexaceratops.

No iPad Touching.

Emotional extortion: skip the kneecap, go straight for the guilt and force it back until there's a crack.

A corresponding trope for archery away from being able to reimagine Robin Hood into current times.

Tie Tuesdays.

"Cool, where do you go?  There's a place on Waukeegan that's good."
I've just gathered mine from all over.  A couple leftovers my father didn't want, that kind of thing.
<mutual confusion>
We're not talking about the same thing, are we.
"Even watching you put on a tie, I assumed you were talking about Thai food."

Burning bright in dark places.  Next year will be better, if not worse.

Singled in the SI! And having been a while since undeservedly overlookeds:

"301 Dalmatians": What's black and white, and red all over.
"Titanic and Norah's Infinite Playlist": And the band played on.
"Cloverfield of Dreams": If you build it, he will come destroy the New York Yankees.
"Peter Pan's Labyrinth": How the Boys got Lost.
"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Closer": Four self-destructive lovers blame all of their problems on 9/11.
"Thank You for Smoking Kong": The biggest lie ever told.
"Pink Floyd--The Wall-E": A cute robot breaks down humanity's drug-induced hallucinations.

How much of Dad yelling at the cable customer support do you think is because he thinks the phone rep is responsible, and how much do you think is because it makes Dad feel better to yell?
 
Beaten to the punch.

“Some will win, some will lose...”

There are 162 games in a baseball season. 5 in a division championship, 7 for the league. 9 innings in a game, 3 outs in an inning.   Among all of which the ultimate outcome is weighted.

“...It goes on and on and on and on...”

Resilience is a virtue, that ability to hold on until fortunes, as quickly as they might have succumbed, are righted.

“...People / Living just to find emotion / Hiding somewhere in the night...”

Game 7, 7:05p.
Go Cards.

“...Don't stop believing...”

Xenophobes of the world, unite.  You have nothing to lose but your hackles.

“She has poor taste in men.”
But a healthy appetite.

There's a reason the Law of Attraction isn't the Law of Revulsion.  What six things can one do without.

“Knock, knock...”

Call maintenance, hold the line, roger the SOS, round up the posse, coordinate assistance, return to home field, be a friendly face, take alternate routes, support a partner, wellwish the unknown birthday girl.

When locked in, open your own door.

“...I feel like I’m knocking on heaven’s door...”

Slight gnocchi incident aside, a successful exploration into variations on the host/guest narrative.  Inside and outside, a little warmer.

Our problem is not where, but when.

Pot calling the kettle, kettle not calling back.

Basic users only have read-only access. However, a basic user can edit their status to superuser, and then because they are a superuser, they can save that edit.

There’s more than one way to follow a moral compass.

Ethical dilemmas are much easier later in the week.

Chicago’s subfreezing temperatures are an evolutionary adaptation for the city to cope with dreary chilly windy rain. Snow provides a relief from the wet that umbrellas can’t.

Milo : Clodius :: Tea Party : Occupy Wall Street ::: German WWI generals : French WWI generals :: Republican Party : Democratic Party

["SKETCH"]

I couldn’t say what his face looked like, the face which my peripheral vision identified he had; but my focus was towards his hands, at what they grasped, and then my brisk pace carried me past my instinctively brusque “no”, and I don’t look back. I didn’t look back in daylight hours prior, similarly ignoring the just-few-dollars asker or the for-a-slice-of-pizza pleader; before it was 9:45pm, much too early to be late, too late to be early, a Monday night on an Uptown block dimmed by streetlamps, neither alone nor accompanied. Drugs, I rationalized half a block away, half a block from the redline station, it had to be drugs; much much later- half an hour so, 4 redline stops so, within my own apartment so, writing down my reflections so- I added a 5% chance of prostitution.

My microsecond glance registered in his hands, in black binding, on white paper, lines on a dirty white pages, multiple angles of charcoal overlapping one another, each in a corner, shadowy figures which only resembled chaos. Whatever other intention they might have couldn’t be guessed without breaking stride; a fraction of a second was barely long enough to determine that the shapes were unfamiliar, leaving no time to consider their bearer, who with retrospect I assume had hair, wore clothes, had a race, had arms: but the only thing I could say for certain was that he had a voice and a vocabulary of at least 6 words.

“You wanna buy some art tonight?”

“How do cities understand...”

On the rooftop park 3 stories up Lake Point Tower, I sit at the dawn of dark ages, on earth in air along water.  In the Tribune Tower, in the Poetry Foundation I wander and read.

“...We drink our wine and wonder why we’re really here...”

A lot has changed in this hiatus. A lot hasn’t.

“...What’s the point of even asking...”

AIM, where I had dwelt so long is gone, long gone. For now, I use a blog crossposted to facebook. I do not presume an audience. I do not know what medium I am in; I do not know where I should be. Whatever aim I had when I started writing my away messages is gone, long gone.

“...We take the good and bad and make the best of it...”

Wherever I am, let me write: for that is how I grow.

“...All these buildings and mountains / Slowly they arise...”

My own Chicago Landmark Project: 12 Short Stays in 12 Chicago Locations


Jun 1: Lincoln Park 1BR, 2015 Clifton Ave, futon
Jun 2: North Central 2BR, 4224 Leavitt St, couch
Jun 3: Hyde Park 5BR, 5487 Hyde Park Blvd, board
Jun 4: Lakeview studio, 560 Diversey Pkwy, bed
Jun 5: Lincoln Park 1BR, 531 Deming Pl, couch
Jun 6: Avondale 4BR, 3754 School St, futon
Jun 7: Ravenswood 2BR, 1601 Berteau Ave, bed
Jun 8: Edgewater 1BR, 6029 Winthrop Ave, bed
Jun 9: Rogers Park 2BR, 7609 Eastlake Terr, air mattress
Jun 10: Lakeview 2BR, 1410 Henderson St, futon
Jun 11: Albany Park 2BR, 4240 Whipple St, couch
Jun 12: Ravenswood 2BR, 2736 Leland Ave, couch

“There ain’t gonna be no more begging and pleading…”

Praying it holds up better than the stitching on pants’ knee.
“…Falling in love is so hard on the knees…”

“There’s no way I’m turning back…”

Too much light is blinding.

“…Sticks and stones may break my bones / But whips and chains excite me…”

The umbrella costs the same regardless the weather.

“Murder for Two” plays with negative space, an accompaniment piece.

Sorry for waking you up, but I need someone to reassure me I don’t have Lyme Disease.
I get that all the time. It’s in your head.

Okcupid has too many boxes which I don’t fit into.

Will work for futon, or so I’ve heard.

Like herding cats.

Frustrd.


Don’t feel frustrd. Makes me concerned that you’re becoming a condiment.

Working from home, except not.

“Don’t go chasing waterfalls…”

Everything coming down.
Everyone comes down.

“…I think you're moving too fast…”

“Jump around / Jump around…”

The fledging unhopping on the street, thrust from nest too soon, vulnerable, lifted from below, and patiently aided to flutter off to the cobblestone side.

A butterfly flaps its wings and in STL people are happy.

For the first time in my life, I was embarrassed to be associated by my religion, to the point of wishing disassociation, lest I be labeled as I wasn’t. But rather than a futile gesture of passive non-association that relegates the extremes to speak for the entirety, let me speak out with satire.

An SI win, and thereby I am funnier than a double-Pulitzer prize winning humor columnist.

Spiral staircases, 4 bedrooms, wet bar, in-unit laundry, balcony porch:
Too big to fail.

“Can you help me unravel my latest mistake / I don’t love him / Winter just wasn’t my season…”

F:
+Rooftop porch
-El Proximity

“…We walk through the doors, so accusing their eyes / Like they have any right at all…”

M:
+Fireplace
-Character

“…Here in town you can tell he's been down for a while / But, my God, it's so beautiful…”

K:
+Lofty ambitions
-Leaky ceiling

“…'Cause you can't jump the track…”

I think I’m in love.

“…Breathe…”

We heard you like pushing shopping carts, so we put a shopping cart in your shopping cart, so you can push a shopping cart while you push your shopping cart down Barry.

You know what’s funny?
Cellos.
True. You know what else’s funny?
Reading about cellos? Sorry. What is it?
Gone now.

Free Cello, worth every penny.

“Oh you know how it is, wake up feeling…”

Sorry for not being here: rapture.

“…All you want to do is nothing on a day like today / But if you do that you'll be missing the world…”

It’s over now; I’ll show up soon.

“…Get up, get out, and get gone…”

The truest rejections are self-imposed.

Set off by commas.

“It's easy to compliment people who are similar, but difficult to complement them.”

One night I might know why
Into your eye
I stared and spread bare arms to fly
Away, saying goodbye.

Throwing sharp things at walls.

“I only called you back because you said I wouldn’t.”
Oh, I said that so that you’d call back.
“I hate you.”
I know. It’s great, this hate-love relationship.

130 plays in 2 days.

“Up, up, up, doom and gloom clouds gathering…”

The weather may be dismal and the space not ideal, but with enough cool people there’s still too much light.

“…I've got pots and pans all scattered 'round the bedroom…”

What’s the wurst that could happen.

Bridesmaids features the same flaw in protagonist and antagonist: the need for external control, with the inability to control internally.  The matrimonial setting is appropriate for the discovery that one cannot address one’s own flaw by oneself.

I paint the way I write: I draw a line on the page and it looks like something to me.

Imagination is third person present, second person past, or first person future.

If I got a tattoo it would be a snail, because I carry my home on my back. And I would get it on my back. And if anyone called it a tramp stamp I'd punch them in the face.
-Dorothy Parker

The year’s first night of summer weather, the year’s first Cardinals/Cubs game, and my first time in Wrigley Field, all celebrated with a 6-4 victory.

“Did they win?”
For some values of they.

Have you ever been trying to text a made up Greek word but your phone autocorrects it to sphygmomanometer?
Right when you called I was typing Jordan but got Korean and really wanted someone to share it with.

Can’t make this stuff up.

Thor’s script lacks enough dialogue to go around the 3 actors in the astrophysics plotline, but in turn there’s really only enough script for 2 of the superheroic, mythological, and scientific plotlines.  Perhaps appriopriate that it is my first 3D.

There is a mild sandwich crisis going on at coffeehouse: not enough counterspace for all of Jeff’s sandwiches.
“Who is Jeff and it seems like he knows how to eat!”
Jeff is a person who ordered a bunch of sandwiches at this coffeehouse but didn’t pick them up. He may not exist. Or he may represent our subconscious need for a spiritual guide figure. I expect a future conflict from prophets who reveal his true name is Geoff.

New Wave philosophy.

“All wars are justified, in the end. because the winner says so.”
That's only for wars that have winners, though.

What’s the point of arguing.

“You and I both know nothing destroys the credibility of an ostensibly intelligent argument than unintelligent writing.”
That, and piranhas. Piranhas just devour credibility.

Messing with a friend and with friends without Messing.

Got reverse burgled: someone came to my apartment and locked everything up.

A happy medium: neither over nor underdone.

“Murder on the Orient Express” offers catharsis through fiction for the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Crime of Agatha Christie’s Century.

A different century, a different crime: I had drafted a narrative of an airplane passenger found dead, stabbed by a boxcutter, within a cabin of suspects as diverse as America: people with nothing in common except that they lived through 9/11.

To kill Osama bin Laden in fiction is the height of presumption; the explanation, “well, Agatha Christie did it” is no better. But now I have a third reason to rewrite.

Apparently Chicago has an improv festival this weekend.  I think they made it up as they went along.

Anyone overly interested in watching the wedding, I suspect to have converted to Briticism simply to observe the 3-day weekend.

“Turtles seem to have two impulses only: 1) Eat and 2) Escape. This second urge is fierce; wherever they are placed somewhere, they instantly look for a way to leave that place and get somewhere else. That is what they do. That is pretty much all they do.”

The math works out.

“She backs away, turns around for a moment to consider the challenge: "Lessee, regroup. Okay, what are our assets? We are tough. We are determined. We are indestructible. A hypotenuse is always longer than the other two sides. Okay, we're going in."”

Two missionaries are captured by a savage tribe, and brought before the chieftess…

As much because it requires an extremely specific humor familiarity, as because it is tasteless, I’ve been sitting on a punchline without a suitable audience to share with. But after months of waiting until a decent opportunity, let patience bring validation.

“Very good. You brought it home. Yes, funny.”

So ready for the National Let's Celebrate Everything with Donuts Week to end.

Like a whirlwind through STL, and back, too soon.

The next funniest thing after Monty Python is an attempt at describing the killer bunny to a cakemaker.

Talk Like Someone Talking Like Shakespeare Day.

“You better talk in iambs all the time;
To talk in prose is copping out a bit.
I'm not suggesting ev'ry sentence rhyme,
Just get into the rhythm of that shit!
To say "forsooth" and "thee" and "thou" and "thine"
Takes little effort (where's the fun in that?)
This feast has so much more on which to dine!
So gorge yourself until your belly's fat.
But then, I might be taking this too far...
Most people can't distinguish verse from prose.
We'd wind up lonely losers in some bar
The laughingstock of groups of douche-y bros.
Besides, this sonnet's taking too much work;
I'm signing off before I go berserk.”

Spontaneous generations.

It’s your day, and you want me there. I’m so there.

Exodus.

“Open up your throat…”

With about 5 minutes of typing and backspacing behind it.

“…And let all of that time go…”

On all other nights I have found enjoyment in Seders amongst kin and kith.
Tonight, something different.

Knock on wood.

“If I were a professor, I would explain every concept with an analogy to professional hockey. I'd write a book called "Understanding Criminal Law in America Using a Canadian Sport".”
If I were a hockey coach, I would train my players by expounding on analogous case law.

The best defense is to not skate on thin ice.

First round, the communicable disease influenza.
Second round, prohibition hung out to dry.
Third, upotian urban planning as a replica of Midwestern sociability.
And the electricity-smelling platypus wins in the final.

Comfort station, indeed.

Nothing is certain but dirty laundry and taxes.

“Once upon a time there was light in my life…”

Absurdist composition mixed with depressed escapism mixed with lies told to the self, set against a backdrop of paranoia. The action splits between 3 spiraling plot threads, accelerating uncontrolled into a scripted singularity. “Heddatron” is just a play, but it knows it is just a play, and at the moment of self-awareness it awakens into something alive.

Saw, but need to return this weekend, so strong the desire to experience again.

“…Turn around, bright eyes…”

“Trying to keep you, trying to please you…”

The 90 second rule is equivalent to the 36 hour rule, both correlaries of the principle that 1 1/2 is long, enough.

(I hypothesize that there is something to the common factor 1 1/2. Perhaps as an approximation for an underlying mathematical constant of the golden mean, beyond and before which logic turns ugly.)

“…The change in my pocket wasn't enough…”

“And then I ask you over again / You only answer…”

Galway Bay 830pm: trivia questions composed by Jonathan and myself.

“…Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…”

“From the table in the corner they could see a world reborn…”

Ice cream parlors filled with people and empty tables.

“…Empty chairs at empty tables…”

“The Warriors” tackles a tricky, delicate, sensitive subject: how to reconnect with the past middle school-era friendships fled from, and sets it against a backdrop of Jonesboro.

Submerging myself in 6 days’ depths.

I don't know why I'm trying so hard to place it. It's good on its own. Well done, song. You're a keeper. I hope you feel the same about me.

I have a crush on a coffeehouse.

“Black Watch” is an unsettling play to view; instead of a narrative, it presents history and news.

I’ll get you a cupcake tomorrow.
“haha Thank you! I may not be there tomorrow. But you do not need to get me a cupcake either way.”
Oh. I’ll give it to the person of your choice then.
“Okay, whoever is sitting at the stool closest to the door is my person of choice.”

Have your cake and eat it, the classic loophole.

Also I need to go buy a cupcake but my phone has barely charged if I suddenly disappear for a bit.
“#whitepeopleproblems”

For when picking random numbers to fill out a bracket isn’t enough, only a few phrases are needed to cluelessly bluff through a conversation about NCAA.

“College sports is a passing game.”
“A good big man is rare.”
“You can always have a Cinderella story.”

The temptation of reading “Heart of a Dog” as purely post-Russian Revolution political allegory may have been stifled too far in the opposite direction, but the story does seem more about general human educational and cultural development, a hybrid of Frankenstein, Animal Farm, and My Fair Lady. Communism fails for equally reapportioning positives while leaving the negatives unbalanced, matching the dichotomy of Philip’s positive and Ivan’s negative reinforcement. Childrearing, petowning, and bondage are collectively satirized as losses of liberty: only the beast admires the leash, with the price of loyalty $1.40. Individually cannot be squelched by bookburning an offending tome after it has been read; ideas are destroyed only by removing the soul, which is glandular, developing with maturation. The narration switches from 1st person to 3rd, with Sharik going from being so sympathetic that the reader initially isn’t sure his species, to a frighteningly foreign and increasingly absent 3rd person. Beauty is pliability, even transspecies; the out of control familiar is monstrous.

And if your galoshes are stolen in Act 1, there will be a flood in Act 3.

What goes up must get stuck on the 4th floor.

Autocomplete.

“Quick- good warm up energy games for 6-8th graders”
Spin the bottle!

Yet I actually had a decent idea this year.

Two miners are arguing over where to dig a pit. One of them wants to find the perfect location, the other just wants to get the job done. They argue back and forth all day. Finally the second miner defers, conceding… “Well, it’s your pick.”

The difference between math texts and English texts is that one has plot lines, the other has line plots.

One of our lessons exploded. It’s a mess, and now there are little pieces of lesson everywhere.

I got so excited about the redvelvet I forgot to mention the clementines.
Fair enough.
It's just, I've had delicious clementines before. Cream cheese frosting is a much rarer beast.
That's exactly my problem with cream cheese frosting. It's become a very common beast.
I left out the word delicious in that sentence, I realize.

Cheese or font.

The New York Times must have a back supply of crossword puzzles along with obituaries.

We’ll either be twotiming strumpets together, or we’ll be twotiming strumpets, together.

Options open.

Singled (halved?) with a shared attribution. And since it’s been a while since an SI unjustly overlooked: Fire Leonardo DiCaprio, hire Sigmund Freud: Inception gets a NC-17 rating.

Lose leaf.

The Answer to the Great Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, as given in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is 42.

Stephen Fry, a good friend of Douglas Adams’s, claims the punchline is fascinating, extraordinary, and obvious when thought really hard about.

One day, having just finished writing a play with a hidden joke in base 13, walking down the street, I had a sudden deep thought.

Forty-two.
Tea for two.

The meaning of life is… tea for two.
Something Douglas Adams was passionate about.
Something computers in the book just can’t seem to make right.
Simple, brilliant, clever, fitting, funny, and probably true. It has to be.

“…Just tea for two / And two for tea…”

“We need to figure out what we’re going to do about all these pages we need to edit. By the way, did you hear about Elizabeth Taylor?”
Yeah, read it online earlier today.
“Oh. [pause] So, what are we going to do?”
I think we'll be okay without her. Richard Burton managed.

What do you have to leave for? If it’s a basketball game, there’ll be other ones. But, if it’s a girl… there’ll be other ones.

After it.

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate YOU. Keep the channel open… No artist is pleased… There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

The author cares more about the words than the characters.

Quotes we wished we had last Thursday.

“Me: Green hoodie, blue plaid button-up, purple watch.
You: Kind of look like Academy Award nominee Kristin Scott Thomas?”

Missed connections.

“I’m At Starbucks Anemone.”

Week 907.5: [untitled]
Revised title: The Empress’s New Contest

(The ink is invisible.)

"Many grantors refuse to give permission if one or the other ellipsis is deleted; however, if you wish to avoid having a text page that looks as if it has the measles, you may want to request the deletion of one ellipsis at the time you request permission."

And so on.

We are on an eternal seesaw. Whenever I feel balanced enough to let myself make plans and be happy, you're at your lowest. But we move, and the same ways.

I will buy a dogsitter and plane ticket for you if you need it. But more importantly, I won't think any differently of you if you don't take me up on the offer.

When I say I'm financially independent, it's because I disregard the future. I'm only temporarily. But that may not be a bad thing, in the end.

Chicago is too cold for you to live. But so is DC, just not that kind of cold.

Don't let other people's 2.5-to-3 pages or definitions of fairy tales get in the way of telling your story. It's your story. You're taking the class for you. Write the story that you wanted to write. Otherwise, what's the point. Besides, we've already made that mistake.

If you offered me to run away with you in 2.5-3 months and become a teacher, I'd probably go with. Not to run away though, but because you would be offering me something to run towards.

Going backwards is worse than going nowhere. But going nowhere is worse than going backwards. The secret is that going in circles is worse than both.

Realizing how lucky I am.

The girl sitting opposite me on the bus looks sad. Weary. I'm not telling her to cheer up, nor smile. Maybe I should. I'm not sure how to. Too late. We both disembarked in opposite directions. And I'm home.

“When you come to town you’ll have them coming for miles…”

Like the missing 311 song in a strewn trail of westward breadcrumbs, March 16 is the waypoint along the trajectory of Pi Day, the Ides of March, and St. Patrick’s Day.

“…Come original / You got to come original…”

Apathy is a defense mechanism. Assassins don’t get stabbed; dictators don’t fall on swords; soothsayers fear no coming day.

Celebrating Pi Day with a bundt cake.  (It's an approximation.)

Happy Pi Day Eve! Or, (Pi - 1) Day.

“If the person has a British accent, engage carefully and quickly.”

Screenwriting : LA :: Improv : Chicago

“Sometimes I sleep / Sometimes it’s not for days…”

The 77, like the most trusted steeds, knows when not to bear its rider into danger.

“…I’m a cowboy / On a steel horse I ride…”

Saw “The Three Faces of Doctor Crippen”, a delightfully triplicated play. The schizophrenetic emphasis on the number, while not ever explicitly more than a gimmick, amusingly permeates the characters, chorus, and audience. The Seussically rhythmed dialogue adds to the enjoyment of the dark comedy.

Not Brothers & Sisters, but could have been; and in some ways, perhaps better: somewhere between real and idealized, to be ended in 4 years, enjoyable without attachment, and therefore comforting in familiarity.

“I am the only audience member.”
I’m the only actor. It’s hard for both of us.

Half an hour passes very quickly.

Too much light? Pah fah the course.

“I’m good to go…”

Working a Saturday is a good experience, especially for the reminder of how grateful to be for usually having Saturdays off.

“…I can’t sleep / In the wake of Saturday…”

I’m in an episode of Lost. I board the 423 bus. The woman in the seat in front of me has a few pages torn from a massmarket paperback she’s annotating. It’s weird so I take a closer look, but all I can see is that the top one is page 423. It’s 4:23pm. The bus is totally going to crash onto an island.

Flashback candidates.

It’s a Pace bus, too. Clever writers.

"hi team"
"you've been working hard"
"here's some toffee"
"you can go now"

Given a tapas restaurant, find the minimum party size for ordering the menu.

The purpleline’s heated seats are as an apology for the blueline’s traitorous obnoxiousness.

“I refuse to compare people to public transportation. Unless it is in regards to size. Because I have described people as being as big as a bus before.”

The & Company is literal.

Amissum haud immemoratum umquam cordi.

Yay being able to use a Classics degree.
“I hope you get to use it again some time for more than 10 minutes.”
heh I take what I can get. Or, rather: it's lost but not forgotten, forever in my heart.

Hamletmachine fractures a story into its most haunting aspects. The tragedy is madness.

“I was Hamlet: I stood on the coast and spoke with the surf, at my back the ruins of Europe…”

12345678910111213141516
12345678910111213141516
12345678910111213141516
12345678910111213141516
12345678
12345678
12345678
12345678
1234
1234
1234
1234
12
12
12
12
1
1
1
1

And if that doesn’t work, just say that your uncle locked your dead dog out of the apartment, and he’s only in town for 2 days.

Humor me for a second.

Food chain of command.

The Eagle is what it is: a mediocre Roman epic movie. The are no characters, no themes, no plot, merely geographic and historical setting; but the film makes no pretenses that it intends any other delivery.

The weekend, like my SI single, starts to end.

Excellently squired.

Like the turtle found on the side of the road, we keep the tangent overnight, then let it go away.

We withhold ourselves until we are ready to do something. But the world is never on the same page as us.
But you can’t blame the world there, only the us.
Oh, I was going to blame the M[].

"Watson is at a disadvantage when it comes to humor, wordplay, irony, and so forth. But then again, so are many humans that I meet, particularly the ones working rental car counters."

The last 7 words turn what could have been satiric wisdom into mediocre stand up, or turn mediocre stand up into ironic commentary on how humanity need not fear the loss of one defining quality.

“Let’s paint the picture of the perfect place…”

Looking in all the wrong places

“…And the grass is getting greener each day…”

On to the next thing.

“…Yeah, we’re going down…”

“All the things she said / Running through my head…”

Running through the streets at 2am, where there is only one direction to go: onwards, one way or the other along the snowbanked trenches of Broadway. Past music spilling from dying bars; past barred cemetery gates; toward the destination, the departure point reached with fresh composure, like evoked lies and poetry. A thaw as the blackclouds gather, 3 thunderstrikes lit the sky, and winter remains the forgotten season.

“…This is not / Enough…”

I can’t plan a return
‘Cross bridge I burn
Away, so here I stay and yearn
To learn to learn to learn.

Some part of me will always go aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah when I send an e-mail.

Telemachus goes to Nestor before he goes to Menelaus

I think the former wouldn't be a problem if we lattered. But because we don't, then it is.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this 4th wall.

“We are two mariners…”

And Moby Dick as an 80s rock musical.

“…And before us grew the angry jaws of a giant whale…”

Something requiring deciding quickly probably isn’t what I wanted to be doing anyhow.

Def and don’t think.

You have a very attractive checklist.
“I get told that all the time. Though you may need to tweak it.”
I’ll tweak your checklist.

Entertaining the distraction.

Did I miss a call from you? I was too busy watching a pirated copy of Black Swan with M[] and D[] and B[] and M[] that froze right after the masturbation scene. fml. Luckily, the hilariously, hilariously mistranlasted chinese to english subtitles provided enough comedy to cut any tension.

Our problem isn’t that we overthink, it’s that we underdo.

I love when I simultaneously realize what I like, why I like it, and what I need to not do.
I hate when I accidentally try to go to thingI'msearchingfor.com instead of searching for it.

“Upon the rooftops in dead of night / You'll hear me cry, I'll shake you from your sleep…”

Scaling 4 foot snowdrifts so densely packed in places that my weight is supported, and eventually stagger into a Decemberists’ concert. Story of my life: despite the redline’s best efforts, I shall have fun.

“…For I am a poor and a wretched boy / A chimbley, chimbley sweep…”

I'm thinking of doing something crazy and foolish, like going outside. Nevermind. I'm actually looking up Pacific Northwest Tree Octopi.
Oh, well good. That was going ot be my suggestion, in fact.

I’m thinking of doing something crazy and foolish.

You know, you’re hard to read. You like Paris, and hate French.
I like places and hate people. Oh. haha That was a language, not a substantive.

The problem with a veto is how a 2/3 majority overrides it.

The lesson of Yalta is that there’s always Tehran.
“See you in Berlin, then.”
Meet you halfway.

Youth passes like a clung autumn, left behind when the last day of school is abandoned.
Snow days are forever.

“…School’s out forever…”

“They’re falling down like a domino…”

The problem with debt is temporal: the future is obligated to the past. But unless the debt is for future’s benefit, why should they undertake past’s burden? Rather, future protests, and righteously defaults. But then what is past to do: what motivation for goodwill, if they are merely enacting their replacement?

“…All the kids in the marketplace say…”

Thus passes Machiavelli, done in by a supermajority of past and future.

“…Walk like an Egyptian…”

Saw King’s Speech, the natural progression from My Fair Lady’s satirization of linguistic distinction in social strata: can a speech therapist make royalty sound like royalty? But I can’t help myself from considering outrageous unintended parallels: George son of George, unexpectedly ascending to highest power ahead of his elder brother, thrust into a geopolitical war against a charismatic madman, and crippled by an inability in language usage.

I wasn't sure whether to refer to as a friend or a friend's roommate. It's in between, like, half-a-friend. Like, J[], before we had our bad poetry bonding moment.

The right and wrong way to communicate.

Already pillaged her recycling bin: it’s what she would have wanted.

You got to be careful about falling in love with trash cans.

“I once forgot my bookbag at Olive Garden, but that doesn’t make me the mayor of Italy.”

The many flavors of theta.

“Long time no see / Long time no say…”

Being nice is the gateway to being sneaky.

“…And your capital letters keep me asking for more…”

Every website is at most 6 links from Kevin Bacon’s wiki page.

“The Huey Lewis Show” isn’t just funny, but also therapeutic, when the audience prompt, for a newspaper headline they will never read, is “Chicago Beats Green Bay”.

DC is so not the city to move to if you need a winning football team to stick around.

The Iceberg.

If this makes no sense it’s because I really am running out to buy lettuce.

Submitting a recursive metaentry feels like phoning in a guilty pleasure, but a SI single is a SI single.

DreamMe writes DreamRecLetters for DreamJobs.

Do we blame the chili, or do we blame the bowl? Let’s blame the bowl.

Wait, no, stop. You insist that you can’t reveal who the last 2 were, right after you mention that he visited you and she visited you, and you know I’m clever enough to figure this out, and you think this counts as not telling anyone.
“I’m not saying anything.”
I don’t know anyone who can lie to themself better than you.

Happy birthday, I got you a hint.

It’s almost as good as how instead of directly inviting me to visit, you call me up and complain for an hour about how all your college friends who visit you wind up having sex with your boat or high school friends. Fine, I’ll see when I can come by.
“Wait, no, stop. I have to go build an attic.”

Plan B: I crash asleep early and hopefully stave off whatever I’m coming down with.

Back from escortry, with a SI single.

"I'd like to write a crossword with you.
Oh, wow. I don't know what to say. I mean, yes, of course, but shouldn't we discuss marriage first?

Packing, in the non-firearms sense of the word.

In the words of Genesis 1, calling it a day.

“There goes another night…”

Multiplication is hard.

“…Through these hard times…”

The closest thing to cat food is scones.

Dogs are funny. Neither you nor I would willingly, let alone enthusiastically, eat salmon, garlic, and bananas together.

“You know I’ve got to be more than this…”

Reason is in twilight: advantage and interest have reached their paradoxical limits. There is no incentive for optimality. Society cannot self-sustain, not constructed within a a set of negative loopholes. And so rationality goes the way of faith; statistics and economics and psychology become alchemy and astrology and parapsychology.

“…The more you think, the less you act this way…”

Fake it till you make it.

“…The fake sound of progress…”

Another SI single, which will hopefully allow a replacement hat delivered for my delivered Inker trophy! I do regret how in the interest of readability, I did forgo AABCC phrasing: “Obama pledges in the State of the Union that there will be a State of the Union pledge that we will put an American on Mars by the end of the decade by the end of the decade”.

<horrified> You just cut the cat!

Objectwork.

“There’s a 50% chance I’m getting a kitty. What should I name it?”
I have to suggest Schrodinger.

One part ancient grammar lesson, one part backhand, one part validation of paranoia.

I’m wingmanning her.
“Aren’t you wingmanning him?”
She’s in the accusative, he’s in the dative, and the girl he’s talking is in the genitive.

Looks like this year I’m resolving to have more interesting gchat away messages.

If there were a random guy (I'm envisioning Cash Cab style, only without the staging) who'd ask random folk who their rep was, for a $X prize- people would remember, just in case, wouldn't they?
“To create public awareness. We should ask some questions about breast cancer.”
That's why more Americans don't know their government representatives. It's not a practical trivia question. There's no incentive to know it.

Probably would be more upset at the lack of free trivia if I weren’t just bankrolled for the rest of the month.

It seems like purple will be the in color this year, per the Pearson Publishing & Modeling Agency.

“CCSS K.L.1
Lavender is evil”

This year I resolve to have more interesting solutions to the New York Times crossword.

Is it okay if I get a New Yorker Cartoon calendar?
Sure. They make great notepads in coming years.

“What’s a groupon?”

Too Much? Not enough.

“Are you J[]?”
“Yes?”
”You were great in Pillowman.”

“Embrace the past and you can live for now…”

A kiss.
A party.
A touch of fun.
A SI double (including a win!)
A brunch.
A nap.
A performance of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.

And all with friends old and new, here and far, good and amazing.
2011 and I are going to get along just fine, I think.

“…We are the voices / This is a New Year…”