my most common google searches so far this week

"Dido" "single?"

"Beyonce" "to the left to the left" "mp3"

"liver disease" "symptoms"

"blue laws" "source" "reasons for"

"Bible" "highlights"

the beginning of a poem in progress that takes frivolity as a central theme

Who needs Rome, really,
When you have bluegrass?

the beginning of my epic poem in progress, a poem bound to be seen as the defining statement on the fraught psychology of our age

Last night
I dreamt that Bertrand Russell
was seducing my girl




As a bonus, I'll give you a fashion tip. Hawaiian shorts kids, they're back in style. Get your pairs of JAMS on ebay quick before it's too late!

[A touch of the nose and a knowing point in your direction]

Monday's frank admission

Here's a new series! Every Monday I will reveal something about myself. It will be frank. It will be deep. It will fucking rock your world.


I love that Dido song "Here with me"! I do. I'd like to sing it from the hilltops. You know it, "I can't go, I can't sleep, I can't breath, until you're resting here with me." Google it. It is awesome. Pop at its finest. I'm listening to it right now, thrilled at youtube, that vast resource of arcane crap, and even more thrilled that I remembered the song out of the blue, and then was able to recall the singer (I placed two phone calls before it came to me, like a dream), and then was able to find it on line and listen to it.


What is Dido to me, and me to her?


A POEM by S. Dupre

Oh, Dido, daughter of a publisher
how I yearn for you and your melodramatic ways
you Irish waif, you.
Your hair's a bit on the short side and a bit too blond
but with a brunette wig you
could
be
my
goddess

thoughts on all the crap that accumulates

I've already spoken about my penny collection. It is not a collection in the traditional sense. There's nothing distinguishing or comprehensive about it. I don't search out rare Indian pennies, nor do I even consciously add to it. It is, rather, a collection that owes its origin to indecision. What else do I do with these damn pennies?

What motivates this? Neuroses? Christian charity? Laziness? I really don't know. But as I look around my apartment I see other such collections, the implications of which, in the state I am in right now (a fragile, exhausted state), I find worrying.

Hangers. I have fucking tons of hangers. Almost half of my closet is given to unused wire hangers, the product of thousands of trips to the dry cleaners. Surely I should do something! Can't I return these hangers? Can I recycle them? I don't know. But when I put a crisp shirt on in the morning, I put the unused hanger back on the bar, pushed off to the side, where it joins many such others.

Plastic bags. I have one giant plastic bag, from Bed Bath and Beyond (what did I buy that was so big???), and now, whenever I come back from the grocer or the liquor store, I crumple up my plastic bag[s] and put them into the giant bag, which I keep, in my kitchen, under a table. Off to the side, but visible. I don't know how many smaller balled, plastic bags are in there, but I would say hundreds.

Now, in fairness, I do occasionally reuse these. Sometimes I'll put my lunch in them. Sometimes I'll use a plastic bag to hold old newspapers which I will then leave outside for recycling.

Oh! The old newspapers! How they gather! On a file cabinet in my kitchen there is a stack of papers, faded and pink, which lean precariously against my fridge. These I do recycle, but not with any great regularity. I let them build until action is unavoidable.

Bottles, I suppose, are the other collection I see before me. I store empty wine and beer bottles under my kitchen sink. I just counted. 37 bottles are under my sink. There have been more.

I think that the fact that I have a small apartment emphasizes these very natural collections. And I think this is all pretty normal. I have, for example, been over at my friends' house and opened a cabinet to get a glass, and I found tons of bubble wrap. What's all this bubble wrap? I yelled. I never really got a good explanation. I mean we all save things, right? And it's not always because they are worth saving. But still, sometimes I find these collections of unwant, of refuse, mocking me and my slow, habitual ways.

The summer of 2008 is the summer of nuptials. Mr. Dupre has no fewer than three – count ‘em, three – wedding ceremonies that positively require his presence. In one case, my presence is verily required as I have the pleasure, the privilege, of being the man, best. I’m looking forward to this honor, and the many benefits that come with it (winged horses for personal transport, nights of indiscretion with various high standing members of both families’ wedding parties, raw oysters hand fed by eunuchs whilst lounging poolside. The usual.).

It is the other two weddings that have me thinking now, especially in light of recent events. I don’t know why, or what inspired this, but I made my way home late one evening after the opera and had a voice message from my old pal TBM (to be married, natch). “Mr. Dupre,” he said, “I'm honored that you can attend my wedding, but what I'd really like is for you to be in my wedding. There won’t be much demanded of you…coordinate outfits…walk through…various liberties”

“I say!” I said, pouring myself a nightcap. “This is something.” I confess that ever since I’ve felt the same sort of vaulting ambition that plagued poor Macbeth. Yes, yes, being in the wedding is an honor. Yes, yes, Thane of Cawdor is a promotion. But let’s be honest; I’ve tasted what it is to be donned best man, and frankly I don’t think I’ll be satisfied until I angle, and connive, and, if need be, kill, to get what I want, what I deserve, what has been promised me. I’m not only talking about old pal TBM’s wedding, but the other I’ve been invited to, one where my relationship with the groom is admittedly more distant, but the odds are not, I think, insurmountable. I think there is room here for me and the milk of human kindness will not impede. In one case, it is clearly within my grasp. The bachelor party was a small affair and there was a notable absence, and I could see an affectionate look in my friend’s eye at those who honored the engagement as the night wore on. There is a blood brother to contend with, but I gather he is far away. Airfares are prohibitive. Delays are not uncommon. And orchestrated, carefully planned, accidents do happen. As far as the other wedding goes, there is a big camping and rafting bachelor weekend coming up which I have been invited to. Once again, there is a brother in the picture, but he’ll be there. And think about what happens on a river rafting trip; canoes overturn, campfires explode, sadistic mountain men indiscriminately attack. There might very well be an occasion in which heroism is called for and if I rise to this orchestrated, carefully planned, challenge, who knows how high I will rise in this friend’s estimation? I’m giddy with the thought.

So, to recap: Three weddings. Best man at one, in the wedding party at two, merely invited to three. Yet, now having tasted best man honors, ready to dash newborns etc etc.

Stay tuned as I work this out, and I welcome comments.

Today, when I got home, my penny collection looked like this:



Then I dug into my pocket, and sifted through the shrapnel that had accumlated from purchases of the following, in the order in which I bought them throughout a full day:

banana
small coffee
Advil cold and sinus (20 capsules)
tuna fish and cheddar on white toast (hold the lettuce and tomato)
orange juice and milk
Chimichangas

And...I had five new pennies!!!!



Guess where they went?!



That's right, in with their friends!

How many pennies will tomorrow's transactions bring me? And when, oh when, will I fill my penny vase? [Is that what it is?] Stay tuned to find out.

There are, my friends, reasons to live. There are pleasures in our simple routines. And it is good to have hobbies and collect things. My penny collection cannot be measured only in cents, in what it will ultimately pay for [dental work, I hope], but rather in the unique satisfaction of a habit well formed.

Goodnight, sweet readers!