Embrace the Dull

I know this makes me an awful person

But how sweet would this be (to the extent the result of some guy having a stroke is "sweet"):

Tim Johnson has a complication in his recovery and falls into a persistive vegatative state.  His family, after being advised that there's no chance for any kind of recovery wants to let him die with dignity. Coincidentally, death is the only thing that can cause his removal from the Senate and the body's (the Senate's, not TJ's) return to R control.

I wonder if W would truncate a holiday in Crawford and fly to attend an emergency session and personally stab Johnson in the heart.

Do you know how A Tale of Two Cities ends?

I posed that question to Liz this morning for reasons I can't remember (really). For what it's worth, I'm, not some jackass (well...) who goes around asking my wife annoying questions about the classics. The question had context, but I can't remember - doesn't matter. Liz says

"Yeah...um....what's-her-face was knitting and she was like, symbolic of the ire of the French Revolution - no, I have no fuckin idea how the book ended"

(ed: as I read I think it makes Liz sound like a moron, when in fact it was really funny)

Anyway,

I said, "No, what I think happened was the guy that wasn't Charles Darnay let himself get killed so the girl could be with Charles Darnay"

Liz, "I thought Charles Darnay died"

Me, "He did"

Liz, "You just said he didn't"

Me, "No...no, I got - it was the guy not named Charles Darnay, then he said the thing about "it's a far far better thing or whatever - then they cut his head off"

Liz, "What was his name?"

Me, "who?"

"Liz, "The guy who died"

Me, "If I knew his name why would I call him 'guy who wasn't Charles Darnay?'"

Liz, "You're a ninny"

Me, "You are"

And this went on. I think somewhere an English professor's head exploded.

You remind me of Rod Stewart when he was young

Here's what's happening:

• Liz has been flirting with the idea of adopting a feral cat that frequents our fire-escape. The cat, who we have named Dexter, (pictured)...

[other names we considered: Jeff; Gary; Darth Vader; Shit-Head; Maverick; Goose; Viscosity, and Thermal Breakdown] has been periodically showing-up on our fire-escape and looking into our apartment while Holly, one of our live-in cats, freaks the fuck out on the other side of the window. Dexter's periodic appearances became more frequent when Liz began to feed him. And by "frequent" I mean "constant." As Liz's affection for wayward Dexter grew, so too did Holly's ire at the prospect of having a 3rd cat move-in. I hadn't realized the full-scope of Holly's distaste for Dexter until the other night when I went into the bedroom to rest my head, only to discover a wet chub of hairy vomit that Holly deposited on my side of the bed. Oh, and by "discovered" I mean, "placed my neck on top of it."

"I'm not feeding the fucking cat, Holly, you fucking asshole," I explained.

The following night she (Holly) barfed on the bed again. Liz decided that all this acting-up was too much, and in spite of Dexter's waifish cuteness, no cat was worth a new duvet every 2 weeks. So Dexter is no longer a part of our lives.

• I'm seeing the Hold Steady at Irving Plaza in two weeks. I'm going to drink gin out of a jam jar.
• The year in music started out briskly with The Arctic Monkeys and then slowed. It's picked up again with new releases from TV on the Radio and Yo La Tengo. W/r/t YLT, I can't think of another band who's sound remains so static while still so rewarding. The first few seconds of the new album sounds like everything they have previously produced, and yet that bass riff is like mother's milk. For the record, I mean "mother's milk" in the comforting, figurative sense, as I would assume (and hope) that for anyone who can read this blog, the actual consumption of mother's milk would be revolting on about 19 different levels. The TV on the Radio is great as well.
• Our heroes, Abby and Kurt, come home in a month. Go and Kurt and Abby, Go!
• Kurt sent me some pictures recently, in order (I believe) they are: 1) Kurt and Abby discovering why they were actually sent to Iraq to fight, 2) Kurt and Abby looking at footage of a monkey washing a cat and 3) Kurt and Abby looking a vintage footage of Kurt's hairline.
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• We here at ETD are quite happy that they are coming home because we miss them and more importantly it means that we have won the War on Terror.
• Hockey season starts in 2 weeks.
• I almost got into a fight with a homeless guy in Borders today. He elbowed me in the back as I was trying to leave the store; I exercised my walk-away-briskly-under-a-torrent-of-insult option but, had things escalated physically, I would have been left with no choice but to deliver to him a bloody wind-milling. He probably would have beaten my ass. To add insult to injury (or maybe injury to insult) I was leaving with a newly purchased Chuck Klosterman book. I resisted the pressure to buy this Chuck Klosterman book because I am a white male between the ages of 18 and 45, and as such I am required to purchase and enjoy Chuck Klosterman. I am required to find his on-point zeitgeisty writing both refreshing and relevant. Do you know who Chuck Klosterman appeals to? White guys who think they can write like Chuck Klosterman. Important distinction: I wish I could write like Chick Klosterman but I do not think I can write like Chuck Klosterman. So I spent $13 on a book about things that Chuck Klosterman thinks are important like movies, music, saying "fuck," ridiculing Journey and Billy Crystal (edgy), and girls.
• Again, I would love to be a working writer and, if given the choice between my life and Chuck Klosterman's, naturally I would choose his as 1) he's a working writer, and 2) he (probably) doesn't have cat-barf stains on his duvet. None of this changes the fact that he's an arrogant prick.
• Yes, I endeavor to be an arrogant prick.

Marcel Proust is a total homo

From Remembrance of Things Passed:

[Marcel's mother] sent for one of those squat plump little cakes called "petites madeleines," which look as though they had been molded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell … I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure invaded my senses …

And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray … when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane …. and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and garden alike, from my cup of tea.

Dude, grow a pair.

I was halfway to Barstow...

I guess I'll hop on Hunter S. Thompson's gushing dogpile. I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas during a particularly dark period in my life. It was 1997 and I was living in London, depressed, penniless and drunk. I only wanted to be in only place (Boston) and with one person (my girlfriend at the time) and I was neither, so I really chucked my life down the drain for about 6 months.

It was also at that time that my book consumption reached a level that it never had before or since: At least one a week. According to my journal (I actually kept a daily journal) I began Lord of the Rings but was unable to read it straight through. So every 100 or so pages I would put it down and read something else, one of those books was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Fear and Loathing is without question one of the greatest stories ever told.

I marvel at many author's imagination and command, but Hunter S. Thompson is the only guy who forced me to ask, every other page,

"Are. You. Fucking. Kidding ME??"

The rental car, the kidnapped girl, driving onto the tarmac, the human adrenaline and, of course, eluding the police officer. If ever a book has captured the raw danger of riding shotgun and seatbeltless with a lunatic drunk, this is it.

It's breathless and dangerous and hilarious and brilliant. I won't miss Hunter S. Thompson, I never met him and, by most accounts, he was a jerk. But I love this book and I'm saddened that he (or anyone) would kill himself.

Block Drugs

Drug store near my apartment, courtesy of (read: stolen from) nyc art collective.

Wanted: ID of older guy who looks like younger, very dumb guy

Check out this handsome devil looking for ID.

Attention Readership: Please do not ask what I was doing in the men-for-men casual encounters section of Craigslist. It's called research. I'm an intellectual.

I have read a book

I just counted and realized that my last 5 posts are vulgar and sexual in nature. In light of that I would like to point out that I have read many books. One of them was written by a guy who went to Harvard (Updike).

So you know, I've got that going for me. Which is nice.