This is where the wist lives.

There was a scene on Thirtysomething once in which Hope was remembering a boy who loved her in college. The scene culminated in her saying, wistfully and sadly, something like, "How many times in your life does someone stand in the falling snow outside your window at midnight calling your name?" It was poignant and sweet, a moment lodged in her heart yet lost forever.

My moment like that is a little different. In the '90s I was very close to some kids, the children of friends I worked with at our local, tiny, family-owned newspaper. Damon and Justin, mostly, but also their cousins Carissa and Wesley. They were the lights and loves of my life, friends like I might never have again.

Before I moved to California I went over to their grandparents' house, where Damon and Justin spent some time every week, to say goodbye to these children who were practically my own. After the visit, as I started to drive away, I looked out my window to see the boys running beside me, waving and beaming.

How many times in your life do your reasons for getting up in the morning run alongside your car, waving goodbye as you move half a world away?

10 months old but new to me

via videosift.com


Whoa, that didn't really fit onscreen right...

Meanwhile, Jenny knows the temperature for every major city in Canada

From the clouds we'll see snow showers, says the drunken digital weatherman this morning. Well, at least we're not seeing the snow coming directly from the sun or the birds again, because that scared the deer.

Also this: Expect some snow showers if you're going to be out and about today. ... So if I stay home, no snow? Great Caesar's ghost, what other powers do I have?!

Well, this should save me some time in the mornings

My discovery upon entering the kitchen today:

At least they're 2 for $4
at Wegman's this week

And the Tings are on sale too!
HEY-OOH

In the back:
not even a little bit hungry

At this point someone should be telling Carmine to go take a cold shower

Somehow during sleepytime (which was nearly 11 hours, thanks to a horrid sudden backache and multiple applications of Aleve) the name Ed Marinaro* (of Laverne and Shirley fame**) popped into my head, seemingly out of the blue, but only after arriving as Ed Maraschino. It had something to do with watching football and a contest. Like, Enter now to watch the NFL playoffs with Ed Marinaroschino!

Then I became conscious of what I was thinking and giggled.

Come to think of it, shouldn’t he have been

the Big Ragu, not this guy?

Volare!

(Ew, this might be one of the worst websites ever.

What did Carmine Ragusa ever do you to, yellow?)

I bet there were sauce fights when Marinaro joined the L&S crew. "You're runny and full of tomato chunks!" Eddie Mekka would spit, spotting as he spun toward his new rival, arms pulled in tight against his chest. "At least I don't come in a JAR!" Marinaro would retort, swinging a concrete block as he ducked a pointed-toe leg swing aimed at his head by the dance king.

*He played football for Cornell, apparently with
some finesse, and I recently saw his name somewhere.

**you know you don’t know him from anything else!***
***except OK maybe Hill Street if you watched it with your Dad

apparently he was quite the comic relief.
A real Iago, if you will.

Hey, look, it's Downtown Julie Brown!

Oh, Mom.

The source of hilarity, originally uploaded by MonkeyPantaloons.

This is for Jessica. It set off a fit of laughing in my Mom and Dad last Christmas the likes of which I have possibly never seen. (Click to see my Mom in hysterics in the preceding photos.)

Sometimes a Great Notion

Four days, 11 hours and 35 minutes till the final episodes of Battlestar begin airing.

Bittersweet doesn't even begin to describe it.

Supernatural Superserious

I've just messed up another Texas cake in ways I will probably never fully grasp on an afternoon when, by all rights except apparently not, I was supposed to be elsewhere, an elsewhere I wait all week, each week, to be. (I'll be there tomorrow, Lord willing and the snow don't rise.) I've made a new playlist that I initially forgot to set my iPod to download, so I had to go back and hook it up all over again, because the iPod is the least intuitive thing the company of intuitivicity has ever created. But really, it's OK, it's my own fault, and now select songs from Ea's FLORIDA disk have come up on what I have self-entertainingly entitled BlissCast.

The list starts with the New Pornographers, which so many good things do. They were the whole point of the list. Of course, they drowned out the sound of the phone AND the answering machine whilst I was singing and dancing to them. But I have forgiven them. I might even play them again. I bet my neighbor loves me. HI, JUDY!

Salem is now telling me you can't get there from here. I tell him to skip the suitcase and the dresser, then, and just jump straight to the floor. Michael Stipe agrees. Just to lay with you, there's nothing that I wouldn't do, save lay my rifle down.

Your BlissCast playlist:

1. Mass Romantic
2. Bones of the Idol
3. Twin Cinema
4. These are the Fables
5. Supernatural Superserious
6. Allegro (Battlestar Galactica)
7. Mad World
8. Mambo Italiano
9. The Mummer's Song
10. Desert Rose
11. Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)
12. Friends Of Mine
13. Southern Cross
14. Astronaut
15. Sister Golden Hair Surprise
16. Hey Porter
17. Can't Get There From Here
18. Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect
19. In the Highways
20. The Infanta

They're connected. But crookedly.

I can seem to no longer park straight in the local parking garages or button my sweaters straight. Every time, both things. Astray. This has been happening for a few months now. I blame the Ponzi schemes.

Get Thee to a Tentery

In Which I Help You Prepare by Stating the Obvious for You

How to prepare for our transition to the post-digital world when the economy eats all the computers and our jobs with them? By the time this annihilation is through we won’t even be analog anymore; we’ll be more … tree log. Me, I’ve got five little hunters who will also keep me warm at night, as well as a boyfriend who, I’m fairly sure, can knock over trees with his bare hands. I’m also learning Fathom to break into small things and just got her her first My First Safecracking Kit for Those With No Thumbs.

I thought about going the Arthur Dent route, but first I’d have to learn how to build a fire-fired oven and figure out where the hell yeast comes from, and that’s going to take time I just don’t have while I am sitting here editing thank-you notes “from” the president in which “he” pretends to know the details of every single gift that comes through the major university over which he is lord and master. I also had to acquire him a bootblack last week.

My point is, what is your plan for putting food on the table when we’re all vying for the same job ripping tickets at the $2.50? And how will you build that table? And can I borrow a tent? You think this economic crash and burn won’t take your kitchen table with it? You’re going to need an ax and some secret iron ore is all I’m trying to say here. West Virginians will soon be our kings, just you wait and see.

Resolved: 2009

• Acquire hover car and investigate other hover-related technology
• Nurture relationship with The Tanning Bed. Set tan example for pasty hippie town
  
• Avoid Wyclef Jean. Remember last funk-fueled shooting spree
• Start gum bank in move to be better friend
  
• MORE LIME
• Avoid Manilow. Remember last sob-induced shooting spree
  
• Find one who will perform piscine matrimony (start with Unitarians)
  
• Do Not Cry when Mother glares disapprovingly at eyes
• Look into changing eye color
• Remember Pluto
• Discover perfect shade of lavender
  
• More Sabado Gigante!
  
• BELIEVE IN THE MONKEY KING