It's all about the people
There were some people I met in college and they continue to be some of the best people in all the land. It's hard to believe that I could meet such a high concentration of people in the middle of Missouri (especially hard to believe if you live on the East Coast and think that Missouri is a cornfield.) But I did meet a great group of people there and tonight I got to visit with the Adrian,Chris, Kristin, Sarah, Tom, Kella variety. And I love them.

Theories on space and smiling at strangers
After being in the Midwest for 4 days, it occurs to me that there is a lot more space here -- space between cars on the roads, space between houses, space between people shopping. I wonder if this space translates into friendliness. My theory is that because people have enough space to function, because their comfort bubble is not constantly being invaded, they are more welcoming to strangers.

Why do I antagonize my mother?
That's it. I don't know. I'm hoping you do.

misc.
*Kristin and her folks are still delightful.
*Hi Justin, back at you.
*The furniture from as far back as I remember has been replaced.
*90's music and driving in ol' KC are eerily familiar.
*KC "crowded" is DC "light".
*I really like you.

Oy Seuss heirs
What was that?
Cat in the Hat?
More like an SNL skit,
a giant 2 hour bit.
(1 hour and some change,
still long and strange.)
Mike Myers tried much
and the designers had touch.
There were some giggles
and cute childish wiggles,
but for all the colors, bright and shiny
the movie left me sadly whiney.
The plot was less than twisted.
The jokes I must have missted.
Elementary teachers on the other hand,
laughed so hard they split a gland.
They can't wait for friends to tell,
and now I know why the tie-ins sell.

The thankful post
Happy Thanksgiving friends.
I give thanks for-
DSL,
my family,
my friends who help me survive in DC,
and my friends who don't.
sweet potatoes, bike rides with my dad,
grandmas,crisp winter air, snow,
ski trips, business trips, any kind of trips.
Naugahyde, table legs that fit like a charm,
health- yours and mine,
Reuben's cooking, my ability to not burn down the house,
Christmas shopping, town decorations,
pretty girls, public transportation, a job with variety, coworkers that I like and respect,
paychecks and bonuses, creativity, movies that don't suck, etc. etc. etc.

There's a thankful post coming
but for now please endure my momentary and passing disappointment with my existence-
I have not as of yet:
run faster than 4:17.97 over 1600 meters,
become a drummer,
written anything other than this ridiculous blog,
befriended new people in D.C. (a few, but this is my list, not yours),
been to Ben's Chili Bowl,
"worked on my resume",
followed my dream--found my dream for that matter,
taken a shower today,
kicked any bad habits,
lived this day like it was my last,
crowd-surfed,
taken a ride in a hot air balloon,
learned another banjo song,
finished this list.

Prefontaine, postfontaine

Watching the animals
An octupus huddle over her unfertilized eggs,
a cheetah stumble on a rock,
a silverback turn around and glare,
a tiger leap onto and over a wall,
a serval stalk,
children sulk,
an elephant scold,
a panda munch,
and a woman pound on the glass because the ape was rude.

Sure lady, the ape was rude.

Free zoos on chilly November days are very different from the field trips I remember-- lonelier, quieter, and colder.

It almost makes me thirsty thinking about it
Two guys should not have so many stylish drinking glasses. Do I drink from the classy square glass glasses? or the kitchy green goblets? or perhaps the juice glasses with the cute little frog patch? or maybe my dear departed grandma's liquor tumblers? Are those really tumblers, anyway? No? How about the minty green bathroom cups or a good old Shakespeare's cup? A mug is more your style? Big, blue and outdoorsy or delicate and glass?

Support your friendly local farm
wafflemakers.

Maybe Julie didn't realize I was kidding. Then again, maybe I too will donate to julieloveswaffles@hotmail.com. Just because farm-animal shaped waffles sound so gooooood.

You remember lust, don't you?
It rattles around in your brain distracting you from the task at hand. It makes life a little more difficult. You can't quite concentrate on your meal because someone's hand moved 6 cm in your direction. You know- lust. It replaces conversation starters like "how's the weather?" "how are you?" and "hi" with "make-out with me" "Yes, we can cuddle" and "hmm. soft lips." LUST. It makes you just a little crazier than you already were and when you try to avoid it, it just stores itself up so it can hit you even harder the next time.

There you go. Now you remember.

of mice and men, emotionally
Sometimes I feel like Lenny.
Sometimes I feel like the little bunny.

A bar is a bar
Never having been to a "gay bar" before, I figured it would be a strange, even unsettling experience. Not so, my friend. I observed the dance floor for quite a while and saw the same old things- guys pushed up against the walls just kind of leering, guys who obviously wanted to be on the dance floor but were too scared to ask, couples that looked good together, and couples that looked silly. It was all quite familiar. As a bar it still smelled like smoke and alcohol. The only strange part was that at this bar I felt no pressure. There was no one I wanted to dance with. Half the women there were drag queens and the other four weren't my type.

I'm not comfortable in the bar scene, but I was less uncomfortable at this bar than most I've visited. I was still too intimidated to karaoke. One new thing at a time...

At this moment I need two things
1. Art (cool-funky, 70s, eames?) to hang above the Ultra-Lounge.
2. A song to sing when I karaoke.

Maybe not at this exact moment.

Thanks, Sweden
Trying to fuse function, style and wackiness is no easy task. And once again, I think I have managed to just miss. With a little help from IKEA I have raised my "Star Trek coffee table" to the level (figuratively and literally) of "Star Trek kitchen table". Slide a couple of green naugahyde chairs under the "wings" and you've got yourself a regular funky kitchen. I can't stop there, so I have also placed the famous green naugahyde "Ultra-Lounge" couch along the wall and added the bright pink afghan for additional style points. It is both hideous and beautiful. The wall cries out for some green/brown/yellow 70s wall art.

I would also like to thank my carriage housemate Reuben for putting up with my eccentric tastes.

'Tis November
the month of dotopian birth and the year anniversary of making a decent wage at the AARP. That 11th month filled with love and heartbreak often in the same instant. This November I'm returning to KC for some turkey, so if you live there and you're going to be around that weekend of the Pilgrims and Indians and sweet potatoes perhaps we could get together and hug and say, "my, it's been far too long since I saw you last. You look great. I'm glad to see you're so happy. Let's frolic."

Post-It Notes of Quotes
In my stuff I found the following quotes:

-Love. A papercut on my heart. alexander

-We are never so defenceless against suffering as when we love, never so helplessly unhappy as when we have lost our loved object or its love. freud

-Love is desire for possessions. Courtship is combat, mating is mastery. nietzche

-Love is expensive and it's free. fastball

-Love is Happy Poison. ball

-I found what I don't care about, and it's everything. dalke

Had pie been delivered to my door,
my 5 p.m. prayers would've been answered.

Julie, people. Not Kiera.

At least I can make her eyes twinkle
I may have been a touch disappointed by the photo gallery at loveactually.com but the twinkling made it ok.

I want pie. And I miss Julie.

Go on. Have a sip.
Better than a bourbon and sassier than sassafrass, she's joined the masses- It's time for a refreshing spoonful of Temporary Wisdom. I need it on your link list ASAP, so I can get my dose everyday.

Two lovely thumbs up
I liked Love Actually.
After all it had,
-Kiera. Ah Kiera. So beautiful. So British.
-Hugh grant dancing.
-Romance
-love
-heartbreak
-ridiculously cute children
-a brilliant cast
-laughs
-cute women in addition to the aforementioned Knightley.
-very funny, charming blokes.
-I think she starred in Pirates of the.... and Bend it like...someone

What? I'm not biased.

I want to leave knowing you are better off than when I came
said my mom.
Well, I certainly have more than when you came, so by America's standards I must be better off.
I replied.

Come home, roomie
I'm afraid that my parents have scared poor little Reuben away.

Mental image for U
It looks like a monster came to my house and vomited all my material possesions.

Last of the Mohicans got me thinking that I want to love passionately and die honorably.
Instead I am going to blog obsessively and cry the tears that don't fall.

The sound of taking the stairs as fast as you can is one of the best sounds in the world. You get that rhythm going thump, thumpthumpthumpthump......thump, thumpthumpthumpthump......thumpding, thumpthumpthumpthump... with gaps when you jump the last two steps and the occasional ring of a whacked banister. It feels so good to just attack the descent. You really start to feel it in your quads and shins and your little wingtips are smacking the steps as fast as they can go. And even if it hurts a little bit, you don't care because not only are you getting somewhere fast, but you're doing it with child-like zeal.

Old man sitting on the front porch

In my day we didn't have weblogs. We used journals and we only wrote in them when we had something to say. None of this willy-nilly sissy stuff about feelings and the like. Why, I bet Thomas Jefferson is rolling over in his grave with you kids and your pursuit of happiness. When I was young if we wanted happiness, we WORKED FOR IT. It didn't come on a stinkin' silver platter. You kids today are so spoiled with your DSL and your fancy smancy Interent. If Al Gore was dead, he'd be rolling over in his grave knowing what you've done to the web. Your high speed access doesn't impress me a lick. Why you just waste more time in more places without tying up the phone lines. When I was a kid we could tie up the phone lines for 15 minutes and that was that. We weren't carrying on with our abbreviated "Instant Message conversations" or our "electronic mail". We got mail the old fashioned way- never at all, unless Grandma sent us a card by the U.S. Postal Service. And we got our phone calls at one number because that's all anybody had. And people memorized those numbers. So, DO NOT think for a moment that I am about to abandon the "wire" phone, as NPR has taken to calling the good old fashioned phone service. I don't care what number you can put with your cell phone; I don't want one of those dadgummed things flubbin' up my life. If you can't get in touch with me, maybe you should just wait . I'm bound to come home sometime. That's what we used to do and we got along just fine. Better than fine, because we didn't have all those silly people chattering to themselves on our streets, or if we did we knew they belonged at the asylum. (grumble, grumble, grumble.)

Pee Wee's Wonderful Italian Wedding of Doom
Context, Schmontext, I always say.

Post script in blogger becomes a pre script
I like my 'rents. I'm excited to see them. I'm just nervous. He's nervous and he's got New York City. I've just got the D of C. Which is slighty more exotic than the KC, but not much under my direction. I would like to get to the Escalator and moving sidewalk exhibit. I hear it rises above expectations and whisks you to new heights. I did hear that some of the sections were downers, however, I'm sure it is all quite moving.

The 'rents are coming. The 'rents are coming.
Take cover.

What should we do?
If you deal in people, you've probably had some variation of the "What should we do?" conversation. I find that one of three things usually happen at the end of this conversation.
1. One person is really happy with the answer.
2. Everyone is at least sort of agreeable to the answer.
3. No one is happy with the answer.

Last night, after a long and not too wordy debate, the answer to the above question was, "Watch something."
But what? After going through the video/dvd collection the parties involved were able to narrow the field down to 4 finalists. In no particular order we agreed that we would be willing to watch one of these:
-Coming to America
-Notting Hill
-Pulp Fiction
-Buffy, some episode(s) of the first 4 seasons

We found the variety to be quite amusing.

It's a wacked out exercise in dotopian demographics

This forward has been making the rounds recently. It's a little twist on the old "tell me about you" email; it's a tell me about me email. I'm throwing in a Twist on top of the twist because that's what I do. I'm not sure it makes any sense, but the twist is that I'm going to tell you, Do Topia reader, about yourself-- but I'm skipping some of the questions, you'll have to fill those in yourself.

1. name:
2. Where did we meet? College, unless you are my aunt or Kristin's mom and then I'm not sure where we met.
3. Take a stab at my middle name: Ann- that should cover a couple.
4. How long have you known me? 6 years or less; or 25 years if you are my aunt.
5. When is the last time we saw each other? Yesterday or about 1.5 years ago- that covers most of you.
6. Do I smoke? No.
7. Do I believe in God? Mostly
8. When you first saw me what was your impression? That's the best looking/hottest/funkiest/coolest/wackiest person I've ever seen. I want to be his/her friend.
9. Month of my Birthday? November 8th if you're The Royer. Is that right? Shouldn't someone call him?
10. Color hair? mostly brown
11. Color eyes? blue
12. Do I have any siblings? yes, unless you are Kristin or the birthday boy.
13. Have you ever had a crush on me? um YEA!
14. Have you ever been jealous of me? just a little.
15. What's one of my favorite things to do outdoors? Throw the disc with Dave.
16. What's one of my fav. things to do indoors? cuddle up with Dave.
17. Do you remember one of the 1st things I said to
you? "Hi"
18. What's my favorite type of music? loud

There were more questions, but I'm bored with this exercise. I'm quitting now. You're welcome.

It's gloomy out
and in.

Televised? I can't even find the revolution.
I was to see the Matrix Revolution tonight. I was looking for resolution to the revolution. I didn't make it. I went to the wrong theater, and then when I realized it was the wrong theater I went toward the right one, but couldn't find it. I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 on a movie I still haven't seen. What with Metro rides, phone calls, tickets, and food I might as well have downloaded it off the Internet and then paid a lawyer for defense against those anti file-sharing people. Now that would've been revolutionary.

A poem of futility
Video games and Internets have replaced the idiot box.
I'm stuck in a sinkhole of shirking responsibility.
The banjo and a new book could be my freedom,
but I digress, for I really need to sew on some buttons.

Is this my alter ego?
Dystopian blogspot .

No.

Not love, actually,
but the day was filled with other emotions. In fact, you might say it was quite an emotional day. This was caused by, my "business proofreading class". In it I found out that I am not using commas correctly. I'm not using them incorrectly regularly, but I should be using them more often (or always) to separate independent clauses with a conjunction. Also I should be using them in lists to eliminate confusion. For instance I should say, "This is a fine list containing peaches, your mom, eight robots, and a slice of rhubarb pie." This way you know that ruhbarb pie and eight robots are distinct. I didn't know I felt strongly about commas, but I was feeling quite defensive.

Further emotions sprung forth at my unveiling. You can call Coach, Super Dave, Safari Dave, Who is Dave?, or any other name you see fit as I take to guiding the Catholic University Ultimate players. They were fired up and already playing better, so I am looking forward to this challenge.

Is hungy an emotion? 'Cause I'm that too. Also, I'm now ticked because I've edited this post 3 times. Let it go.

However, I fear that this is not the height of lameness
For the past two nights, those being the traditional party nights of Friday and Saturday, I have barely been able to function past 11 p.m. In fact at around 9:30 on each of those nights I have begun to look around for the clock thinking, "my God, it must be like 1 a.m." It isn't.

You've already heard some mention of the Halloween goings-on and figured that surely things would get settled down as the weekend progressed. And settle down they did. Last night I went to what can only be called "Spectacle of the Baby". Proud Aunt Monika had us over to meet Shan, pronounced like Shaun (poor kid). We watched him for something like 2 hours. And I do mean watched. There was lots of baby talk and bouncing up and down. It was not as much fun as it sounds. Although, I took my turn holding him and admit that it might have been the highlight of my weekend, but please don't tell the other twenty-somethings. They expect a lot more drunkenness and wild outings that last past 11. Frankly, so do I. I'm just too tired to partake.

This is the coolest
No wonder Columbia was a hot spot for the Pop/Soda/Coke debate
Thanks to J-Dub

Happy Holloween
Halloween was particularly unsettling, here are some possible reasons why:
-Rob was a very ugly Ringwraith.
-Kim was a disturbing Reuben.
-My sweet tooth never really kicked in.
-I couldn't escape the feeling of my impending doom as November approached.
-various other events that my team of lawyers has asked that I not discuss.