Happy Thanksgiving

I'm up in San Francisco with my wife and her family and there's lots to talk about (national security, green fuel, dentistry, child-rearing practices, etc.), but I can't get to it right now because I have to get ready for a long day of sightseeing, familial navigation, and serious, champion-level protein consumption. So for right now, I'm going to follow in the steps of my hero Yasmin and name five things I'm grateful for today:

1. My loving wife
2. Sunrise
3. Parents
4. Hot coffee on a cold day
5. The Golden Gate Bridge

I leave you with some Rumi sent to me today by Peace Quotes...

Those who don't feel this Love
pulling them like a river,
those who don't drink dawn
like a cup of spring water
or take in sunset like supper,
those who don't want to change,
let them sleep.
This Love is beyond the study of theology,
that old trickery and hypocrisy.
If you want to improve your mind that way,
sleep on.
I've given up on my brain.
I've torn the cloth to shreds
and thrown it away.
If you're not completely naked,
wrap your beautiful robe of words
around you,
and sleep.
- Rumi


(p.s. - I love that, "I given up on my brain"!!)

Bah Humbug: A Pre-emptive Christmas Strike

I had to leave the laundromat this morning before the towels were even dry because some rat-bastard left the radio tuned to the all Christmas music station and I just couldn't take it any more. The worst part is that living in this country you can't help but know all the Christmas songs and when they come on part of your brain sings along and you hate yourself for it. It's like the Bible verses you know even though you're not a Christian and never go to church. Some of the verses aren't bad and are even worth knowing but all those Christmas songs are a plague upon mankind.

Your obstinance is an inspiration to us all

There are those of us who, when faced by the Overwhelming Schedule Of Daily Life, retreat into that most secure of refuges - golden silence - only to find that silence is neither golden, being at the most a shade of muddy chartreuse, nor truly silent, given that we live in a world of innumerable avenues of communication and such a deep rooted sense of interconnectivity that to not hear from someone is paradoxically the surest sign that they still exist, and so our only remaining choice is that simplest of responses, that distillation of the entire mad voyage of our species into one word, that is to say, "Yes."

While You Were Out

New York, Las Vegas, Escondido, Atlantis, Pluto, Planet Ten, The Fourth Realm: it's been a busy few weeks of traveling and it's good to be home. Some things I learned on the road:

1. The New York Public Library on 42nd Street - the one with the two lions out front - is not the place to do any serious work. You need the Manhattan Central Branch right across the street where there are no Italian tourists taking pictures of themselves in front of the card catalogs.

2. Three days of rich, starchy Vegas food + high desert temperatures + no water = serious gut troubles.

3. Armenia was the first Christian nation, not Rome. Also, when Constantine finally did declare Rome a Christian nation, he put an image of Jesus on the coins based on verbally handed down descriptions of the guy - coins which are currently sold in the antiquities store in the Venetian Hotel.

4. For any left-handed writers out there who really want to use a fountain pen but are sick of driving the nib into the paper and losing all ink flow, I suggest trying out an Oblique Medium nib. I do not, however, suggest trying this at the Mont Blanc store unless you have the money to purchase one because you will only walk away looking over your shoulder longingly with a single tear drop sliding down your cheek.

5. Express Checkout is a way for the hotel to screw you when you are in a rush to leave and aren't watching your back. Constant vigilance is required when traveling through the lands of the Sand People!

500 Days of Bullshit

I will say this once for any delusional young hipsters living here or on their way here because they just saw some stupid movie called "500 Days of Summer": Downtown Los Angeles is an interesting place with a rich history, but it is not nor will it ever be Brooklyn, no matter how you dress, what you drink, or how hard you ignore the native, non-white population.

Sorry, but I just had to get that off my chest. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry. It doesn't really matter.

The Persistence of Time

Check this out: a while back, my watch stopped working. Again. After a couple changes in batteries, it just up and quit one more time. Instead of going back to the watch shop I just shelved it. Two weeks ago, it started running again. Like time just crept back into the watch and hoped I wouldn't notice its absence.

And now it's my birthday and I'm thirty-five and my watch is finally working.

Amen.

Bar and Jelly

Feeling pretty low-low down today.
Somewhere between the curb and the asphalt road.
Felt rocks falling on my head since morning.
Sad bird noises in the back room upstairs. Very annoying.

Andthensuddenlydoughnuts!

Aye, doughnuts today, spontaneous and unscheduled
(the two best flavors of doorknobs yaunderstand),
and nothing I could do about it really, completely out of my hands,
happened to come upon them, what can one do, et cetera, et cetera,
so maybe it's the sugar talking - perhaps the caffiend
(for doorknobs and cappy gang together dontcha know)-
but I really think everything is going to work out,

perfectly.

And yes of course because we live in the world with doughnuts but also
because I saw a mailbox at the corner
with a question mark spray painted on its side.
"You got a problem?" said the mailbox.
"No, sir!" said I.