DC Tap Water

Hot days make you want to stay inside, where the air moves artificially. Crumbs on a plate. Audio is my favorite. Newspapers pile up during the week. A giant pot of beans benefits from the addition of corn. End tables can be moved easily. A sandwich in a box reminds me of you last night at dinner. An undefeated person should think about not playing anymore.

With the lights out

Power outage for 24 hours that had me thinking of dystopian fiction. What if we lived in a land of constant shortage? How would I provide for my unborn children? We're incredibly reliant on electricity. I counted myself accomplished just to make coffee this morning by the elementary step of pouring boiling water over grounds in a filter. This can't mean anything but that I'm coddled. Resolved: to find ways to decrease my reliance on cars and electricity, even in this suburban Maryland environment. I might have to become a pedestrian activist, or an activist pedestrian, or both.

Clear some space out so we can space out

I'm about to accuse myself of being insincere- would anyone like to defend me?

A bientot

She stood, not 6 feet away and leaned down and waved at him, smiling the brightest smile. Just saying goodnight, for the second time. It was a moment of untrammeled happiness. She smiled and waved and smiled more. He couldn't even see her without ducking beneath the roof of the car, and yet there she was, waiting for a reaction to her happiness.

Hello

He is happy. He is drinking coffee in the morning, or walking at lunchtime, or driving on long flat stretches of road at night. And happy and surrounded by love and light and warmth. Peace came on suddenly, with the knowledge that it was there all along and could be found again.

In our post-industrial Western democracy,

Cooking as career seems counter-intuitive. Too much striving and slaving for something that ought to be magical and exciting. To prove my point, I'm making curry while I write this post. To wit, I already made rice pilaf this evening. It was simple, enjoyable, and gave me the thrill of the chemistry experiment I never knew how to do. Why beat all the fun out of that activity? This will have to be one of the places where I stand on simplicity.

And would you like me if I stayed forever young?

What do you call a Nikon that has trouble getting coverage in the mainstream media?
-Camera Obscura

Herman Cain and Abel - Am I to be my Godfather's Pizza deliveryman?

What's the difference between Mitt Romney and a silverback gorilla?
-While they look exactly the same, the gorilla enjoys the respect of his peers

So they did a study recently to see if membership in the British Royal Family was statistically related to higher intelligence levels. Turns out the researchers were foiled by that time-honored maxim known to Psych 101 students everywhere: Coronation does not equal causation

I heard that Manchester City is thinking of splitting up its famous Togolese sibling midfield partnership (the Toures). They thought they had a transfer done in August, but all the pundits said it would be like sending Kolo to Newcastle

I heard that Facebook has a new avian mascot. Yeah, they're calling it the Mark Zuckerbird. So...I don't know what that's all about

When I feel like a juggler runnin' out of hands

It will be written down on a piece of paper and shuffled on a desk, meaningfully shuffled, but shuffled, forgotten except in case of a persistent person who needs something from you. She will shuffle too, to the kitchen for a quick 30 minutes. Something in us that abhors work, so we feel entitled not to do it, even while they're paying us to be here. American workers, too smart for their own jobs. Fixing, scheming, faintly conniving always to get a little bit ahead. Of themselves, really. But what would be the fun in doing something you're perfectly well qualified for, or never lying a little about what you're able to do? I have told happy, ambitious lies to employers, or tried to get them to let me do so. I have made myself out to be a fully qualified professional copyeditor. I have overstated, drawn false analogies, and talked past my inadequacies. I'm no better than anyone else.

A more precise view of who the Santorum voter is

-French electronic music duo Justice
-Nat'l Fed. of Independent Bus. v. Sebelius
-Samuel Eliot Morison
-Beautifully overlapping styles of N. Krauss and J.S. Foer, spouses and novelists
-Confidence that wearing a vest affords
-Book club snobs
-Possibly overpaid community college professors
-"There's panic on the streets of Carlisle, Dublin, Dundee, Humberside."
-Quietest place in the house, a tiny back bathroom with one small window
-Circular tables are conducive to camaraderie
-Can one be coerced into commerce, constitutionally?
-SONG 1 at the Hirshhorn
-When someone says "Boo" to something, say, "Are you a ghost?"
-Supply of books is outpacing demand
-I only have eyes for you
-Doctor Faustus, A Novel by Thomas Mann
-Weekly church attendees