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...”