You've got a right/ but I've got a right tonight
Excessive interneting has lead to an apparent zero tolerance policy on behalf of the ye old workplace. The leering “Know Your Employers’ Internet Policy” poster hanging by my desk for months went unnoticed, and so did the literature placed strategically around the break room. Now they have blocked my computer in what can only be viewed as some harsh Draconian consideration, clicking on a favorite website and receiving the message, in harshly defined block print. Meanwhile I have taken to pencil and paper, feverishly scrawling on a notepad; let them lock away my supplies and then what?? (You cannot take away my pencil and paper! I want to shout obnoxiously in earshot of the internet patrol team—a division that I have yet to pinpoint, but when I do will be met with swift action and icy looks). It’s weird, though, writing by hand, which is limited primarily to correspondence with a pen pal who never writes back. It’s like some kind of technological artifact from the dark ages. Your hand isn’t accustomed to this variety of strenuous activity, developing a dull ache between your thumb and forefinger. It’s kind of nice, though, too, at the same time, like unearthing your bicycle from a garbage strewn crawl space and realizing you can still pedal like a motherfucker. Sitting before a computer for hours on end has a dull, pacifying effect which has you mouth-breathing and on the verge of entirely differnet platitudes. Just today KJ was choking on a piece of food, and I watched on as though I were dreaming an unreal dreamw while various coworkers tried their hand at some variety of the Heimlich. At least four different people came up from behind her as pandemonium broke out in the office, people scattering everywhere. And all I could do was sit there, watching on as the translucent line which separates living and dying became boldened, and then perfectly defined, like the scrawling of somebody with a CAD variety number 2 pencil.

I don’t smoke so I poke around
Coworker watch ’07: while nobody knows exactly who the four foot miscreant eating Mr. Subb in the break room is, or precisely what he does here, numerous people have seen him washing his face in the same break room sink, tiny hand towel particles stuck all over the countertop. Often times on getting coffee you will perchance to spy his particularly grime stricken countenance as he proceeds to scrub away with nonchalance, as though he’s not actually using the break room as his own personal grub shoppe. One might be moved to wonder if the pygmy hut he resides in does not contain the accompanying outhouse, with washroom amenities. Or if whatever back breaking nine to five schedule he works here does not allow the more traditional home-based personal hygiene measures. But whatever the case, it is freaking me and KJ out. An additional item on his agenda, apparently, is eating all of the Pop Tarts in the thrifty vend, as he seems always to have a half-eaten pop tart in his hands, which may just explain the incessant hand washing. Often times on looking in there, I ask myself just who eats this stuff, and the answer lies front and center, in the groveling hands of the four foot beholder. Although, sometimes the table he’s sitting at may include any number of items from the machine, and often times several at once. One more pastime and affront to the general sensibilities includes almost continuously hanging out with the jerry curled woman, and incessantly hanging around in the bathroom, as nearly 75% of the time I go in there, I will see him lazily hanging around in the corner (in some admirable late day appropriation of the Fonz--office portal as unofficial business/ rec-room). While many facts remain uncertain, one thing’s for sure and that is that there’s a lot of information to be ascertained, a lot of work to be done. And the weird thing is, I’m pretty much sure that we’re representing the same temp agency. Which could just be conversational fodder, and introductions to entire worlds unknown.

I look through transparent things and I feel OK
I have reached the end of the walkway this morning when I hear my oft-appearing neighbor David calling from the doorway of his home. “Hey!!” I hear someone saying, as I look around to see. “Over here!!!” I turn back and am astonished to see him on the porch in full sleepwear regalia, telling me to have a good day. His voice resonates for everyone within a five mile radius to hear. It’s some curious mélange of Kermit the Frog and someone with a severe case of dementia, and there really just is no way to sufficiently respond. I raise my hand firmly aloft, signaling to him from the street, a gesture which is intended to imply that I have received his transmission, and am returning that same well wishing, with earnest and sincerity. And then in one swift motion he disappears behind closed doors again, vanishing within the entryway of the home, to do who knows what.

I am at work, having arrived this morning with the over exuberance of someone whose eaten a large breakfast. The sugar of Cap’n Crunch cereal coagulates somewhere in the intestine and disperses to more or less obnoxious behavior patterns. Already today I have discussed the program Wifeswap with a coworker, talked over the perils of drinking exorbitant amounts the night before a coworker’s liver exam, and have been told that I’m stupid for the one hundredth time by one KJ, who resides in a neighboring cubicle. More and more now, she does this, and I never can tell if she’s being serious. It seems at once to denote endearment and derision, and confusing things further is that she’s never consistent. Just a while ago, for instance, I was telling her how to maximize free time away from work, which has something to do with doing the exact opposite of what you normally be doing at work, which is sitting under neon lighting and sitting before a computer. It’s particularly liberating, I explained, because we process dog licenses, and what could be more demoralizing than that? She processed this information, thinking it over a moment before having no apparent idea what I was talking about, and then issued forth, predictably, “Boy: you’re so STUPID.” And either way, really.

I don't make no jokes about bombs or guns because they take them seriously
ONE day off from work, and no idea what to do with myself. I am not a creative person and left to my own devices turn inward and grim-seeming. Last night L. Trela told me that I seem to be declining steadily and firmly, and this point is reiterated by a two-day old friend who makes fun of my hair. “Being unkempt is one thing,” she said, “but this is something else entirely.” And it’s all true: if the outward appearance is some signal of what is happening on a more cognitive level, everything’s a mess. I walk around with a mountain man shirt on all day and the accompanying sense of ennui. There’s no solid deduction that I could offer you, no firm answers which wouldn’t crumble under tenuous footing. I need some sort of vacation, I think, but I don’t really like to travel.

A couple of months ago Adam Lynch and I inexplicably attempted to lie our way into Canada, en route to Montreal. The whole idea being that we appear to be sketchy terrorists and it would circumvent the whole interrogation process if we said we were going to visit a friend, totally unprepared for the interrogation which would follow when we did in fact deliver this excuse. Two oversized Canadian officials produced and searched the car, holding up a bottle of half-empty whiskey before wanting to know the address and phone number of our imaginary friend. Adam stammered a bit before producing a phony contact number and then proceeded to turn an almost sallow color that skin is wont to produce. We talked over the myriad possibilities in the hard chairs of the border waiting room, the actual telephone number of the person he had just given, the confusion it would elicit, and the grim shadowy descending these answers produced. The border patrol person returned moments later, with the grim determination of finding out our real business in Canada, which is blowing up buildings and destroying landmarks. We noted the handcuffs and gun as we stammered to find something to say. He fixed on us boldly, before asking something more typical of third grade classrooms. “Do you know what happens to liars?” he asked rhetorically. Oh dear god, we thought, are we going to be taken away and locked up under some obscure Canadian law? We paused a bit, thinking of the possibilities before he issued forth an answer. “THEY GET SENT BACK TO THE USA,” he said, pointing at the prominently displayed USA sign, with the little U-turn symbol that is the international symbol, apparently, for you just fucked up the whole trip. I snickered uncontrollably in full earshot of the patrolman, and then we turned the car around and headed back across the imaginary line, with the clear and articulate direction of the sign. And so some things you just can’t escape, it seems.

At the gate I said goodnight to the fortuneteller
Sporadic and cagey energy from being snowed indoors, watching as the street adorning autos are snowed over, inch by inch, before disappearing completely from sight. I have a new pair of headphones that I listen to continuously, carrying my listening device around the apartment in a tightly sealed vacuum of caterwauling guitars and violent noise. It’s kind of a pleasant effect. My roommate is at work and aside from an occasional phone call, I haven’t had sufficient contact with anyone for what seems like several days, sauntering from kitchen to bedroom and back again. When you can’t hear yourself, and even your own thought process seems inordinately blocked, you begin to question whether or not you actually even exist. In the absence of mirrors you forget your face, and the same seems true of audible sound, as you find yourself disappearing altogether. Strange thoughts begin skittering across your head. And when you’ve reached the bounds of acceptable thought process, you go outside and shovel the walkway, because there’s nothing better to do, and it seems like a swift strategic maneuver, if only for the sake of sanity.

Out of doors is a nightmare of the panoramic landscape. Everywhere are people frantically shoveling snow in the attempt to unearth their cars before the plow comes back around again. Street teams have assembled to dislodge motorists who have gotten stuck, and a police office stops to help an older couple. It lends an almost pleasant air to the disaster of the storm, watching the community come together like this. Momentarily I find even myself joining in the effort, shoveling some gaggle of frat kids out of the street corner. I work diligently, taking away the snow, before pushing at the car from behind. The wheels spin, with the smooth whirring sound of the rutted tire, before the car becomes free, and as it does spraying me in the brown cumulus that is the street snow. God damn, I say under my breath, as the car disappears without as much as a wave of thanks. Those bastards, I curse indignantly. Fuck all this, I realize, before returning indoors, where the soundtrack to forgetting and being forgotten is angular, and somewhat Slinty.

The church is filled with losers psycho or confused
The breakfast cereal that I eat, with the rather nondescript packaging, now features indie-rockers on the box. I make this discovery at 8:00 am, as I crunch whole grains. The indie-rockers are taking over the world. And there’s nothing they won’t try to sell you anymore without some vaguely familiar song etching its way into your subconscious. I rustle around in the box a little looking for the new Shins’ cd, but all I find is an insipid fistful of protein twigs (sic).

A couple of weeks ago I told A. that I’m going to start listening exclusively to Norwegian dark metal, a proclamation that has sadly fallen by the wayside. Norwegian metal is where it’s at, I told him enthusiastically. It’s like a cleansing of the pallet. And do I ever need some cleansing. The only question now is which breakfast cereal to eat. Although, that seems easy, too: Capn’ Crunch, which could easily be the name of some Nordic Metal band, and in all probability is.

Everybody say whoop-di-doo
New York City in a flash, dressed down in every article of clothing imaginable, as you run from train to the venue and back again. And as always, the completely arbitrary left hand turn into the best restaurant you’ve eaten at in weeks, since the last time you were here. I keep thinking I should move to New York, and then all I can think of is getting squashed like a bug. There’s something inherent about the getting squashed that just nixes the idea altogether.

At the show two NYU students from Middletown, New York cornered me and began asking me questions of all manner of intensity and inquisitiveness. Where are you from? What do you do? What are your goals in life? I found the whole interrogation rather disconcerting, I have to say, and they turned away with at least some slight hint of chagrin.

Jagged brain slow refrain
My coworkers are talking about reality programming and I’m telling them how I should be the next bachelor on TV. “You totally should,” my coworker Melissa tells me, “You’re way better than that prince guy.” But I just don’t know: the last person to demonstrate some romantic interest in me, I ran away from, literally. I forget the exact dynamics of that conversation, but I remember specifically jogging away. I’m like some kind of inverse bachelor, with a built-in repellant mechanism, intentionally keeping people away, like mosquitoes. Although, there are always people who just end up misinterpreting the signal, the transmission showing up with some entirely different code. Some girl I see at the gym jumps on the treadmill next to me last night. It’s weird to talk to someone after seeing them around for so long. You end up developing all of these theories about them, tangling them up in all types of unfair preconceptions which they invariably break down, for better or worse. “Hey, what’s up?” I ask her. “Oh, nothing,” she tells me. Right…I trail off. And then, despite my wholehearted attempts at articulating what a horrible human being I am, and how I should be swept off the earth in some great cleansing flood, there is the invitation to, among all things, a hockey game. I stammer, looking for an answer which will absolve me, before coming up with something along the lines of, “I’m not really into sports, is the thing.” An answer which, at best, presents with a whole lot of transparency. But the whole thing is, since I’m already on the treadmill, I can’t run away.

Everybody meet Mr. Me Too
I have had a run in with the retarded neighbor. For months I could hear an incomprehensible yelling while washing my face, and I had imagined that the neighbors were harboring some Goonies, Sloth-style monster in there, all barred and caged in their living room. One day, I had imagined, I would come home from work and a mad person would dash by me, followed by a throng of torch-wielding men (an illusion which may just be facilitated by the elephantine man I see stumbling up Washington by the university on my way home from work everyday, an experience which no passerby fully covets. His face appears caved and deformed as he shambles up the road like a drunk person. I have conferred with several other people, and it seems to be the general consensus that it is the most cage-rattling, horror inducing experience one can have, driving down the road in the midday, second only to roadside explosions and ten car pile-ups). My neighbor shows by far more innocuously, making his way up the pathway as I’m coming home one evening. I give him a general nod, never having seen him before. But palpable alarm bells of warning emerge when he sees me going down the alleyway which separates our houses, to retrieve the garbage. It is this solitary act which separates me from a random visitor he has never seen before to the more sketchy-seeming burglar that I appear to be—imagery provided by the emboldened notions of Good and Evil engrained somewhere along the way. “HEY!!” he says in audible arena rock concert volume, “WHO ARE YOU?? WHERE ARE YOU GOING??” I wonder momentarily what will happen if I’m unable to sufficiently explain, but the situation is quickly diffused when I tell him that I live here now, and then receive the spontaneous weather report at top volume. “AT THIS TIME LAST YEAR IT WAS SNOWING!!!” he says. “AND ON EASTER ONE TIME, TOO!!” Hmm, yes, I tell him: maybe it did snow on Easter one year. He’s into the weather. And so we have one thing in common, at least.

It’s all slate grey and snowing today, the way a bad day should be.

He walks like his legs are broken and he talks like he’s never spoken
State employees are all a-gripe today after governor elect Eliot Spitzer failed to reward them with a day off for the death of President Ford. “Aw, man,” my coworker Joy intoned loudly, having heard the radio report on Friday. “I knew I shouldn’t have voted for Spitzer. That JERK.” Meanwhile, federal employees have procured an additional day off, extending the New Year’s holiday for one more day. News reports of Gerald Ford’s death were followed by the hilarity-producing descriptions of his mediocrity and the accompanying footage of how clumsy he was, the BBC providing you with a montage of Ford falling down the stairs of Air Force One, and random other acts of clumsiness. As an additional coup to his tenuous legacy, the BBC then showed the Saturday Night Live clip of Chevy Chase falling over his desk and onto the ground, in some slapstick portrayal of the late president. “That just goes to show you,” I told A., “no matter what you do you will always be remembered for the ways you mess up.” The video clips articulate this perfectly, and the nightly new ingrains this in the national consciousness indelibly. And the state employees are just way less forgiving, I can assure you. As I write this, my coworker Joy is intoning small curse words under her breath as she date stamps the wrong document.

It is a new year. I woke up in bed New Year’s morning with the vague feeling of chagrin as I remembered the events of the night before, and then tried to forget. When the clock struck 12:00, I got up, passing some girl in the kitchen, and retired to my room to vomit in a garbage bag. It seems like a particularly sordid way of bringing in the new year. And it seemed to imbue a sickly sense of things to come. Future outlook: le bad. It’s nothing presidential, though, I guess. But I could have used another day off.

5 movie marathon/ nine times the same song
Presents given and received: one pair of L.L. Bean slippers (Green); 1 Sylvania brand 20” Flat Screen Television; 2 Bottles of Jack Daniels, with initialed flask (thanks, L. Trela); Sony MDR-EX51LP Headphones; H&M gift card; 5 scratch off Lottery tickets (all losers); 1 notebook; Phillips brand DVD player; fancy magnets; 1 Borders gift card; travel mug; 1 Hannaford gift card; 1 Valvoline Oil Change gift card; 1 Deerhoof ticket for Irving Plaza; 1 pack of Orbit Wintermint Gum; One mixed-tape, featuring The Blow; Flaming Lips The Fearless Freaks DVD; iTrip; 2 Pairs of Thorlo brand running socks; Little Miss Sunshine DVD; Target gift card; 1 Olive Garden Gift Card (regift); 1 Cars movie blanket; cash, food, and various household accoutrements.

Christmas ended up being pretty rad this year. I went out to dinner with my parents on Christmas Eve and discovered that I’m still prone to bouts of junior high school variety embarrassment while hanging out with the parental units. Some things never go. Although it may have something to do with my father’s inexplicable outfit choices and his penchant for obnoxiously critiquing the meal in fine detail when asked how he likes it (which begs the question: which is more of a faux-pas, the pleated pants or the restaurant review? And even further, is my own scathing review of my father’s review just some inherent character flaw, floating around in the Kemp family gene pool, waiting to be passed on to further generations of now non-existent Kemp family lineage?). But mostly it’s a good time. The family unit is more conceptually akin to a banged up car that doesn’t really look too sweet but still gets you around OK. And it’s the getting around that can be a good thing.

Kari Ann made breakfast the next day while I just sat there. It’s the spirit of giving, I told her, which really makes the holiday season. And so that’s why I’m just sitting here, being so generous to you. “Well, you should get more into the holiday spirit,” she chided me, which is a point that rings true with bells of validation. And so I set the table, which is not much. But it’s something, at least.

Christmas in a submarine
My coworkers are huddled around a computer monitor when I come in to work this morning, looking at the latest gaming systems on the internet. This is the great diversion in an endless system of diversions. Which one is best, they want to know, but I have no idea. I don’t play games, I tell them. I don’t do anything, really. My life is more like an endless hustle through a monotonous maze of banality and meaninglessness. I don’t tell them this, but they deduce enough from my mood, I’m sure.

I finished my Christmas shopping last night, with the dexterity which seems to characterize success for me. The main objective, I have gathered, is to make it out of the store before the neon lighting imparts the state of confusion that has you making illogical choices and buying things they sell to you on late night tv. And so I have economized my time spent among the masses, mirthfully wrangling a parking spot from the old guy with a clenched jaw. Ha! I want to shout out at him. You suck.

Getting back to the house, I flop down on the couch and deliver to my roommate what is apparently my sense of holiday cheer. Fuck Christmas, I tell him. It really is so gross. And you always end up getting the wrong things for people, as they in turn give you items evocative of laughing out loud. “Well, what do you want?” he asks me. Oh, dear god, I think to myself. I don’t really know. Intangible things, mostly: a kiss on the mouth, a piece of mind. I try and think of an answer that doesn’t verge on making me look totally pathetic. I can’t really come up with anything. But it occurs to me now that I should ask for a gaming system.

So stuck up/ I wish you’d to stick it to me

Three things that happened this weekend, in no particular order:

Some girl at the Palais Royale enacted a top rope Superfly Snooka wrestling move, jumping from the pool table onto our head, crumpling our form all together and imparting some sort of cranial injury to our already cracked and world weary head. For some strange reason we have taken to furthering such acts of debauchery, and goaded her on to further jumping on people, calling out some complicated chant from the chair she was standing on before plummeting on the unfortunate victim below. When asked by a patron why she was engaging in such perilous behaviors, she supped from her drink and encouraged them to do the same, which we did.

Having exhausted the entertainment value in sending some girl over the edge, we departed for some other den of ill repute. What at first seemed like a rather childish waste of time at the ye old watering hole number 1 actually turned out to be time well spent, as we narrowly avoided being shot in a drive by shooting on the walk to the Fuze Box. Clearly, had we left moments earlier, we may have been victims in a rather senseless act of transgression which had the whole block crossed off and three victims sent to the hospital. It seemed to cast a bad light on an already sketchy night, and defeat seemed imminent. However, once inside all was quickly forgotten. And it’s funny how one minute you can be contemplating the crushing nature of death and the grim imminence with which you will likely be crushed like a bug, and the next moment all logistical consideration is thrown out the window as you enact insane dance moves on the dance floor. We will admit: we are new to dancing and so do not understand the prevailing etiquette with which this ritual is situated on, and so were pretty psyched to be able to just kick it to you right there on the dance floor. It’s the whole Less Talk, More Rock tenant we were supporting, presumably, and we will continue to do so vigorously, as long as you, uh, don't feel like talking to us.

Saturday, at some thrift in Suburban Place Point 2000: a 5 year-old girl in a Salvation Army seized on us and offered up what is apparently her sizable dismissal of the male gender. “Eww,” she said, “You’re a boy.” This precipitated an impressive demonstration of her ability to count to nine, brashly standing at our feet and doing this repetitively, over and over (and later, some guy who was apparently her dad spontaneously tackling her older sister, much to the consternation of everyone in sight. “I’ll always be bigger than you,” he remarked, picking the girl off of the floor. “So don’t you forget it.” Clearly this person missed his calling in the NYPD.) It's a scary time, sometimes. But such are the perils of locating sweet pants.

I had trouble getting started from a shell
Our work production has come to resemble a turtle and the hare scenario, whereby we kick ass and complete a good portion of work in the morning, and then look at the Inter-Web all day, only to realize, with ten minutes to go, that we did not do enough work that day. As per the general sentiment around these parts, however, nobody really seems to give a fuck, and that’s nice. Because if they did, we suspect a greater part of the workforce would be fired tomorrow.

Today we have unearthed a particularly brine-bestowing piece of sediment which manifests as Albany crit, and we are all over that. Check out the Parenthetical Girls' website, which features Albany architecture reviews and audience member critique (we were at this show, and we can assure you: Johnny Neon, the video camera wielding, spiked-hair entrepreneur, was an audience member like no other. Several times throughout the night we heard audience members say, get that guy away from me). When you’re done with that, The Unicorn’s Tear gives Albany a two thumbs down, which makes us laugh and laugh. Can you imagine hurtling forth in your over loaded van, packed down with gear, only to arrive at ye old capital, to find the human detritus of New Scotland Avenue asking you for change. It seems pretty bad, and we can attest that it actually is. One of the blogspot’s favorite possessions is a T-shirt which contains the message, Albany is Eggcellent. And thus we reveal to you, further perceptions of its Eggcellence.

You're in a cut up world with the goodbye girls
Monday morning, the building looms large against the palatial backdrop of doom and despair. The woman entering before me holds the door. “Oh, I just hate Mondays,” she says dramatically. It seems like such an obvious suggestion that I have no idea how to respond and can only agree that, yes, Mondays are a real blower. Although, from another point of view, it could be Monday morning in Rwanda, in which case you’re infinitely worse off. Or: alternately, you could be in the rock group documentary that we watched last night, getting harangued by reporters. “I could never deal with that sort of treatment,” A. says. But I could deal with that sort of treatment a lot easier than I could deal with my actual job, I say. And so Monday morning, I guess, from converging points of view. I try and take the high moral ground, imbuing some kind of good, and mostly i suck at guitar.

Pizza at L. Trela’s last night. “Could I get a cup of coffee?” I want to know, just as she’s about to serve dinner. I then spend the next 20 minutes complaining about how slow the coffee pot is, and how my own coffee maker is infinitely superior. “You know, you really do suck,” she says to me. And it’s true: I’m not a very good house guest. All I can demonstrate is a bad posture, a really bad form. After dinner, I outrageously suggest that everybody retires to the other room to watch reruns of the show Growing Pains, and am promptly thrown out of the house. But somehow I keep getting invited back, and keep eating everything in sight. Thank you, L. Trela: you are a good person. The world needs more people like you.

Later I tried to call back all of the people I’ve been meaning to call back. But mostly, nobody seemed to be at home. The no answer situation lead me to contemplate all of my past behaviors, and how I could have been better. But in the end I conspired a theory that some disaster had occurred out in the world, some calamitous event, and that’s what was preoccupying everybody. It’s probably not true, but it’s best to stay positive.

Killing with flange and with tape and with Hendrix
Hey: you know what’s annoying? When you’re on the bus or train, or wherever it is you see the masses hanging around in transit with their iPods on, and you actually see someone rocking out, doing a little drum routine on their lap as they listen to the latest Nickelback song. It’s a sad little demonstration of self, we are prompted to conclude, like putting bumper stickers on your car, and it makes us at the blogspot want to punch you right in the face. The only real exception to this rule, however, is if you happen to be us, in which case you’re veritably burning calories at your desk doing these same things, toe-tapping like a motherfucker, and only resembling someone with a severe case of mental retardation. One of my coworkers turns to me today and says, “You’ve had too much coffee again.” And the answer is an obligatory, Yes, we have, practically shredding the adrenal glands in the process. And it’s kind of sad to admit, here at the unambiguous age of Adulthood, that really, we just want to rock.

I got stuck in Goshen and that was sad
Drinks in Schodack, New York, because it’s my friend’s sister’s birthday and she works out there. Where are we? I want to know. I’ve never been out this far before, I say, like we’re encroaching the outer boundaries of some undiscovered territory, like they do it in A Space Odyssey. And we really are. It always suprises me that places like this exist, and that’s not to posit the fact that Albany, New York is the most exciting place on the face of the planet, but it’s potentially better than watching a bunch of bravado stricken men talk about running their pickup trucks into a ditch. “This place is kind of the end-of-the-line,” I offer, surveying the bar. “It’s like that scene in the movie where the character realizes he has failed and things are over, and that nothing is going to work out how he planned it.” More and more now, I find myself saying things like this, which to me seems very hilarilous, while all of the while occuring to other people as some great offense. Although, it occurs to me too, that maybe I’m just hanging out in the wrong places.

/ D Bm C - / / / Bm C D - /

At some point everybody disappears to smoke cigarettes in the frigid weather, as I sit listlessly at the bar and contemplate the life of the bartender. She knows everybody here, and I end up constructing a life for her in my head, which is fairly depressing. She dreams of bigger things, maybe, and what life would be like outside of this horrible bar. And then, through the din, a song by the classic rock machine Journey comes on. The opening chords sound and then the lyrics: “When the lights go down in the city/ and the sun shines on the bay/ I want to be there”. It seems almost inexplicable that somebody would play this song right at this moment, and I don’t know whether it’s my general sense of confusion over this song being played or the fact that I just don’t want to understand the implications of it which has me utter, “—What is this?” when what I was really conjecturing is, who would play this song in a place like this? The bartender comes around, and with equal parts indignance, delivers an answer to me: “It’s Journey,” she says, “Everybody knows that.”

A kid who tells on another kid is a dead kid
No revelations to report on today. But it’s not even 9:00 am, and so you have to keep an open mind. The only half-way coherent thought skittering across the cantaloupe cranium of my brain comes at around 8:00 am today, as I watch the local news and think to myself, these people are total chumps. They seem to affect the strangest affectations, coming across as some parody of what they believe normality to be, and it freaks you out. A couple of years ago, I remember reading about how CNN was thinking of introducing Ebonics into their newscasts, getting their lead anchors to drop slang to spice up the evening news. And it kind of makes you wonder. But in hindsight they may have just been underestimating the president and his penchant for international debacle, making watching the nightly news as entertaining as your favorite sitcom, with more of an apocalyptic bent. Because, can it get any worse (the president is currently en route to the USA after the puppet elected Iraqi prime minister ducked out on meeting with him, basically, because he didn’t feel like it)?

On my way in to work this morning, I drove by the Christian Brothers Academy, like I always do. It’s basically some kind of training center for future Abu Ghraib war criminals, from what I could gather, and they do this flag raising ceremony out in front of the school. What this features is 3 younger-looking kids lackadaisically standing around the flagpole as one of the older students shows them how to raise the flag. And I always note as I drive by the unambiguous distraction I must be in their very important proceedings, cruising in to work ten minutes late, with NOU blasting from my car stereo. What if one of these kids were to ascertain a copy of 13-Point Program to Destroy America? Would years of military training unravel instantaneously? Would they show up the next day with a now-altered uniform, the arms cut off to reveal the scars of a new tattoo? It seems unlikely to me, but you never know. And you have to leave room for revelations, of which there is just no lack of in this landscape.

I only meant half the things I said in the end
Hanging out with Melissa, the downstairs neighbor, and looking on as her three-year old son Lucas runs around the apartment. This is his main method of transportation, as he darts from one end of the apartment to the other, stopping long enough to deliver some random fact to us about the cartoon he is watching. We marvel at his energy, and it kind of begs the question: at what crucial point do you stop sprinting and begin the more lackluster trudge from one place to another? I don’t really know, but it’s sometime, somewhere along the way. Or is it just that the distances increase, forcing you to chose different methods of transport? He sprints into the kitchen one more time, accompanied by the sound of a steam train, whoo, whoo. “Mommy, this is Ryan,” he says two times in a row, pointing at me. “This is Ryan.” “I know,” she says back to him, “I realize that.”

It has been a pretty good week, in retrospect. Old man Vonnegut says that you should point out the good when it’s there to be pointed out, and so it seems right to do so. It’s just that it’s easy to forget against the vast tapestry of bad. But sometimes the cosmos align in your favor, and you can’t help but point out how rad everything feels, if only for a fleeting moment.

Last night I could hear A. playing “Bach’s Six Suites” on guitar in his room. It’s all high to low, and perfectly melodic. And I’ve never heard a song draw such an exact in between before, simultaneously making you want to cry and not cry. And I had the feeling, just before sleep, that everything was going to be filled with radiance and sunburst potential if you would only let it.

20 darts into your backs
You really just have to appreciate Joy’s outfit today: she is wearing a T-shirt, with some haphazard blue swirling print, which contains the message, Land of Liberty. It seems almost hilarity invoking as she sits there, slumped over on her desk, reading True Romance Magazine. The worker who distains work, and flat-out refuses. Where else on the planet could you be employed to do this? You really just have to love the public sector, with its collective distain and lurid scowls, walking by my window all day.

I have just returned from a 30-minute lunch break, which I very explicably stretch into an hour-long break, messing around on the computer and wolfing down a sandwich. My grandmother’s house is right down the road and so I can go over there and make lunch and then leave again. I actually find myself fist pumping today when I notice her car is not in the garage, and am alarmed by this same reaction. After about 20-minutes, as I’m preparing to go, leaving behind a literal bread crumb trail of what is my apparent lunch-making experience, she comes through the door. “—Oh, you would never believe,” she starts in, no introductions, as usual. It makes you feel inanimate and not there, always being talked at like this. But then maybe I’m just uptight, always needing some kind of formality. Why not just cut to the chase, to the heart of the matter— of whatever matters? She was sitting on a bench in the mall, apparently, preparing for the Homeric trek to the car, when she met someone of a similar ilk, with a similar aged grandson. “You would never believe that her grandson works with computers and makes $84,000 a year,” she says with great exuberance. “And his next promotion is going to bring him over the 100,000 mark.” Oh, I tell her, non plussed. That’s good. This is the great leveling fact, and grandma has brought it around, gift wrapped in a special package to reveal to me. There is some sort of club maybe, where grandmas of the world unite and have trading cards of their respective grandchildren, inclusive of statistics and salaries and life achievements printed on the back. Can’t I just be left alone, make lunch in peace and not be distracted by all of this? I’ve almost come to the point where I can block out what I don’t need to hear. But I can hardly ignore this kind of scather. “Why don’t you work with computers?” she wants to know. But the whole thing is, I already do.