Daily Hutch

Pizza for breakfast

2012-01-30T14:47:00.000-05:00

I like making pizza dough, at least I think I do, because it is inexact. Imprecision is allowable in its making. The product of the effort will be more yeasty, a little light on flour, more bubbly, too salty, or overly sweet, but the imperfections are expected in the homemade version. A wide breadth is allowed from Cook's Illustrated perfection to the time I mistakenly used self-rising biscuit flour, or topped it with American cheese. Mistakes in the recipe could even become a source of pride over time, with guests commenting on the particular twist that the cook accidentally gave to his now-specialty.

It also brings the joy of chemistry, melding unlike things in varying amounts of powders and liquids to produce a warm, pleasant, rising growing mass that is almost alive. The ball of dough is expanding as I write, softly inhaling and pushing upwards towards the kitchen towel ceiling. It's difficult to leave it alone for the time it needs to rise. I can't wait until the dough is ready to be eaten as pizza, but I cherish the process of putting it together and my central role in its parenting.

Initialisms, among other things

2012-01-27T22:22:00.000-05:00

I had a capacious thirst from having walked the streets of downtown Washington, D.C. for several hours. I bought a large, capacious bottle of Gatorade sports drink, which was in the process of trying to write itself out of existence by changing its name gradually but perceptibly to only 'G'. Why have for your product's name a recognizable, concrete thing when you could transition your "branding" to a meaningless abstraction? This was the question Gatorade had asked of itself and answered on its own, without assistance. It was in this way similar to the public radio distributor American Public Media, soon to become a trio of letters whose bond and claim to a corresponding meaning were irrevocably severed. This may not seem important, and yet it is. The fashion is for abstraction, high-mindedness without deeper meaning. Not that consumer products are an area from whence to derive a great deal of meaning, but it feels like we have started a car rolling down a hill without any plan on how to stop it. George Orwell said it best.

I wanna hold her hand And show her some beauty Before all this damage is done

2011-12-31T13:54:00.000-05:00

This year I:

-Got two jobs
-Moved to the Washington DC metro area
-Became a vegetarian
-Visited three new states (Wyoming, Utah, Idaho)
-Heard some great music
-Ate some great food
-Had some great talks with some great people

What more could a person ask for?

They say california is a recipe for a black hole

2011-12-01T22:06:00.000-05:00

I have been on a serious Rilo Kiley kick for at least a week. Blame it on cranberry sauce, which I was making last Wednesday, and it was lovely, had the house to myself all day and just listened to tons of music and cooked odds and ends of supplemental Thanksgiving foods. I love those days, maybe once a month. Silence and solitude and making something out of nothing. Insofar as there is stress in my life, these are the days when it is released, when you might say I channel and release tension from my shoulders into the food I make.

As for Rilo Kiley, they are everything. Sweet, cutting, country, rock, peerless lyrics, great music. Three Rilo Kiley songs:

Jenny, You're Barely Alive

My Slumbering Heart

Portions for Foxes

are these sentences true?

2011-11-22T14:39:00.002-05:00

-Barack Obama sometimes appears to be naive and politically tone-deaf. This may derive from an abundance of confidence.

-Rick Perry is full of bluster and often seems confused.

-Herman Cain talks a good game, but he suffers from a dearth of ideas.

-Michelle Bachmann spends so much time trying to seem authentic that whatever substance she had to begin with has long since eroded away from constant burnishing.

-Were Newt Gingrich to become the Republican nominee, Democrats would be dancing in the streets.

Winter trains part 3

2011-11-04T13:49:00.000-04:00

There might have been a sense of community in the broad atrial waiting area of the station, but it was quickly drowned out by the survival instinct that emerged among comfortable people who are slightly alarmed. Lines formed quickly at the handful of fast-food/coffee places and people scarfed pizza with wary eyes trained on their neighbors, eating as a dog does: quickly and too efficiently to relish the alimentation. Sulking overcoated patrons trudged everywhere to and fro or circled shark-like for the remaining seats on the benches. Smart ones read to stave off impending madness, with ever-more erudite reading fodder glimpsed around every corner.

I was reading Tony Judt with two different frowns. Alternately I displayed my public-transit-has-forsaken-me-never-will-I-see-home-again grimace, and then my furrowed-brow-because-Tony-Judt-is-postulating-a-complex-political-idea-in-clear-and-readable-prose-and-I-am-striving-to-understand frown. I have discussed with my significant other that I ought to stop frowning when trying to understand something or flesh out a thought because the expression is frightening at close range. Maybe I'm often puzzled. I do feel the need to manifest what's going on in my head to the world at large. I furrow my rather prominent but nonetheless brow and try to work out a sentence that might express what I'm thinking.

Winter trains part 2

2011-10-31T22:43:00.000-04:00

Our train that was set to depart at 6:25 had not physically reached the station until 6:45. The people turning and sheepishly working back through the Lowell deluge after the official boarding announcement were Newburyport commuters with a scheduled theoretical departure of 6:45. What cheek to think they would leave the station within 10 minutes of on-schedule. Their delay was heard fading as I shuffled the platform with the horde, and it gave me a vague sense of justice served. The perverse mind of the frozen delayed commuter; his misery is actively seeking company, and he condemns those who aren't foundering with him yet.

Winter trains part 1

2011-10-17T19:53:00.000-04:00

The coffee came to 1.07. I had the nickel at the ready, expecting 1.04, but the tax had gone up under Democrat control, and I fumbled with two pennies, hastily produced from some pocket.

The coffee's purchase was a thing definitely settled, and in my arrogance I thought it marked me out as a seasoned traveler, beater of chills. With hot liquid input and vigorous walking in the station, I could overcome the dual disadvantage of a pronounced lack of personal insulation and 15 minutes on the platform in sub 10-degree Ipswich already chilling the flesh. This is special cold that can't be rooted out by the heat in most train cars; it is the rare one that can play the role of microwave and re-heat humans who are starting from a refrigerated imbalance, it being hard enough to maintain the warmth of people who enter the cycle at a neutral level. I was unable to get rid of the cold in my feet, which felt like wet soldiers in draft canvas tents at Valley Forge.

The chill is an unwelcome houseguest, insisting on one more glass of wine after an awkward dinner, and then another glass, reveling in others' discomfort. After it is gone, the hollow remnant of its presence lingers. It can't be forced but by bluntness and boldness. Even this, though, requires appropriate conditions.

The coffee was hot and needed but I had rashly chosen the Dunkin Donuts medium over large at the same price from McDonald's. I was already cold again before the last sip. Sidling up to the rail employee in front of the service window, I wait for other harried commuters to ask longsufferingly about their trains, which are as a matter of course delayed so long they aren't worth asking about (assume twenty-five minutes off the top). Trying to play the cool customer, seen-it-all-before commuter rail veteran of a dozen cold Januaries. I smile nonchalantly as I mosey over with my inquiry queued up in the brain-catapult, but stumbling on the destination (usually Haverhill, now Lowell) I ask the question and get the answer everyone else is stuck with; a 5 or 10 minute delay in theory stretches out to around 30 in the real world.

NFL network misheard

2011-10-02T20:34:00.000-04:00

The broom is off the Lions' rose. Pick sicks. He will go up and get it at 11 feet. Clocking was a little too rude.

Laundry!

Landry.

Go get it A-1!

For the first time in Lane's history

Found exactly where I left it

2011-09-30T13:44:00.001-04:00

Machine-Age Espresso

The changes effected affected us. The coffee machine was taken away to avoid ambiguity and duplication. Coffee is dark, ideally faintly smoky. Medium roasts are said to have subtler and more complex flavor profiles, but this is not universally agreed upon. Coffee is good on ice, but it is not candy and should not be mistreated by the addition of pumpkiny treacle. Coffee can be consumed hot, ideally not boiling.

habitual consumption may contribute to osteoperosis

Coffee is sometimes avoided in the mornings so that I can deceive myself regarding my dependency upon it. Coffee is prepared by the cup in the K cup machine at work. K cup != K Street; Coffee is not a conspiracy of powerful Washington lobbyists.

recent studies suggest that these may be the result of relieving the initial symptoms of overnight caffeine withdrawal!

French cooks were the first to Westernize coffee brewing techniques in the mid-1700s. Coffee is decaffeinated sometimes which is to say denatured and disemboweled, without being too dramatic.

Update from @work

2011-09-28T13:28:00.001-04:00

-Eating cheaply with rice and beans - very good move. Lots of chickpeas and cabbage, and my favorite, parboiled rice, which has an 'improved nutritional profile,' and is resistant to weevils [boll or otherwise].

-I woke up at 6 this morning and went running on autopilot. Couldn't have even been awake for the first half mile or more. It was good enough, and could become something like a twice-a-week activity. Overtraining could be a risk, though.

-Wrote a list of plausible rejected Jon Huntsman campaign slogans [in an attempt to be funny]. Maybe I'll post them later, if they stand up to increased scrutiny. Or if they make A laugh.

-Plain yogurt, maple syrup swirl. Perhaps not as good as yogurt and honey, but still bears further investigation.

-District of Columbia: 200 range of ZIP codes. Federal Government: 202-205 range. Virginia: 201, and 220-246 ranges. Massachusetts, of course, 010-027 range. Shall I go on? I have a ZIP code map of the United States in my office. ZIP codes are very interesting. It stands for Zone Improvement Plan, if you were wondering.

-Idaho: 832-839 range. Tennessee: 370-385 range....

Rudie can't fail

2011-09-26T21:16:00.000-04:00

Glimmering like a slim sequined dancer

Slatted ceiling scatters light

Carapace of discrimination

-----

cauterize

hearten

uncouth

warden

We took the long way so we could have another

2011-09-18T00:27:00.000-04:00

She spends her money on cigarettes and such, well I love her and cigarettes so much, I love her and cigarettes so much

Will wonders never cease?

2011-07-31T21:55:00.000-04:00

A record of how I have felt at certain strategic points of time along the way. Failing to update the record regularly will be a problem. My duties at times have not been fulfilled. Rest assured, loyal reader, I will write for you again. Soon.

Apocryphal

2011-06-22T22:05:00.000-04:00

Debby Reynolds: A legend in her own time

flagging (the blog is)

2011-06-16T20:00:00.000-04:00

I'm in the District. That is no joke. I'm alive, and I'm happy. There's a lot to see here, and a lot to be thankful for. Miss everyone back home. Congratulations to the Mighty Bs.

You know

2011-05-31T23:35:00.000-04:00

The blog marches on, never fear. We're moving to DC, but the blog marches on. I ate lasagna tonight. I started watching Twin Peaks last night. I saw Fast Five today. I don't have to work again until the 15th. These are all true sentences. I'm about to start a new notebook. This is every aspiration I have.

I have trouble sleeping. I get sentimental sometimes. Sometimes my heart's just not in the job. I like people better than anything else. I love my girlfriend and my family and everyone. I get scared a lot. I can't sleep anymore. I want freedom. I want Bliss. I like the dark and the cool and quiet times. I still won't sleep but maybe I'll be happy.

Thou canst tell why one's nose stands i' the middle on's face?

2011-04-28T22:35:00.000-04:00

So I went down to my local Barnes and Noble BOOKSELLERS to do a little browsing. I meandered over to the fiction section and made my selection, Jonathan Franzen's latest. I was about to just walk out the door without paying when I felt a strong hand on my shoulder.

It was the hand of Toby Keith.

Toby Keith, clear as day. Toby Keith, wearing a Barnes and Noble-branded cowboy hat, was standing right behind me. He pointed to the near end of the store.

His voice rang out clear and true: Cash register's that way, old hoss. Best pay up. And always remember,

Freedom isn't free

Very important One-sentence post

2011-04-26T23:07:00.000-04:00

Read this, if you would, since JD wrote it, and it's one of the most important things you'll read all day, and you ought to thank me for recommending it at all, for even deigning to come down off my high horse and offer you a link to someone else's blog post.

I was waiting down at the ancient gate

2011-04-16T18:05:00.000-04:00

It's when they've announced they're leaving that you see them most. People are motivated by finality, Jack decided without ten seconds' further consideration. The threat of real action, irrevocable consequences, will jolt them, move them, if nothing else will.

On this particular night he was thinking of, they had been sharing ice cream, which he had done at other times with Brandon and assorted third parties.

At this time the phone rang insistently, but he chose to ignore it.

What was the flavor? It was something like cereal milk, flavored with banana, or something else he couldn't remember. They passed the cardboard cup and shared a spoon, being family or close to it. Or maybe there were three spoons, he could not remember. It was a happy evening, with laughter, and the memory was still vivid.

The girls in the downstairs apartment were an infrequent presence in his life. He didn't know much about them except they had cats and parties and liked to gossip at late hours on the front step. Their voices would ring out clearly in judgement on cold nights when he had already been asleep two hours or more. Those nights were shining and crisp.

the old way is best

2011-04-14T21:51:00.000-04:00

I dreamt I was falling last night. I was standing on a tree branch that Cary took a chainsaw to. I was plummeting right before I woke up, nothing but solid stump under my feet. They arrested my downward progress with a Harry Potter spell. There was meat in avant-garde restaurants

Fog Dream # 1

2011-04-10T16:49:00.000-04:00

Imagine running up Labor in Vain Road, and encountering R——. The road is foggy; it's hard to make out who you're talking to. Lights wink in and out at us through the murk. R—— is trudging in the other direction. She is smiling, but in a pained way and too broadly. She betrays how false the expression is. Her voice is hollow as she tries to be cheery.

"Where ya headed?"

I have slowed to a trot, but I can't stop running, in that I am not allowed to by controlling physical realities in this state.

"I'm getting somewhere, I promise. I'll shoot you an email when I'm done. What are you working on, R——?"

The shrug, the well-remembered half-hearted joke.

"I don't know."

She maintains the image we have of her, even if there are cracks showing, doors left closed for long periods.

I used to live in Nashville

2011-04-05T22:12:00.000-04:00

I love driving at night by myself. The road stretches out forever, inviting you to stay on board. Just drive on. The driving is the easy part. It's where you've been and where you're going that cause trouble.

wooden shoes

2011-03-31T23:44:00.000-04:00

Orange shirts, orange shirts, orange neck ties, orange pants, orange socks, orange cuff links, orange waistcoats, orange shirts, orange shirts, orange shoes, orange suits, orange skirts, orange belts, orange cravats, orange shirts, orange shirts, orange blazers

arming the rebels

2011-03-31T23:01:00.001-04:00

Jack stared at the butter. I prefer a cold butter, he thought. Warm butter makes for easy spreading, but it glistens at you. The grease sweats out to the surface. Sweltering butter makes for smaller appetites, thought Jack. The knife traced its course and swiped the butter across the bread. Jack lived on.

out went the candle, and we were left darkling

2011-03-31T22:06:00.000-04:00

The credit went to someone else for detail-gathering, reporting, and awareness, all mine. I would appreciate a fruit basket, but 'nice catch' will do.

Ask me no questions

2011-03-30T23:16:00.000-04:00

Q. Why did it take the French pastry chef so long to get to work?

A. He had to 'croissant' a busy street.

If you don't like my joke, say it to my face. Don't go behind my back and trash me on message boards. You know I hate that. And make sure you keep a straight face the entire time if you tell the joke. That's how it's done, with two apostrophes.

Look how you are all enjoying it!

2011-03-29T20:44:00.000-04:00

This is fantastic:

http://www.salon.com/books/2011/03/29/jacqueline_howett_greek_seaman

"Who really has the last laugh in that situation: the guys who spent $5 to write an angry Amazon review, or the author who took the money from a group of people who have nothing better to do all day than get into fights about grammar on the Internet?"

Grammar fanatics always have the last laugh, 'Drew Grant', if that's even your real name, which I doubt. There is no doubt you are a big rat and a snake with poisenous venom.

you only asked me why

2011-03-27T23:39:00.001-04:00

Don't you think that I know that walking on water won't make me a miracle man?

This is a lazy blog post. It has no substance. It is free, though, so I am not to be held liable. I applied for 6 jobs today. I had a piece of banana bread, toasted and buttered. I filed my federal and state tax returns. These are things that I did, but I am not defined by them. Does the number .00 mean anything to you? That's the amount of Social security tips reported on my W-2 for 2010. Impressed? It doesn't show. The Barry Bonds article in the New Yorker was fun to read. They should hire Tina Fey as well, but what do I know? I'm only a blogging savant. Like Dustin Hoffman, but wearing a striped sweater from Old Navy.

If you don't 'get' this post, it's because there's nothing to get, no substance, as I said earlier, you should have been paying attention.

written

2011-03-22T18:58:00.000-04:00

There is too much going on right now. I can't focus on any one thing, because there are approximately a dozen things going on.

I don't remember what happened the last three years, or I remember it too well, I'm too close to it right now. The world and its habit of sneaking up on me. The decisions I will have to make soon, and whose consequences I will have to live with. The implications in our conversations, which I like. There is very little agency here, mostly just swimming with the current, hoping to make minor adjustments.

Maybe in this light, I look about four years younger than in this picture, or this mirror. Serious talks that we have had; sometimes I am proud of how serious we are capable of being. This may not be cause for celebration, eventually. Sometimes I can get deep into a subject, and forget what was bothering me. Sometimes, the light comes through, and the realization dawns that there was nothing to worry about all along. It goes dark again, but what if everything was OK, light, no sorrows?

This place is so comfortable. Will I be able to live in discomfort? Couldn't we settle down, be old together. Pen and ink, early retirement, happiness and fulfillment of all these designs and schemes.

The hard part comes next.

Multi-typing-tasking

2011-03-21T13:11:00.000-04:00

Shout out to all my ipad people!

Sent from my ipad, easier to type on than i thought, but it seemz like the apple store employees are judging me, as i'm using them for free internet access

Parentheses

2011-03-13T11:02:00.000-04:00

I have literally been busy lately. Not like everyone who always says 'I've been busy', no, I have actually been rather busy. It is an unaccustomed feeling, like scoring a goal, or writing a timely and relevant blog post. I haven't even had time to see what all my mates are up to on Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm, the blogosphere; the whole social media universe! Will the cogs of these virtual worlds continue to grind on without my presence and peripheral insight? Only time can tell!

Civilized Fog

2011-03-06T22:13:00.000-05:00

Some people don't understand the value of silence. It bookends talk. Talk would have no meaning if it were not surrounded by silence. When I see the 'Silence is Golden' screen come up right before the movie starts, I smile from ear to ear and relax a little.

Where is that silence and peace when I need it?

Where are those friends and lovers when I'm afraid of how quiet it is?

I will always quest to have it both ways.

Ice cream paint job

2011-02-28T23:23:00.000-05:00

My father kept turning things off or changing the channel just as I was getting interested in the programs

I sent the same message twice, but doubted that Nancy would notice

I like to play fast and loose with the rules late in the week

Just sitting here idly querying databases, as one does

The usual end-of-the-month posting binge

Smuggling tires to Norway to make a fast buck; riskier than it sounds

I only eat ice cream when it rains

Slush on the sidewalks is worse than ice; ice can't enter your shoes by osmosis

The chair, another item that doesn't get its due for the huge role it plays in modern life

Don't be dissatisfied

2011-02-28T22:58:00.000-05:00

“How strange it is. We have these deep terrible lingering fears about ourselves and the people we love. Yet we walk around, talk to people, eat and drink. We manage to function. The feelings are deep and real. Shouldn’t they paralyze us? How is it we can survive them, at least for awhile? We drive a car, we teach a class. How is it that no one sees how deeply afraid we were, last night, this morning? Is it something we all hide from each other, by mutual consent? Or do we share the same secret without knowing it? Wear the same disguise" - Jack Gladney - White Noise by Don DeLillo

Clouds are drifting across the moon

2011-02-28T22:17:00.000-05:00

I put all my books in a box to put them in a concrete cube and underneath more boxes hidden behind boxes I’ll get in one too

I don’t know what I want, but regardless, thanks a lot for letting me stay on your futon.

Pretty sure JD must have quoted this song in a blog post before, but let me be the second to do so, then. I was thinking about what I want a lot today. I think that's natural for we humans, thinking about what we want, and we ought to have, what benefits we most. This goes along with thinking about what we should be doing, what is most seemly for we to be pursuing. If that's self-centered, it's just how we're wired.

Due at signing

2011-02-27T23:54:00.000-05:00

Your real name isn't Jock Sanders, is it? Your real name is Charlie Koren, you're a stevedore from Sag Harbor. Your real name is Randy Tirado, you're an airplane mechanic from Costa Mesa. Your real name is Sandy Wilhelm, you're a retired pipefitter from Piscataway. Your real name is Jim Snider, you're a blacksmith from Pondicherry. Your real name is Wilton Lynne, you're a journeyman plumber from Knoxville. Your real name is Katherine Wittels, you're a magazine executive from Fort Worth. Your real name is Johnny Kean, you're a bicycle messenger from Tuscaloosa. Your real name is Burt Kingman, you're a hacksaw manufacturer from Thousand Oaks. Your real name is Sarah Carter, you're a jeweler from Medicine Hat. Your real name is Marcus Harter, you're a speech therapist from Sarasota.

Sound and fury

2011-02-27T12:03:00.000-05:00

In many respects

In many respects

In many respects we aren't so different

In many respects

In many respects soccer is a metaphor for the way people live their lives

In many respects

In many respects they were right to continue in their native language, ignoring the visitor who ate hungrily, but without gusto, like a machine

Soft & Chewy Candy

2011-02-24T23:16:00.001-05:00

The beat goes on. The great job search of 2011 goes on. The chaos in Libya goes on. Other people keep having conversations, and I can't focus on what I'm doing because of how highly attuned I am to their topics. Maybe I should start interrupting. That might not go over so well.

The lady serving me clam chowder today in Ipswich asked if I was okay. Do I look like I'm not okay? I might ask you the same question. Better, I might ask it of your chowder, which often has bits of sand in it. Maybe that's how you know they're real clams.

Can an outside chance of something happening ever be turned into an inside chance?

If this whole enterprise doesn't make sense to you, understand that you're not alone. I am alone with these thoughts. Your choices are to pity me or envy me, which will it be?

I wrote up to three jokes on the train today, while closely monitoring the conversation happening in the seat next to me. Are they worthy?

The battery level monitor on my computer is lying. It also defiantly notes that it is (plugged in, not charging). Why should I even offer you the pleasure of direct connection to current? It is wasted on you, voltaic pile of garbage.

Scrabble in Hausa.

INVERT SUGAR

This is a poem I'm working on eventually:

This was the fear they scooped out of Admiral Ackbar's head

It had concessions made to it

It was real, like xenotransplantation or peach trees

Don't steal it.

A Fat Free Food!

"True love is priceless. For true love we pay a price. There's nothing can keep me from loving you, not fire, not ice." -B. Harper

Sometimes a blog is just a blog

2011-02-22T22:38:00.000-05:00

For the next month or so, you can find me in the gym or applying for jobs. I'd like to schedule some eating, but there may not be time. I will probably have to find time to sit in unexpected places in my room, in chairs, contemplating. I'm just that crazy. Crazy like a fox. An Arctic Fox. In a snowstorm. In the Arctic Circle. Where am I? Behind that snowbank? You won't know. Because I'm white. And I blend in with snow.

So, out went the candle, and we were left darkling

2011-02-17T22:14:00.001-05:00

King Lear references doing anything for ya? I tried to pitch a King Lear plot with the genders switched to my mother in the car on the way home from Montreal, but I don't think it took. Call me crazy, but I think King Lear is a winner. It's what all the kids are talking about these days.

Fool

Then, I prithee, be merry; thy wit shall ne'er go
slip-shod.

KING LEAR

Ha, ha, ha!

Fool

Shalt see thy other daughter will use thee kindly;
for though she's as like this as a crab's like an
apple, yet I can tell what I can tell.

KING LEAR

Why, what canst thou tell, my boy?

Fool She will taste as like this as a crab does to a

crab. Thou canst tell why one's nose stands i'

the middle on's face?

Make some new amends

2011-02-14T22:47:00.000-05:00

Feeling sorry for yourself is so easy. It's a trap. Displacing responsibility for problems that are yours alone to solve offers false comfort. It's shirking, at its core. We must refuse to engage in it.

nature disclaims in thee: a tailor made thee

2011-02-03T22:55:00.001-05:00

Why do people hate him, Doug?

-Drink hot water with your lemon.

--Veins popped out on the backs of her hands, straining against the artificial resistance offered by the rowing machine.

---I remember air conditioning, heavy pots of leftovers, lazy warm nights to trickle out on the streets, and independence to burn.

----It was touching to hear him ask how she might be consoled, and I answered to the best of my knowledge, which was that there isn't really any answer.

Consumption's claimed his life and we dare not miss the sight

2011-01-31T23:40:00.000-05:00

Exhilaration
Surprise
Striving
Sharing
Mastery
Bliss

word for word

2011-01-31T21:55:00.000-05:00

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen, this is the 7:30 pm train to Lowell, making the following stops in West Medford, Wedgemere, Winchester Center, Anderson, Wilmington, North Billerica, and Lowell. This is the train to Lowell; if you didn't hear it, we don't go there, and it's still not too late to get off."

Free persons

2011-01-30T22:08:00.001-05:00

Rupert will dive face-first and headlong into snowbanks sometimes, to test his own mettle, and the snow's. I'm afraid sometimes that I don't take enough time out for reflection, the moments where you sit in a darkened room and consider deeply. There's no time horizon here, just a general anxiety. What will 2017 be like? Don't let me be consigned to the scrap-heap of history. Every minute is full of getting and spending.

If I tend to wear scarves around the house, it's because I'm cold and want to be warm, nothing personal. Two clocks in the same room, second-hands each one second off from the other, so there's always ticking. I feel that I get more done when there's less scrutiny. Ben Franklin once wrote...or was that Zachary Taylor? I'm always forgetting which pigeonhole to put an acquaintance in. Did you read this? It was like an art project for a second-generation fruitseller.

The profession of scrivener no longer exists, she said. Even the walls were downed in light-brown hair. Would this be a successful enterprise for us to embark upon? The key turned in the door, two flights down.

The Train Carrying Jimmie Rodgers Home

2011-01-30T21:25:00.000-05:00

Trains have this certain majesty that you can't deny. They're long and sleek, though they lumber. Trains have the quality of being undeniable, too. You couldn't easily stop a train, unless it wanted to stop itself (giving the train agency here, but you understand what I mean). They represent ordered grace, militaristic in clean lines of gray and chrome. Not low and rounded like the subway cars; broad and tall, noble, with long miles to go before they'll sleep in rail yards in Woburn, Melrose, Fitchburg, and Lowell. The engine's thrum and steel wheels bumping over rails accrete into a heartbeat that the train has. Long, low, falling-away note of the horn gives finality to the journey, like the trip a president's body takes home by rail. Sometimes the train will shudder, shivering, maybe in the icy damp. We spend so much time with it, we'd hope to consider it a friend.

Floating around in my head

2011-01-27T22:04:00.000-05:00

*Charm offensive
*Deadly chimpanzee
*Teetotaling in the New Year
*Buzz Bissinger words
*Cover-up letter
*Providential protectorate
*Airborne toxic event
*Jack glad-hand
*The mark of a snow-blower

Filler

2011-01-25T22:51:00.000-05:00

-It's been a while since the last slightly lazy bullet-point post.

-Letters could be a really productive way of advancing my writing. If nothing else, they provide plenty of practice. Also, nearly every good writer wrote good letters. Also, they still feel special to write and send, and pretty sure it makes people feel special to receive them.

-Question: do I write best on trains, or is it more that I write only on trains?

-Trains are collectively a monolith. They have ever been and always will be.

-Listen to Orwell on writing; he was very good at it.

-These very words may someday be worth their weight in gold, except that internet words can't have any literal weight, so it will have to be figurative.

-My instinct told me don't lay it on too thick. You want to say nice things, but that can be taken too far. I've made my point, that I'm a clever fellow, that I can reference Shakespeare and Bogart almost simultaneously. Don't push your luck.

-The person whose job it is to choose the style of bench at Central Square-Lynn.

-Invasion of personal communications by business communication modes.

-Todd Barry: genius. G-E-N-I-U-S.

This is my favorite coffee cup in Medford

2011-01-22T16:50:00.000-05:00

This is my favorite coffee cup in Medford. It has a narrow base that tapers outward to a wide mouth at the top. It has a stylized leaf inlaid on one side and is devoid of any design on the other. The inside of the cup is black. The outside is faux-aged stone-gray beige. It is almost never washed, and almost always contains coffee. It sits on a woven yarn coaster on my desk.

I Ate My Father-Pig

2011-01-17T01:05:00.000-05:00

Imagine wrestling the Asian Black Bear. It is strangely human, and tries irresistibly to tousle your hair with its claws.

Dens-Laps Re-Coded

2011-01-15T01:34:00.000-05:00

-They drew first blank.
-Confusion rings when the duck flies over the glass.
-Let's disgust this.
-The pits just keep on coming.
-Oh, I think Mosby's gonna be plain soon.
-That bowl is flaky.
-Brood, you love tree brinks.
-I have grew in the fiddle of the ice.
-Big heart, get to our flame here.
-Crawling rave by Noy-Verte.
-Burning their second flower play of the period.
-Tike Wean looks to the heavens.
-Pour but.
-Is when me lathe it away at the hew line.
-We will give us cheesy buns on the get.
-Laughter the mop of the puck.
-Pat sings the iron.
-Crumb the league office din Toronto.
-We can never tell if this buck completely flosses the toll line.
-Huck grew.
-I'm milling blue hoe up to fifty.
-If the Russian gores fear, he ends the maim.
-Fooling to stay hero.
-Won't flurry about mitt.
-To fled further gown the bench.

Yet another short post about trains

2011-01-10T19:00:00.000-05:00

-I am the pointed sweatshirt hood of the hardscrabble Lynn youth. Slightly starched, and improbably towering, I have become an entity unto myself, shark-like and telling of dozens of seamy dives and two-room tumbledown apartments I have seen, you haven't

-I am the train tunnel into Salem—dimly lit, always nightbound. Too ramshackle for the gleaming cookie-cutter housing complex not 100 yards away

-I am the shining water at Beverly, bright expanse, unfrozen, spared by brackishness. Boats bob, ready for pleasure or lobstering. See the mirror of the sun, with an orange sheen flashing flat across the wavelets

What I'd like to do

2010-12-31T18:25:00.004-05:00

I'd like to, in 2011:

-Meet some interesting people.
-Write on this blog.
-Improve this blog.
-Get a new, better job.
-Read more.
-Forgive and reconcile.
-Improve correspondence.
-Maintain and work on existing relationships.
-Finish at least one short story.
-Watch old movies.
-Maintain physical fitness.
-Spend less time being afraid.
-Make a positive difference.
-Save money.
-Be with A as much as possible.

[Please excuse the hackneyed conceit of this post; it's mostly for posterity]
[This concludes 2010, in which this blog posted 10 times per month, every month. Check the archive]

apologia

2010-12-31T17:59:00.023-05:00

-I'd like to apologize to Uncle Dick for making fun of him for liking Heineken in 2009. That was completely out of line.

-I'd like to apologize to Femi for punching him in Ouaga in 7th grade. That was mean and utterly unprovoked.

-I'd like to apologize to my mother for those teenage years where I was mean and nasty and generally difficult. I don't know where my head was.

-I'd like to apologize to M—— for not accepting her invitation to the Prom junior year. I was confused.

-I'd like to apologize to myself for not trying harder in college. It didn't really come together until it was almost too late.

-I'd like to apologize to Allan because it didn't work out.

-I'd like to apologize to my father for having a short temper sometimes. I love you anyways.

-I'd like to apologize to A for saying that the day we spent together at the ICA peaked at breakfast. It didn't.

-I'd like to apologize for not taking the time to complete this list. My attention span is lacking at times.

And all the same, how can I wish that anything had gone differently? I'm right where I want to be.

Just wait and see, cause the rest is yet to reveal itself to me

2010-12-31T17:13:00.000-05:00

This was the year of independence.
Depend only on love and the ones who love me
This was the year of confidence.
The self is strong, believe it and see it
This was the year of Allan.

My task: conquer 2011

Scattered

2010-12-27T22:25:00.000-05:00

So I've come to have a preternatural calm about me in bad situations. I can make things better if I can be calmer than anyone else. The calm can be easily mistaken by others for acumen or intelligence. Really it's just a defense mechanism. Stay calm, we can build off of calm. I didn't panic today when the snow interfered with my plans. I pursued the matter to the fullest extent that I could, then pulled back, made a strategic decision to go to the movies, that was that. Allow the calm to fill you. You can't change anything by your madness and rat-like scurrying.

We'll wake up bright and early

2010-12-24T12:07:00.000-05:00

Woke up this morning to the sound of coughing and the need to bang keys. That's the most beautiful sound I can think of, keys rattling against a bed of Nick Cave music. Sun coming in, but not streaming, more like trickling through the condensation on the storm window. Why is light always streaming in fiction that you read? Streaming is not the only mode of light. Keep those keys moving, no time to stop. And maybe that's what these fiction writers are thinking, they have to keep the keys moving. There is no bread on the table if the fingers aren't tapping. It's so much fun to hear them tapping as you watch the words march forth on the screen, as I am doing now.

JD does long form posts much better than I do; witness this one. This is the way the post ends Not with a bang but a whimper.

Pepper soup

2010-12-21T23:15:00.000-05:00

I have a way of having my faith restored. There is a way. There is a will. I will go on, if I can will it. Will you wish it? Will I? I thought you'd never ask.

Voici

2010-12-18T23:33:00.000-05:00

I want to collaborate with people.

For the French, the word collaborate must be politically charged, even now.

I had conjured an image for Maréchal Pétain, that perhaps his experience in World War I had scarred him so much, he had been cut so deeply that he felt it necessary to take any and all measures as to be totally insured against another war as senseless as the first one. I'm mostly sure now that I was mistaken. Pétain was, from all appearances a petty junior Fascist, who was eager for the appurtenances of power. I want to know more, but this is the summary judgement.

Then 'tis like the breath of an unfed lawyer. You gave me nothing for't

2010-12-13T22:25:00.002-05:00

If I did not pursue this, I would regret it always. This means there are no options. Varying tempos, and crescendos, and changing rhythms, yes, but the course is plotted. There is no going back from here. I won't be a fisherman telling stories about the big one that got away.

I will not brook regrets. I will not carry them with me.

I love those conversations where you get turned on to the limitless possibilities that lie ahead. They keep happening now, with all sorts of different people. They spark me. I could do anything. Anything!

I'm plastic.

You just have to make sure you're not overwhelmed by the possibilities. Sometimes I have to ask her to give me three choices, and then I can pick. Me knowing that I won't be offending anyone, and relieved of the burden of winnowing, that is the efficient me.

Can't help myself, I want you and nobody else

2010-12-13T00:30:00.000-05:00

In the manner of a diary entry:

I spent December 11th in the company of A. We walked the streets of Washington. We remarked on Millard Fillmore's official portrait. My face eventually hurt from laughing. It was a day to remember.

The bar has been set high.

stacks

2010-12-06T22:41:00.001-05:00

* Being in the library to work on a musicology paper that I had no hope of comprehending in my numbed, utterly distracted state. This was me. I'm still that person.

*The grimy desks are the same, the aged volumes institutionally bound are the same, the powerful musty smell of books has not changed. Why should it have?

*I remembered that I had loved this place powerfully as a sanctuary, a place to play at being an academic and reading and writing for long hours till the bubble of restlessness burst.

*It always feels good, still, to pick out a volume or two, take them home for free. They might never be read, but say, what if one day I take a sudden, strong interest in John Donne? I must equip myself ahead of that day that we await with faithful anticipation.

He had a certain brashness to him

2010-11-30T21:49:00.000-05:00

The end of November. It was a fine month all around, all will agree. I came closer to finding out where I'm headed, this month.

What I'm trying to say is, I've got freedom and my youth. What I'm trying to say is, I'm in a happy spot. Here's to another glorious year! [years start on December 1st, right?]

[The business with the exclamation points is really getting out of hand! I need to be careful, or I'll start using them without thinking! WITHOUT ANY FORETHOUGHT! Can you only imagine?! That would be like throwing a party and charging your friends 20 dollars to get in to the 'VIP Section'! Say it ain't so, Joe!]

No Good With Secrets

2010-11-29T23:07:00.000-05:00

Tonight he was the master of salmon. Whirling in the small but uncramped kitchen, pasta was boiled, and fish sauteed a little too long, but with a gentle intent. Lovingly the onions went over low heat with sherry and capers, just enough care given to keep them from burning before the liquid arrived. Crackling skin gave up billows of smoke from the cast iron, but no harm was done. The sweet tangy sauce played against the bedrock fish, lapping at the edges, eroding a little, but not having its way fully.

Rupert, Destroyer of Loaves

2010-11-28T20:07:00.002-05:00

The dog has been into the bread, again, and I'm much less angry than amused. He has a fondness for all things that people eat, but for bread especially. He sits there in the kitchen, without any shame, awkward as always, with the evidence in plain sight. Empty paper sacks, or plastic bags with three slices left, and the rest having disappeared into thin canine air. I can't help but laugh in amazement. What goes through the mind of a dog at times like this?

By the way, check out our new blog:

http://refugeinreason.blogspot.com/

To you I'm a symbol or a monument

2010-11-28T01:35:00.003-05:00

The pace is what frightens me.

Following people who knew half as much as they should, but twice as much as me at the time.

Acceleration is the best, when you're throwing extra fuel on the engines, and they're throwing the power right back at you, all ankles and thighs flashing, stick your tongue out as fast as you can go.

We went back there and I could remember everything, being nervous, being properly insane in youth, being entirely unready for anything; memories flashed at me through trees and down twisting paths to the river.

4 Months

2010-11-22T22:08:00.003-05:00

Places I have lived or spent time in growing up that could partially or fully be considered my hometown:

*Boston, MA
*Ipswich, MA
*Groveland, MA
*Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
*Bamako, Mali
*West Newbury, MA
*Cannon Beach, OR
*Portland, OR
*Grenoble, France
*Medford, MA

[In approximate reverse chronological order by date of first contact]

It's a list. I'm nothing if not transient.

Every single day of my life

2010-11-21T15:12:00.001-05:00

I feel the intoxicating allure of limitless possibility.

The future beckons.

On my way.

Out of context, floating free in time and space

2010-11-17T22:41:00.001-05:00

I have a feeling that F. Scott Fitzgerald had the opposite problem. He had too many people that believed in him. There's a quote on the back of my book that even says “You are a great writer. Believe it, not me.” I'm getting the feeling throughout this book that Scottie [that's what his intimates call him] was given to believe that he was a great writer a little too much [this is another problem, his abuse of italics in the text]. He has too much confidence in himself as a man of letters. He believes too much in his own powers of description. He is also clearly pretty snobby about being an American expatriate in Paris, and is eager to show how much he knows about this lifestyle, much the same as Hemingway.

I guess this new fare hike means that I'll ride my bike

2010-11-15T22:43:00.007-05:00

Aspirational Marketing

Goal:

blue leather,

back of a

chauffeured town car

to the salon

Christophe does your bangs

for a [who's counting] grand

or two

Here:

blue leather,

back of a

commuter train seat dilapidated

Girls on their way

to nothing jobs

try to dress the part

doing hair in vaguely oily

mirrored window sheen

Get a stew goin'

2010-11-14T16:25:00.005-05:00

I love cooking, but sometimes the prospect of all those ingredients having to be put together by just me, working against time and hungry bellies, is completely daunting. Daunting enough to make you give up. This is why I always make soups or stews.

Nothing has to be timed or perfected, or cooked just so. Everything just comes together in a big, soupy mess. The soup is the most forgiving dish known to cooks, save grilled cheese. No doubt there's an art to getting the broth to taste good (or appropriate?) and getting the vegetables to have just the right bite, but what tastes better and is so consistently easy to assemble, if not soup. If not soup, then what?

I will spare you the answer. It's soup or nothing. The joy of the warm, savory broth. The satisfaction of adding some arcane ingredient which won't actually figure in the taste, but makes you feel like an expert all the same. Soup, which nourishes our bodies and contains enough salt, when done right, to pickle our organs. Soup, the signature dish of fall, the autumnal enterprise of slightly shivering city-dwellers. It does a body good.

[Also, a good part of the conception of this post was how much I like to hear my fingers clattering on the keyboard while the words simultaneously appear, marching ahead on-screen. Strunk and White advise that you should delete or heavily edit things you write for these reasons, but they were writing before the existence of blogs. So I will have my cake and post it too.]

[Brackets are so much more entertaining than parentheses]

Let's Talk About Feelings

2010-11-11T20:00:00.002-05:00

What I have tried to say, on more than one occasion, and usually stumbled over or mangled, is that I want the opportunity to have a future with you. I want you in my life continuing into the future, lingering, ongoing, more than just the present. I want a chance to know you and love you for a very long time. I want time to grow with you. I want you to be with me.

Have I made myself clear?

in love with love and lousy poetry

2010-10-31T14:26:00.003-04:00

Opening Ceremony

Isn't it funny, what you notice?
Her hair falls around her face, short,
not too much cared for.
Skin, in this light, is scarred with blotchy teenage battle-wounds.

Eyes with a magic laugh in them,
that she does not bother to guard from view.
Doesn't shy from looking at you
Doesn't need anything from me, but wants my attention

Full of life,
full of knowing everything
You anticipate her presence in every moment:
She's there,
where she wasn't before

hurry, hurry, hurry, before i go insane

2010-10-31T00:24:00.003-04:00

toe-stepping

uncomprehending streetlights
looked askance at a dim,
hazy talk about nothing really [don't you just tend to agree with people]

we three blanketing someone else's car
philosophical after half-a-bottle [only]

she burned me with a cigarette,
And I didn't even notice she was there.

en briques

2010-10-30T23:56:00.003-04:00

Koller/Saroyan

Maniac is me
want it now
and perfect
like bricks
one
on top of the
other.

the mason's plight,
ours too:
No thanks
for making what is perfect.
Does his job too well,
dies unhallowed.

intricate machinery of mortar
all that's left
to put to our faceless names

Rambling again

2010-10-28T22:55:00.003-04:00

I've made a huge mistake, find myself being drawn intractably into maw of a terrifying, uncomprehending bureaucracy whose only end is to perpetuate itself profitably. Don't assume that profit is valued over perpetuation.

* * * * *

How can you ever hope to produce something great when the way you conduct your business is so narrow-minded? We are looking for cogs, not people, and we will gladly numb your personhood into nothing if you yearn to be a cog, find your place, catch the same notch on another cog, again and again in increasingly arcane shades of meaninglessness. You will take consolation in HAVING BEEN OF SERVICE.

Sketch 1

2010-10-26T22:00:00.005-04:00

W- The face of the popular girl from high school, thirty years on. The eyes still have the girlish twinkle. There are some lines around them, but not many. Even in her late forties, she still has kept some of that spark about her. She wears skirts short enough to draw the eye and introduce a vague question involving dress codes and seemliness, one that fades. She tends to say 'blahblahblah' to quickly gloss over something that doesn't need to be pounded out in detail.

Her whole aspect is a double entendre, and begs another question of how to interpret her. Is she the attractive older woman who has held her power to turn people's heads? Or is she rather the desperate fortysomething who has, frighteningly, never changed? [Would I be considered an anti-feminist boor in some circles for the manner in which I pose these questions?—A separate question entirely, you will agree.]

[bracketed digressive interspersals doing anything for you?]

I saw a shock of gray emerging at her hairline yesterday and was struck by how well the dye had done its duty: I never once considered how old she must be. It was all I could do not to stare at it after that. Does she know that I have guessed at her secret? [A hint here at the secrets we all keep in plain sight and we think people don't notice. They must have, though, no?]

These questions I'm inclined to pose about her make her one of the only people in the department who is truly interesting on her own merits. What happened to her? How did some part of her become arrested in a stage of growth, before it was fully mature [I am presuming, but what is life without presumption?]? I can only hope that it is not one of the darker mysteries that is hinted at by the evidence. Assumption: she married young to a high-school sweetheart, felt trapped, but stayed in it, and acts out in barely perceptible ways to assert her lost freedom. And who says you can't judge your elders and postulate their life stories based on appearances and surface perceptions?

the beginning in the middle

2010-10-25T23:50:00.003-04:00

I wish I could just wrinkle my nose and furrow my brow, just so, acutely as I do, and make it go away. Famine in Niger that goes unnoticed, any thought of HER, and the legacy of fear in her wake in my life.
This is written not to memorialize my love and pain for HER. That would be to succumb to it, and that can no longer be tolerated. This is written to write HER out, drive HER away from the gates like the ragged horde before my vanquishing knights—words. It is not so simple as that, you may be certain. And yet, it has to be. It has to be spelled out, in black ink, on ruled white paper, in certain terms that leave no room for maneuver: NO MORE.

cars as brogues

2010-10-20T22:55:00.004-04:00

I surveyed the lot. 5:30 on a Wednesday, there was no doubt that R— would still be lurking in the office. Her car must be amongst the last picked-over remnants in the stew pot parking lot. Which one?

Consider the source. Micromanager, another one of those people who seems to have a work face they put on every morning, giving you the eerie feeling of talking to the face, not the person. There must be a car for her here, one that fits.

I saw it clear, like icy water in a steel sink: the Honda Accord nestled in a corner spot.

Moderate luxury without ostentation.
Modernity without hipness.
Practicality without ugliness.
Comfortably, tenaciously situated right in the middle.

That it was beige went without saying.

'give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgments'

2010-10-17T22:55:00.006-04:00

You will come to know all this, that Martin Cronin was a good man, not entirely without fault, but meek and honorable. That he could be hard-hearted at times is true, but this is immaterial to the question at hand. That he could often be short-tempered and petulant, none of his intimates would deny, but whom among us is fit to cast these stones at a poor man, departed as he is, and unable to speak on his own behalf? You, who so well know the measure of this man, will not presume to judge him for his acts. As events unfold, all will come to see that the charity dispatched to Cronin was not freely given, and was not without peril, and that his willingness to trust to strangers was to be his undoing.

an Allston hypothesis

2010-10-10T21:45:00.001-04:00

In response to a query from John B——

Interesting topic for sure. I don't really have any data about Allston, so whatever I say is based on anecdotal evidence. I found relations between the students and the other residents to be mostly harmonious, although there's definitely sort of a sense that actual human interaction is to be avoided. This is not really stated by anyone, but it's an unwritten rule. When you see people on the street who are maybe hispanic, brazilian, or older asian people, you both ignore each other mostly, I think. It's basically respectful, but you're really acting like the other person is not there. In that way there are two separate worlds. People don't mix too much. Each group has its own stores and its own gathering places. The places that the groups have in common are probably limited to liquor stores, fast food joints, thrift stores (sometimes), and some ethnic restaurants where students might interact with the mostly immigrant community.

It's also interesting that while the students are certainly better off financially in comparison to the immigrants, they are also mostly interested in living on the cheap. There's definitely a certain type of person who is drawn to the neighborhood, usually more thrifty types among students. This may be a large part of the appeal of Allston; it's relatively cheap for Boston, and by taking advantage of some of the institutions that the immigrant communities have brought with them (cheaper ethnic restaurants, laundries, and groceries) students can save money. I also think that the privileged type of person that you find at BU, for example, might consider living in Allston something of an adventure. It offers cheaper living, ethnic flavor, and something of an art and music scene, plenty of bars, without the dangerous, violent urban side that places like Roxbury and Dorchester have. It makes you feel like you're "slumming it" in relative safety. And if you ever get tired of Allston, there's also Brookline right nearby, which is comparatively white and affluent, and probably even safer than Allston.

I do think, though that a lot of the students (and to a lesser extent, the immigrant community) don't give any respect to Allston as a place, precisely because they are usually not long-term residents. They are more likely to leave trash on the streets, break bottles at random, and make noise at night, because they sort of don't consider Allston a real place. It's just a place where the poor immigrants live and where people go to party and temporarily live cheaply during their college years. It is not, in this mindset, deserving of respect; it's not a 'real' neighborhood. I'm sure that this is also partially because people often come to Allston to visit the bars, and so are intoxicated. This is unpleasant for people like me (and I imagine for older, long-term residents), who just want to live quietly, go to work, and occasionally enjoy some of the many restaurants.

I hope that helps you some. Let me know if I can provide any more information, or if you want me to expand on any of these points.

-Allan

I used to live in Pittsburgh, now I live in New York

2010-10-08T00:07:00.003-04:00

-What was that sickly sweet smell that flashed through the train car? I narrowed it down to blue cheese, bourbon, or my own sweat fermenting.

-Please notify a crew member if you plan to vomit at any time during today's trip. You will be swiftly dispatched.

-Bernard's bald head and teeth gleamed in the advertisement's photo, and seemed to welcome the inference that earning an MBA in Philadelphia would be safe for a black person.

-Gleaming against the murky dusk, the repair bays stretched efficiently into the middle distance.

ROYAL SONESTA

-Eternities spent in station stops were really only a minute or two, and the train bolted down the line so quickly that it had to slow to keep from reaching the line's terminus too early.

event horizon

2010-09-30T22:44:00.004-04:00

I could only hope to not be this good at worrying for the rest of my life.

"We have changed plans."

This strikes the ear funny, if you let it. Maybe we haven't changed our own plans, but inadvertently changed the plans of others by our unwitting actions. The words don't discriminate. Plans have been changed, though, by us. We have changed plans. Keep repeating it, it sounds absurd if you keep at it. We have changed plans. It could also be that we are now in possession of changed plans, as in We have changed plans. We've come to be in charge of them, who knows how. You hadn't considered these notions, had you?

"...so flowers, except in the common-noun sense (he knew birds liked them, as did bees), sent no message to Keith's blue eyes." -- Martin Amis

How clever

cryptic, now is it?

2010-09-29T22:41:00.006-04:00

Try as I might, I would be unable for some time to commit to a serious regime of verbal economies.
I had been warned that as a rule, one should beware of people who treated others according to a sliding scale of preference and status. A person wholly kind and honorable will treat everyone with kindness and honor, so this line of thinking went. Aren't we always, though, making exceptions to rules, for ourselves and for those we want to love? So I now saw her through this lens. That, and she was something of a fabulist. She only did it sometimes, I covered. Andrea is different, though. This assertion I have based entire worlds on, worlds. She really is genuinely nice. This could not be denied, either, for based on it were other worlds, presumptions, years of life tenderly lived in advance. These were not to be undone under any circumstances. She's not an airhead, she's substantial, unlikely to float away on an unfortunately timed thermal. This is no joke, either, I am not what's called an unreliable narrator. Self-deceit is for the birds.
I would say I was proud of being a good soldier for her, but that wasn't really the case; I didn't need to be the good soldier because I wasn't even thinking about it very much. She crossed the street, and looking back, smiled and waved again. Her smile is close to me, always.

with my ear to the ceiling

2010-09-28T21:19:00.004-04:00

/;.

first things first, always

dream a little dream of me

shouldn't i quit it with all the rhetorical questions?

the writer

over his shoulder gleamed the radically bald and goateed visage of trent dilfer, professional yes-man former pro athlete

as preston is my editor and my witness, i will not see this post through to its logical termination

not alone by choice, by myself only because i want to be

from her to eternity

Mass Bay 153, OK to go!

pewter pot

The audacity, really, of these train advertisements is what's appalling

intention

fatwa

it has none

lackluster

Mr. B— felt deep in his bones that Contador was a coward and Schleck had been wronged. His mind could never change on this point; it was as a closed book. This was his strength and greatest weakness: consistency.

....could only fumble at the expression "God helps them who help themselves."

cars shark-like, marauding more than driving...

I put all my books in a box

2010-09-26T19:07:00.001-04:00

if i could digress for a moment, and i will, how can you make a biopic about someone who's 26 years old, the facebook guy? he hasn't really lived long enough for us to judge whether his life has had meaning. plus, isn't it still entirely possible that facebook could end up being something of a fad, along the lines of say...myspace? i'm just saying, it's not like he's gandhi, he's a smarmy, opportunistic 26 year-old who happened to have a good idea. why the need to lionize him and analyze his life so much? perhaps i'm jealous because i'm 24 and i haven't invented facebook yet. nope, that's not it. i'm jealous that john updike got a story published in the new yorker when he was 22, but i wouldn't want to be this facebook guy.

[does anybody read these things?]

-allan

This Year's Model

2010-09-22T23:05:00.003-04:00

I feel crazy today, thought I should write it out

Last night I

drowned in a sea of tapioca and tequila

Usually do not feel scorn

Ashamed, unwed

Do not have a kinship with the job,

fall in love with a cubicle

The blown-out umbrella on a platform in Salem had aimed to break

my heart

but it had no claim after we

laid eyes on

stacked railroad ties

* * * * *

I loved her I love her I will love her I have loved her It's her I love I can't not love her I am loving her usually do not feel this way, maybe that's a lie, I tend to love, Allan forms strong attachments with people that is the hallmark of him. He has to love others and bring them close to exhale into their ears twenty years of talk love breath fear anger beauty. This specimen talks too freely it wants to captivate people and inflict on them its oversized useless brain.

People laugh as they please to, People all want to be writers, People know everything there is to be known child please

That you weren't wrong

2010-09-19T22:09:00.003-04:00

So if life is so hard, what makes it worth the while? It's the people, it must be. These people everywhere, I love them, they're imperfect and so worthy all the same, or because of it.

And how I missed her but then she would say these magic things that floated in and out and in my head. They were little things but that nothing was precious, it's trivial, but together these things accrete into everything that you have together, really a huge collection of tiny things. That's how I came to think of it, anyways.

I found it so funny that I could hang with them even on subjects that I didn't care about, or TV shows I hadn't watched in years. Could I help but interpret this as evidence of some kind of social intelligence now in my possession? It didn't used to be like this, high school was a long time that I don't remember three quarters of.

I was reading a Bret Easton Ellis novel, which I didn't understand at all. It was about people whose lives have become completely empty, and the flashes of human emotion that seep through into their days at the cracks. The emotions, when they're present, don't seem natural at all because the default state is a void. His next book was better by far, even considering the dark themes and the parts about people living empty lives, it felt warm and supple by comparison with the icy, nihilistic rigor of the first novel. Poor Bret, I'd have to say. It must be awful to even be able to write emptiness so realistically. I'd much rather not be able to write well about empty people. It might rub off if you're not careful.

in memoriam, fragments

2010-09-13T00:10:00.008-04:00

Memories, they define us. It hurts to think of having only memories left to us when someone is gone. It is a final state, defined against our will. It hurt me today to contemplate this love that can live only in the mind.

I hate sad songs, never knew this until now. They are a poor substitute for what we miss, a false comfort. They seem profound, but reveal themselves as charlatans on close inspection.

Tennyson:
"Forgive my grief for one removed,
Thy creature, whom I found so fair.
I trust he lives in thee,
and there I find him worthier to be loved."

Barthes:
"November 16th
Now, everywhere, in the street, the cafe, I see each individual under the aspect of ineluctably having-to-die, which is exactly what it means to be mortal. --And, no less obviously, I see them as not knowing this to be so."

Silence is my default mode, as it is everyone's. Why should this not be so? If there is nothing to say, silence prevails as part of a natural order.

RIP Tyler

Ecola

2010-09-06T11:20:00.001-04:00

This place is my birthright. If you could understand what it means to me . . .

Sometimes I try to understand everything at once

2010-09-06T00:39:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I try to understand everything at once:

Everyone else, to a man, was saying Good Luck, but I preferred to tell her Congratulations to be leaving that harried, always rushing place that took up so much of her life. Good Luck? An insult almost to her. I expect that she'll do good things; luck shouldn't have too much to do with her trajectory after she's gone from here.

* * * * *

My father became obsessed temporarily by the prospect of capturing the twin rocks as we saw them. It strikes me that they may have held a certain mystical taste of the past, to him.

* * * * *

Bad news for you: I got a twitter account. If I started saying the word 'tweet', though, it would feel like giving in. Twitter is entertaining. It gives me little doses of people whom I think are funny. Is this so frightening?

* * * * *

A full life, that's nice. If I come off disjointed, it might be on purpose, have you considered that? Do you answer these questions? I try not to bother, but I care just a little too much, you can tell.

* * * * *

Short on time, long on options. Shortfalls I fear are the ones that cut between you and I, but at least now it doesn't seem like there are many of those. Look at your picture and be happy, not regretting anything that has happened in the long stretch of time behind. Happiness doesn't come without peril, but I pray this is right, and I think it is.

Because the drum line's goin' wild in the San Francisco streets

2010-09-05T02:11:00.002-04:00

A swirling mess of elbows and backs, while you try to avoid seeing yourself in the mirror for fear of embarrassment on your own behalf. Strangely attractive people all over the crowded room, being somewhat self-consciously quirky.

The gentleman at the front likes to remind people periodically of the evening's title, "Soul-le-lu-jah", which is not as clever as he might have hoped upon further review. The music is loud and archaic and punchy, stunning. There is a crush by the end, and we emerged dazed to greet the fresh air.

à bientôt

2010-08-31T23:22:00.004-04:00

Moving is done. I was a little sad to leave that apartment, because I had moments of great joy there, lots of good memories. It will have a place in my heart going forward. Now the relief of being done moving will settle in, and I can move on to new targets for my ravenous pastime of needless worry. I'm half kidding here, but you get the point. It's nice to not have to think about moving anymore. There's a new job ahead, and a new place, and new friends, but I'll miss the way I lived this last year, it was fun. Good-by, Allston, see you around.

[note: I won't miss the Green Line, the noise from the bars and the bar-goers, the shoddy windows in my place, the disgusting floors, or the sirens on weekend nights]

Windwhistle sentences, Part Two

2010-08-31T22:57:00.002-04:00

*I had trimmed my beard in preparation for receiving visitors.

*His observed indifference to photography seemed callous at first.

*Michael wondered if they had yet marked the sound of his felt-tipped pen rasping against the page.

*It was unfair, now that she mentioned it, for him to have expected that the profession would be received in any other manner.

*The autumn was coming soon, the sweater season, and with it innumerable chilly days until the spring anniversary.

*He fingered his joints in mournful anticipation of the arthritis that was to come decades hence.

*The clips on the line continued to rap their senseless cadence against the flagpole long after the families had departed.

You set my soul alight

2010-08-31T14:23:00.001-04:00

-Moving in is like a burglary in reverse.

Clever, utterly devoid of meaning, or both? You be the judge.

Windwhistle sentences, Part One

2010-08-30T23:11:00.002-04:00

*Martin wished she had given advance notice of her visit, so that he could have made his expectations far too high to meet.

*The crown of the rock was encumbered by low clouds and a crowd of puffins.

*He took his frigid feet as a sign he had long overstayed his welcome in the shady nook.

*Caressed by the ever-present breeze, his feet carried him to places he could not have expected, even as he wished he had.

*The refrigerator laid ice cubes four at a time, and Mary grew tired of the private joke she replayed in her mind when they fell, clattering.

*He wondered fruitlessly if her claim that it was different this time around was only a feint, though he knew it to be genuine.

/\<>/\

2010-08-29T01:44:00.002-04:00

It feels good to be with your family. It's right.

It feels right to be good. It is good to be right. My friends across the aisle will agree it's good to be on the right when the shoe is on the other foot.

Doing the right thing isn't always easy, but it must be always right.

Do you see now how the squire tied himself in a knot?

The word love gets thrown around a lot at graduation.

Have high standards and they must be met, must.

Check potatoes, stir

2010-08-27T17:53:00.002-04:00

I left the truck running as we switched positions. So this is it.

Demure brown chairs stacked high in the back.

Don’t tempt fate by counting your chickens before their eggs are all hatched in one basket.

I couldn’t tell if I was smelling fresh bread baking or the celery-colored paint from last night.

That I have intuited things they couldn’t find out through hours of hard research.

I think it gives me comfort to know that I could always switch email clients. Even though I’m with Outlook now, I could easily change to Thunderbird, and that might make a big difference.

Dreams of domestic bliss, being cheeky about other people’s friends, private jokes with my lovely partner.

Gates of the Old City

2010-08-27T13:49:00.002-04:00

Tell me it's your broken faith now baby
Don't lie and say it's coffee you're makin'

Oregon is insanely beautiful

There exists a coffee called "Double French Roast"

My feelings have not changed

I'm still making up things to worry about