My brain hurt like a warehouse

Let's shut down the shutdown! Am I right, people? This is clearly not working. Our legislators have lost all purchase on the national interest. What the country needs, not pandering to what the country wants. It burns me up, so that I have to start ignoring the news. There's never any hope any more. No hope of good governance. No hope of real change. Not anything that you can use to fuel yourself with. What keeps us going? The pursuit of cash. Is that all there is? A crass, advertising-driven profit society? I am so disappointed.

Il est trop tard (This post is mobile friendly)

The beautiful Georges Moustaki wrote:

Mon enfant ceci loin
Il est deja demain
passe passe le temps
Il n'y en a plus pour tres longs temps

Pourtant je vis toujours
Pourtant je fais l'amour
M'arrive meme de chanter
Sur ma guitar

Tu etais si jolie
Je suis seul dans mon lit
Passe passe le temps
Il n'y en a plus pour tres longs temps

I couldn't have said it better myself. Nor could I have conjugated those verbs without assistance. Well played, Georges. Here's the link.

This old town's filled with sin

Overheard:

Person 1: Yeah, it's funny, if you ask for something they give it to you!
Person 2: That's all this town is!

This town? What are you, Mark Leibovich?

All lined up

Family is the greatest blessing of all. We are able to be together, all together, several times a year. It feels so good to savor this time, to relax and recreate with my family. To forge stronger bonds that will last throughout the year. It feels good to be home. I feel surrounded by love, boundless love. Cats, food, games, good talks, walks, movies, cookies- these things I cherish and give thanks for.

Look how you are all enjoying it!

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.

Due at signing

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.

apologia

-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.

the beginning in the middle

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.

I put all my books in a box

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

Windwhistle sentences, Part Two

*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.

Everyday I Write the Book

This is a beginning, not an end

This is not an exit, it's an entrance

This is my life, and I have the power to make it what I want it to be


"The way you walk
The way you talk, and try to kiss me, and laugh
In four or five paragraphs
All your compliments and your cutting remarks
Are captured here in my quotation marks"
-Elvis Costello

Am I asleep or awake?

It's beautiful today.

It's OK to cry.

It's wonderful when you're here.

It's a crime to forget these lovely things I've known.

It's a letter you ought to write, to let someone know you're thinking of them.

It's your life.

It's worth it, and worth fighting for.

Eyes of an angel

I like to lose myself in these pop songs and little poems. Remember what it feels like to be lost? Pour yourself into something bigger; that's dangerous, you might get swallowed up in another. Forget who you were when you started. Isn't that everything we do? Give ourselves away to get someone's self back in return.