Entertain Me Or Else

These Are Non-Negotiable

2012-01-30T14:13:00.000-06:00

Every parent has his or her own guideposts for what makes a well-mannered child. I get a kick out of it when I am out in public and see a mom or dad with his or her child and overhear that parent giving instructions on some of the finer points of etiquette. Besides saying "please" and "thank you," the instructions are rarely the same

For my parents, these were the five things with which there was no arguing:

Don't take a sip of your beverage when you're chewing (because it looks gross)
Put your napkin in your lap (because that's what civilized people do when they're at the dinner table.)
If you bump into someone, or even if they bump into you, say "Excuse me" (because it's polite, that's why).
Cover your mouth when you yawn (otherwise, people will think you're boring them and that is rude.)
Don't go out in public looking like a slob (yes, "slob" or "slobobian" was the phrase that was used. This chestnut could be interpreted to mean "Comb your hair" or "tuck in your shirt" or "brush your teeth" or any of those hygiene-related things).

As I said, every parent has his or her own rules. But because I grew up with these commands (and still follow them, mom!), I seriously judge people when they don't follow them...especially that bumping-into-you one. God, I think people are rude when they don't say "Excuse me."

"The Cat's Table"

2012-01-28T12:47:00.002-06:00

My first experience with Michael Ondaatje was in high school, when I read "The English Patient" (which I may or may not have done to get a date). I found the book romantic in a very hazy sort of way; sensitive and meaningful and indicative of some great, hard-to-classify desirous part of human nature, but at the same time a tax on my patience for all its meandering and aimlessness.

It's much the same story with his latest, "The Cat's Table." This story about an 11-year-old boy's ocean voyage from Sri Lanka to England is as pretty as it is hard to understand. Ondaatje likes figures who represent something other than a realistic, actual person, and he likes to set these characters adrift in a sea of loosely connected scenes that are nine months pregnant with metaphor and symbolism. Together, those two aspects of his writing give me the feeling that there is something at work in this book that I can't quite grasp, like Ondaatje has something worth expressing but I can't quite see it through the frosted glass of his sentences.

This is less of a criticism than you might imagine. Books should make you think, of course, and I believe there is room for artistry and interpretation in literature. Imaginations need workouts, after all. I just don't like the feeling that, because of some shortcoming on my part, I can't quite fully partake in the experience of this book.

I'm So Sly

2012-01-15T12:20:00.000-06:00

I have noticed that when I order coffee at a coffee shop and ask for room for cream, my cup gets filled only about 5/6 of the way full.

This is unacceptable. I demand the full value of my $2.14 purchase, damn it, and those few teaspoons of coffee I am not getting mean I am not getting my money's worth.

So, I have stopped asking for room for cream, but then I add cream anyway. Devious, huh? I know what's up. Baristas of the world, you're going to have to wake up pretty early in the morning to pull the wool over this guy's eyes.

The Multi-Faceted, Very Fractured Gay Identity

2012-01-14T12:56:00.000-06:00

I have been thinking about this post a lot ever since I read it. The sentence that really stuck with me was the opening one: "As gay men and lesbians get closer and closer to the mainstream they've often traded in their image as the queer radicals who started the Stonewall Riots for the milquetoast assimilationists who want to get married and have kids and put HRC bumper stickers on their cars."

Now, I get that the author is generalizing in the interest of getting on to the main point of his post, but I do sense a little condescension there. Are all gay people supposed to be "queer radicals" because that is somehow better and more worthy than being married with kids and an HRC bumper sticker on your station wagon? I doubt we ever were all radicals, and I don't think we should be expected to be that way now. There are lots and lots of facets to gay identity not every gay person should have to embrace every single one.

At some point, I would like to be in a committed relationship and have a life that is more domestic than the one I have now. Does that make me a "milquetoast assimilationist" or hopelessly conventional? I hope not, but maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing if it did. I think it's okay if that's where a person finds happiness. I like going out and seeing and being seen now, but I expect my happiness with that lifestyle will really drop off as I get older. And let's face it -- I have never been pioneering or convention-bustingl

Just as I've never considered myself the kind of gay guy who is going to swish his way into your apartment and declare "Makeover, girlfriend!", I am not the very militant sort of gay man who thinks straight people are the enemy and calls society "heterosexist." I like to think of myself as a person who happens to be gay; being gay is a part of my identity, but I don't think it's an all-enveloping, all-consuming element of my personhood. I reject the idea that every gay man has to be some sort of radical agitator or has to constantly be making an overt political statement. (Notice I said "overt," becuase that's an important qualifier.)

Now, it's very true that I have the luxury of feeling this way because a lot of activists have already done the hard work for me and have helped create a culture that, for the most part, doesn't discriminate against gay people as much as it used to. It's because of their hard work and sacrifice that I can't be refused housing because I date men, for example, and (in most states) can't be fired from my job because I am gay. It's also probably true that day to day, I come into contact mostly with polite, educated people who have been brought up to be compassionate and respectful. If I lived somewhere else or had a job in a different line of work, I might encounter more discrimination and harassment and thus would have a very different take on things.

That being said, I do believe in the theory that the accumulation of small actions really adds up and makes an impression on people around you. Because I take education and work seriously, don't sleep with every guy I find mildly attractive and try, in general, to be a good and contributing member of society, I think that goes a long way towards undoing stereotypes and earning the respect of people who meet me. (Wow, that sounds incredibly pious. Maybe a better thing to say would be that because I don't match the hyper-exaggerated stereotype of a gay man, people who meet me might realize the stereotype is just that -- a stereotype). Basically, I think every act, no matter how small, can be a political statement in its own quiet way. You don't have to have a banner and a megaphone to make a point.

I think about this thing kind of a lot, actually, because I find gay identity is very hard to pin down. We get angry if a straight guy uses the term "fag," but then we call each other "homo" and "queer."* We say "We're just like you," but then we throw parades where men in leather jockstraps dance on floats designed to look like dicks. We supposedly abhor stereotypes, but like it when people reward us for playing into the idea that gay men say things like "fierce," are always very sassy and provocative and know how to shop (perhaps because we like the attention we get and welcome the idea that it's a unique, non-conforming identity that is neither female nor straight male?).

Basically, I am not offering any answers here, just food for thought.

*Yes, there is the idea that we are taking the power away from those slurs by appropriating them for our own use, but that theory makes me uncomfortable. Frankly, I don't feel like those terms are worth having back. Prim? Sure, but it's just how I feel.

Embrace The Power of Marketing

2012-01-14T12:03:00.002-06:00

I am glad the term "metrosexual" has died an undignified death. But I am also glad that many of the things that led people to overuse that phrase, like fancy hair products for guys and overpriced skin tonics marketed to the XY chromosome set, are still around. If I hear of any product that promises to "revitalize," "refresh," "renew" or "recharge" some physical aspect of myself and it comes in a black, gray or blue container that has the word "Men" prominently displayed on its label, I will buy it. I will so buy it and not think twice.

My first foray into the promised land of a better appearance through costly ointments happened the day I turned 20. This birthday was not a good occasion for me. Never mind the fact that I was still in college and that my life had basically yet to begin. Because I could no longer describe myself as a teenager, I felt like my youth was gone.

So, to make myself feel better, I decided I was going to buy some of that high-end skin goop I had seen advertised in magazines. It would mean I could preserve my porcelain countenance forever. The inevitable advancing of years is no reason you can't stay young for all of time, right? All you have to do is spend a lot of money on stuff that probably doesn't work and society will continue to find you desirable and worthy of being looked at!

With that in mind, I marched down to Boston Store, Milwaukee's version of Saks, and went straight to the Clinique counter. I boldly asked the clerk for some of that moisturizer that would fight the signs of aging that I doubt were present and would do away with the crow's feet that I didn't have.

"Oh," the woman said. "We're out of that. But we do have this."

She presented me with a jar - a jar that was pink, not gray, and was clearly for women. For women! I was appalled and it must have shown.

"It's really the same thing," she said.

I was still not convinced, but this woman was not going to let a sale slip away from her. She gave me a look that let me know she was getting serious.

"You don't want it because it's pink, right? You'd feel better if it said 'For Men' on the jar."

She was so, so right. But she also took a risk in calling me on my foolishness. With a little gentler coaxing on her part, I might have bought that cream, or whatever it was, and stashed it away in a secret spot in my medicine cabinet, slathering it furtively-yet-furiously on my face every night only when my roommate wasn't looking. But as it was, I could not bring myself to compromise my abundant masculinity by buying a product so clearly feminine.

If it's any consolation to that woman, who certainly rolled her eyes at my retreating back, I have by now spent what I would have spent on that stuff approximately 1,612 times over on various similar products. But in each case, they came in neutral, masculine-colored packaging and had "Men" written somewhere on their labels.

New Year's Resolutions I Won't Keep

2012-01-06T11:27:00.000-06:00

I asked a friend of mine recently if she had made any New Year's Resolutions. She shrugged. "I think if you try your best every day, then you don't really need to suddenly try to make big changes all at once," she said.

I think there is some truth to that -- but only some. I do find the psychological aspect of a deadline to be helpful.

That being said, I have not made any New Year's Resolutions myself yet, but I have ruled out several, such as:

Learn to love Sudoku: I completely get that this game is good for your brain and my mental math skills are in need of a little polishing. But try as I might, I cannot see what is fun about Sudoku. In fact, it seems like a chore - a devilish, maddeningly complicated chore.
Wake up on time every day: I currently use four alarms (yes, four) and still can't seem to roll out of bed when I plan to. I have just come to accept that any resolution I make to wake up in a more timely and orderly fashion is just doomed from the start.
Read a biography: I like books. I like history. I like interesting people. So why have I never finished a biography? That's a question I ask myself every time I see the biography of John James Audubon staring dolefully at me from the shelf from which it hasn't moved since I bought it.
Eat more weird vegetables: This is one of those perennial goals of mine. I eat a lot of vegetables, but they tend to be the usual suspects; tomatoes, carrots, spinach. I have more times than I can count made up my mind to incorporate more squash, beets and parsnips, etc. into my diet. I often do well for a week, pretty well for another week and then fall of the wagon really hard. I still want to do this; it's just that, with history as my guide, I am guessing I won't.

Upon Second Viewing....

2012-01-02T18:52:00.002-06:00

Have we talked before about how I like that movie "Bright Star"? Yes, it looks like we have.

I got this movie, a fact-based fantasy about the relationship between the poet John Keats and his love interest Fanny Brawne, for Christmas and I watched it again last night.

Here is what I realized watching it the second time around:

The character of Fanny is somehow likable even though she is presented as rather shallow and not all that intelligent. She's headstrong, impulsive and wears her heart on her sleeve -- all of which is in stark contrast to Keats, who hems, haws and hesitates to the point where he, as a character, doesn't move me much. That description may not make their relationship sound like the world's most unique dynamic, but to me it feels realistic and engaging and it shows how two dissimilar people can grow into each other and become something better than the sum of their parts.
I realized I like the first 2/3 of this movie the best. Once Keats starts dying (and I shouldn't be giving anything away by saying that, I hope), it drags a little and starts inching into hackneyed territory.
I really like the way director Jane Campion focuses on secondary characters, show us vignettes with little or no dialogue and gives us snippets of scenes meant only to set mood and tone. It's different from the "first this, then that" pace I am used to.
This movie is only 119 minutes, but it is so...unhurried it feels like five hours, making it an enjoyable way to kill a cold and slow-moving winter evening but a bad choice if you're in the mood for pulse-pounding action.
Visuals. The visuals are so beautiful.

Small Mysteries Endure

2011-12-29T19:53:00.000-06:00

I always find graffiti interesting. What was so important that someone broke the law to say it?

Another reason I find graffiti intriguing is that I can't always understand it. Take this, for instance, which I saw last night on a brick wall near the former Theatre de la Jeune Lune in the Warehouse District.

Does it pertain to a marriage proposal? This book about the Columbine massacre? Some sort of dramatic, fatal agreement?

Your guess is as good as mine.

"Young Adult"

2011-12-24T11:35:00.000-06:00

I saw "Young Adult" last night. My impression is that it was a good, but not completely satisfying, movie.

"Young Adult" is the story of Mavis Gary, a Minneapolis-based author (please don't call her a writer) of "Sweet Valley High"-type novels. Upon her receipt of a mass e-mail announcing the birth of her high school boyfriend's daughter, Mavis' already disorderly life goes into a tailspin. Heedless of the fact that he seems happily married, she takes it upon herself to "save" him from what she perceives to be a dull and humdrum life and returns to the small Minnesota town where she was raised to win him back.

First, Charlize Theron's performance as Mavis was excellent. Mavis is rude, childish, self-centered and an alcoholic. In short, she is completely unlovable. But thanks to Theron, she's also entirely watchable and lifelike. Theron seems to have no ego and goes about depicting Mavis at her worst with gusto.

I also liked that this movie had the courage to present the sort of average existence most of us live as something worth having. Mavis' world of catty gossip, Marc Jacobs dresses and long nights at bars that turn into bleary-eyed mornings is clearly shown to be empty and unfulfilling, while the unglamorous world of raising a child in a small town with only the occasional outing at Buffalo Wild Wings is presented as a comfortable and satisfying way to live. "Young Adult" doesn't preach as to which way of living is preferable, but it's nice to see a movie that doesn't deride everyday life as boring and unsatisfying.

My problem with this movie is with a few of its gaps. The boyfriend Mavis has made up her mind to win back (played by Patrick Wilson) is not enough of a character. We know Mavis has an infantile and self-centered view of the world, but why has she picked him as her most recent target? He's nice and attractive, but it isn't quite clear why he is worthy of her fixation. And while it's obvious that Mavis has never really moved on since high school and is emotionally stunted, something about where the story of "Young Adult" picks up and, ultimately, drops off the story of her life felt incomplete.

All in all, though, those complaints are things that could be said about most movies. Thanks to an interesting take on an interesting person, "Young Adult" felt like an interesting and out-of-the-ordinary movie.

In Praise of Vocabulary Lessons

2011-12-23T11:12:00.002-06:00

For some reason, I was thinking about vocabulary lessons today. From second until eleventh grade, we did vocabulary lessons every week and that many weeks of learning new words year after year after year did wonders for my ability to express myself.

Thanks to Mrs. Anderson, my second-grade teacher, I know how to use "inclined" in the sense of being likely or willing to do something. It's because of Mrs. Ferguson, who taught tenth-grade English, that I know "bucolic" means gentle, scenic and pastoral. It was not until I had Mr. Jones as a junior in high school that I knew how to spell "highfalutin."

I know the glamorous thing to do in education these days is to let kids fingerpaint their feelings with organic, plant-based pigments and then nap as mellow Joan Baez tunes waft through the room, but there is something to be said for vocabulary lessons and other old-school learning techniques. Do I use words like "efflorescence" in everyday speech? Of course not. But when a situation arises in which "efflorescence" is the perfect word, I know how to use it.

That, in my opinion, is a real skill.

Postscript: A note to Mrs. Wendling, my fifth-grade math teacher - despite your daily Mental Math quiz, I am still terrible at doing even basic addition and subtraction in my head. Sorry about that. I know you tried.

New-To-Me Music Update

2011-12-20T12:26:00.001-06:00

I feel like today is a good day for a music update.

Because it's Tuesday, that's why.

"My Girls" by Animal Collective: Nothing about this song is particularly cheerful, but it cheers me up, for some reason. To me, it sounds like MGMT's first album. I wonder if these two bands would ever have a street fight over that.
"I Don't Want To Go To Sleep, Either" by FM Belfast: This one came into my life courtesy of Brother #1. The sound effects in the chorus sounds kind of like the entire contents of a Toys 'R Us went berserk.
"Midnight City:" by M83: It's kind of hard to tell which I enjoy more - the song or the creep-tastic music video.
"Born to Die" by Lana Del Rey: Lana Del Rey isn't a 1960s pop chanteuse or a bohemian hipster. She's actually from a wealthy family in upstate New York and has admitted that the stage name "Lana Del Rey" was invented by her marketing team. I think the reason that bugs me so much is that I really like this song and am mad that it's kind of inauthentic.

Cold Is Good For Fashion

2011-12-08T12:58:00.001-06:00

It is very cold these days here in the City of Lakes, and as we all know, cold is extremely good for your fashion sense.

Actually, if you live anywhere where temperatures don't regularly dip below the minimum threshold necessary to sustain life, then you maybe don't know.

If that's the case, let me detail for you just how cold weather really keeps you glamorous:

Thanks to constant wind and unfathomably dry air, the only way to keep your lips from feeling like they've been freshly sandpapered is to slather them with obscene amounts of lip balm and keep them that way at all times. Seriously, gob it on there - with a spackle knife, if necessary. Sure, this approach will always make you feel like your lips are drowning in an oil spill, but if you don't look like Melanie Griffith every single second of every single day from November to about mid-May, then you aren't doing it right.
Flannel underwear is necessary, especially if you're a guy (don't pretend you don't know why). But flannel underwear is bulky, so if you are going for that slim-fit, tailored look -- good luck. You will have lumps and bulges were there should be no such thing. So, you can either wear ill-fitting pants that conceal your choice of undergarment or you can look like you're wearing a diaper. Your choice.
There is really no end to the wonders freezing temperatures and moisture-less air can do for your tresses. My hair is currently defying the laws of physics with its inexhaustible ability to attract/store/generate static electricity and stand on end. "Crispy" and "brittle" are laughable understatements for whatever sad, keratin-based substance is now on top of my head. I still comb it in the morning, but I don't know why. It has just decided it is going to be a wispy mop until we are about halfway into 2012.
Most people know a chill in the air adds a flush to your cheeks. That can be appealing, because it makes you look healthy and vibrant. But sustained exposure to windchills makes your entire face look like it has been scalded. The effect is rather demonic, and "demonic" is definitely a bold and fashion-forward move to make.

Snow-Filled Mornings

2011-12-03T14:36:00.001-06:00

I am going to forego the type of post I usually write when it snows for the first time (which is usually along the lines of "OMG! SNOW! I AM FILLED WITH A CHILD-LIKE SENSE OF WONDER!") and instead am going to talk about how snow makes the very first part of my morning much better.

These days, it's dark in the morning when I wake up. I like standing in my kitchen with the lights off, brewing coffee. The snow has this effect of muffling noise from outside, so everything seems soft and quiet. This is a real boon because I live near the main post office and also on a major bus route, so anything that subdues the sound of the unbelievably loud gear-grinding of trucks and buses is a wonderful thing. I also think snow on the ground has a way of changing the light as the sun comes up. That's probably just because it's a different time of year and the sun is at a different angle and blah blah blah boring physics explanation. I still say it's the snow.

All in all, snow makes for a gentler and somehow more civilized way to start my day.

Groups Of People More Attractive Than Your Average

2011-11-28T10:58:00.001-06:00

I firmly believe that certain demographics of people are more attractive than the rest of us. This is not some weird approval of eugenics or a sly way of stating a racial preference; rather, it's an appreciation of some sort of appealing factor that, with the exception of gym rats (see below) is usually rather hard to pinpoint.

Baristas: There is a good chance you could look like Quasimodo and I'd still find you attractive as long as you're the person handing me my morning eye-opener. But even with that bias, I am still fairly confident that people who work in coffee shops tend to be more attractive than the rest of the general population. I think it's because many of them pull off that hipster look so well. Adding to their appeal is that I imagine all of them work in coffee joints as a pay-the-bills kind of gig and are artists and deejays by night. Hippie chicks and scruffy arstiste-types can tax my tolerance in some contexts, but when we're talking coffee shops, I don't want anyone else making my latte.

Farmer's market employees: It is a general rule that people who work at farmers' markets are uniformly fresh-faced, clear-eyed and apple-cheeked. It also helps that, here in Minnesota, many of them are exceptionally Nordic-looking and that many of the women keep their hairstyles simple and go easy on the makeup. I approve. I approve of this aesthetic wholeheartedly.

Gym rats: This may seem like kind of a "duh" category, but I am not talking about pecs that look like slabs of meat that could be served at a Viking banquet. Those are kind of gross. Rather, I'm talking about shapely legs that testify to an enthusiasm for treadmills and arms that are not big, but can best be described as "sculpted." Aspirations to look this way are a big reason I refuse to let me gym membership card gather dust.

Professionals: This is a bad name for the type of people I see walking in downtown Minneapolis in the morning, feeding parking meters and getting coffee and stopping at ATMs before work. They look so nice and put together and, because they're doing quick errands before they start their days, aren't really giving a lot of though to how pleasant they appear. They look so stylish with their coordinated scarves and jackets and freshly primped faces. I want it all.

Bad Pun Alert: I'm "Hungry" For More

2011-11-23T14:58:00.001-06:00

Juvenile fiction never did much for me. "Twilight" seemed bloodless and cold and "Harry Potter" never charmed me.*

But "The Hunger Games" -- well, that's a different story.

"The Hunger Games" succeeds the same way "The Da Vinci Code" did. That is, it succeeds not through great writing but through superb pacing, a great plot and a surplus of dramatic cliffhangers. It helps that this story of a girl plucked from obscurity and forced to participate in a gladiator-like fight to the death with other children is exceptionally dark and grim for a young-adult novel. Author Suzanne Collins handles the violence with skill; "The Hunger Games" is not explicit and gory, but she refers to it in such a way that it is still very unsettling.

I finished this baby in the space of two or three days. That is a testament both to its easy-to-read format (sentences so short they are incomplete, double-spaced lines, huge font) and to Collins' ability to write a book that's hard to put down.

Thanks to "The Hunger Games," I might no longer treat young-adult fiction with immediate scorn. (Notice I said "might")

Postscript: I have a confession -- I was not at all interested in this book until I saw the preview for the upcoming movie version. Then I was all like "I'mma read that book." Yes, I am one of those people.

*I really can't control the bad puns today. Sorry about that.

Sometimes....

2011-11-20T13:47:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, you feel pretty good about life. You have a job, a place to live and a decent car. You feel like things are moving up, like you've got the elements in place and if you just keep at it, you're going to finally have it made, kiddo.

And then you're at the bank and you see a homeless woman sitting amidst the melting snow on the floor of the lobby with what you assume are all her worldly possessions spread around her, staring intently into a compact and trying to cover up the signs of a life hard-lived with heavy amounts of blush and eyeshadow. It's clear from first glance she doesn't have a lot of dignity in her life, but she'll be damned if this last little thing, this little way of making herself feel better, gets taken from her.

And that, right there, kind of makes you feel selfish and myopic for worrying so much about your own life instead of the general human condition (which could always use a little spiffing up, in your opinion).

Compare and Contrast: The Lady Comedian Edition

2011-11-19T13:24:00.001-06:00

Because I have been in need of lite reading (the spelling is deliberate) lately, I just finished Tina Fey's "Boysspants" and am floundering through Chelsea Handler's "Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me." One thing that is very clear to me is that these are very different books.

Fey's "Boysspants" is a lot of what you would expect. In it, she airs some of her impressive collection of neuroses and talks a lot about her work on Saturday Night Live. But Fey also has some piquant social observations, particularly about mothers in the workplace, that are a little tart going down, and I liked that. Her thoughts on those topics were unexpected, at least for a collection of humorous essays, and a little challenging. Also, Fey (or whomever her ghostwriter was) is a talented writer. In an essay about her father, she comes off as loving and reverent but respectful to the point of being a little intimidated -- quite a hard blend to pull off in less than ten pages. Another chapter about a horrible job she had working at a YMCA in suburban Chicago is funny and poignant with a sharp little twist at the end; not the kind of thing someone without a knack for words could accomplish.

In stark contrast stands "Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me," which I am almost positive I am not going to finish. Whereas Fey's humor is topical, witty and edgy (for a mainstream comedian, anyway), most of Handler's humor involves phrases like "oversexed chimpanzee" and about 20 synonyms for the word "vagina." At the risk of sounding snobby and highfalutin, it's a little juvenile. The idea of the book is that Handler has given the people she maligned in her previous books a chance to return the favor by telling embarrassing stories about her and the effect is sort of like hearing long, drawn-out inside jokes about people you don't know. It's kind of funny, but not so funny it's really worth the effort of reading. Lastly, it's apparent that whatever Handler's comic talents are, they don't extend to a way with words. She's a good storyteller, but she can't make print work for her quite the way Fey can.

Why I Love Libraries

2011-11-07T11:09:00.000-06:00

I went to the library yesterday morning to pick up a book that the library staff had set aside for me and there, in the Reserve stacks, I saw these two selections: Jenna Jameson's "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star" and an anthology of "Letters to Penthouse."

Setting aside that there will always be smart-asses like me to snicker at the fact that someone is actually reading these*, I think this is a good illustration of why libraries are very, very important -- they allow everyone free access to a great breadth and variety of information and don't pass judgment on whatever it is people want to read.

Of course, it would be great if we were all reading biographies of Condoleezza Rice or learning more about the complexities of ancient Rome or something, but then again, the book that I was picking up was Tina Fey's "Bossypants," so I can't really say anything about that.

*I just picture some prim, bespectacled librarian shelving the Reserve titles, coming across these and going "Oh...my!"

College Music Revisited

2011-11-06T13:03:00.000-06:00

For reasons unknown, I was feeling nostalgic for college this morning.

Not the whole "I have no money and study all the time and I really want to get out of here and get a job" part of it all, but the music part -- that's what I was missing.

As I listened to some old favorites, I realized that in many cases, the music I listen to know is kind of just an update of the tracks that were spinning when I was a naive, fresh-faced sophomore. Observe:

Birds and Batteries "After a Flood" is the new TV on the Radio - "Wolf Like Me": Hipster one-hit wonders never die, they just shape-shift into new bands that are barely distinguishable from one another.
Feist "How Come You Never Go There" is the new Feist "Mushaboom": Yes, I am basically saying that Feist is the new Feist.
Beach House "Walk in the Park" is the new Keane "Somewhere Only We Know": Evidently, I will never, ever tire of music that makes me sad.
Snow Patrol "Just Say Yes" is the new The Killers "Bones", "When You Were Young" and "Human": Make no mistake -- I still love The Killers. It's just that I have an incredibly high capacity for romantic ballads. (Also, not all those songs from The Killers came out when I was in college, but I still consider it college music. Because I just do.)
Little Boots "Love Kills" is the new Goldfrapp "Ooh La La": British women with sultry, smoky voices will get me Every. Single. Time.

News Stories Of Which I Never Tire*

2011-11-05T13:05:00.000-05:00

*Yes, in the interest of grammar, I sometimes speak like a 19th century boarding school student.

Like most people, I get tired of certain news stories after awhile and stop following them.

Then there are others that continue to fascinate me for weeks or even months. Currently, those stories include:

Gabrielle Giffords: What happened to her is absolutely sickening; the fact that it didn't kill her is amazing; that she seems to be recovering is very inspiring. (Also, her husband is an astronaut. Dope, y'all). When she makes her inevitable appearance on "Oprah" or whichever show housewives are watching these days, I would seriously consider watching it.
The Runaway Dad: The saga of a Lakeville, Minn., father who left his 11-year-old son alone and lit out for California because he could not face his pending bankruptcy and foreclosure is strangely gripping. I find it so weird I keep reading every single article about it, even when there is not much new to report.
The Greek Debt Crisis: I have to be honest and admit that I do not understand economics well enough to quite understand what is going on, but I keep reading about it because it is sort of like watching a nation implode minute by minute.

Facebook Fury

2011-11-01T12:08:00.003-05:00

I get confused when you write about the following things in your Facebook status updates:

Fantasy Football: This is such a foreign world to me.
Vague personal statements meant to get people to ask you what is going on: Like "OMG! I can't believe this is happening!" Actually, this doesn't confuse me, because I know exactly why you're doing it. I just find it puzzling that you are so nakedly and unabashedly seeking attention and validation.
Your completely ordinary plans for the day. It's nice that you have to run to the grocery store and then are going to watch "How I Met Your Mother," but if I wanted to know that, I would find out for myself by engaging in conduct that would probably get my arrested.
Re-posting Internet-only political/economic/social "facts": Am I to assume that you believe everything you read?

Keep in mind, this is all coming from a guy who feels the need to chronicle every single feeling that adds nuance to his world and then pastes is all over the Internet in hopes that someone (anyone!) will read it, so take it all with a grain of salt.

Nice Thought

2011-10-30T10:03:00.003-05:00

I was reading Time magazine's obituary of Betty Skelton, whom I had never heard of, when I was struck by this quote of hers, in which she was speaking of her career as a stunt pilot in the early part of the decade:

"It was an effort that took many, many thousands of hours to perfect, and it, in its own self, was an art."

That's how I want my life to be. I am okay with it taking "many, many thousands of hours to perfect" as long as I can say, in the end, that it "in its own self, was an art."

The Best Worst Costume Ever

2011-10-25T12:04:00.002-05:00

When I was young, I was a "Fantasia" superfan.

I loved the idea of nature coming alive in "The Nutcracker" section, was way into "Dance of the Hours" with the alligators and hippos and had all sorts of weird, pre-sexual feelings towards the centaurs and centaur-ettes. So, when I was in about second grade, I decided that I wanted to be a sorcerer, a la Mickey in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment (but maybe a little less sinister), for Halloween.

Unbeknownst to me, sorcerer's costumes are very hard to find. Apparently, boys my age and of that era were more interested in being Power Rangers, which even then my fledgling sensibilities knew to be passe. I suppose we could have made something, but I decided on a costume until late in the game and now there wasn't enough time. Also, my mom was not much of a seamstress.

But what my mom lacked in the sewing department, she made up for in determination. I am sure she scoured the limited costume options of my hometown in hopes of finding me a blue, pointed, star-bedecked hat and cape. Alas, her efforts were not to be rewarded.

I remember her picking my siblings and me up from school one afternoon. She had gotten our Halloween costumes earlier in the day. She saved mine for last. What she took out of the truck was not the sorcerer's costume I was hoping for, but rather a standard black witch's hat and cape. I remember the bright tone of her voice as she explained that I wouldn't be a witch; I would be a warlock, which was basically the same thing as a sorcerer! It was that tone you use when you know you're both disappointed, but you also know it is important to act cheerful.

Actually, I didn't really care all that much. I was in second grade, and when you are in second grade and your mom tells you something, you just go with it. I totally accepted that people would know I was a warlock and not a gender-inappropriate witch.

I probably do not need to tell you this turned out to not be the case.

Starting at my class Halloween party, people misidentified me as a witch. I tried to explain what a warlock was, but no one understood. Trick-or-treating was no better. "Give the nice little witch some candy," people would say, or "Oh, look at that cute witch. What's your name, honey?" I was perplexed as to why people thought I was a witch -- couldn't they see that I was a boy? I mean, just because I was wearing a costume traditionally worn by girls... All in all, it was a rather frustrating venture.

From that year on, I went as a vampire, for which there could be no possible source of gender confusion. it worked very well for me.

*Except for the "Night on Bald Mountain" part with the giant demon and the skeleton-ghosts rising from the cemetery. That part always scared me. Even the part where it is supposed to be over and you see the nuns walking across a bridge or whatever -- that still scared me.

George Clooney For President

2011-10-24T17:45:00.002-05:00

"Vote for me, because I am George Clooney."

I went to go see "The Ides of March" recently.

Overall, I could take or leave this movie. It is not bad, but it is not great, either.

The funny thing about it is, a central theme of "The Ides of March" is the crookedness and hypocrisy of politicians, yet I still found myself wanting to vote for George Clooney's character, a contender for the Democratic nomination for president.

Yeah, he's kind of a scumbag -- but he talks about wanting to develop renewable energy! Sure, he's a liar -- but he has progressive views on religion's place in society! Okay, he has no real moral compass -- but he wants the wealthiest to shoulder a bigger share of the tax burden! He's got my vote!

This, I imagine, is not really the reaction the filmmakers were hoping to provoke.

"The Leftovers"

2011-10-17T13:49:00.000-05:00

I liked this line from "The Leftovers" by Tom Perrotta, who is one of my favorite writers:

"For the first time since he could remember,he didn't whisper his old friend's name, nor did he make his nightly plea for the missing to return. What was the point? He felt like he'd just woken from that had lasted way too long, and could not longer remember the dream that had detained him. They're gone, he thought. I've got to let them go." P. 49

The Secret Fear

2011-10-16T09:28:00.000-05:00

I will admit that I am afraid of dying in a car crash. I have no problem confessing that I still think ghosts are scary. But one thing I will not publicly admit to is the deep, gnawing fear I have of being left alone on New Year's Eve.

Around this time of year (and no, I am not exaggerating), I start getting nervous. I worry that no one will ask me to a party. I begin to get anxious that I won't have fun when everyone else on the entire planet is having a blast. I start fretting that I will be desperately single* on Dec. 31 or that I won't get kissed at midnight (a terribly cliched tradition that is nonetheless absolutely wonderful).

For 364 days out of the year, including Valentine's Day, I don't worry about things like this at all, but New Year's Eve is that fated 365th day. I just have this mental picture of myself standing outside (for some reason), shivering alone in the cold, pathetically dressed for a night out and wanting so much to have fun with someone important, yet still unloved and unwanted by all the world. It's a horrible image and I just can't shake it.

This is largely an unfounded fear. Almost all my New Year's Eves have been great. At least two were really memorable -- so wonderful that if you put them in a movie, people would roll their eyes and turn it off.

But still. I worry about it. A lot.

* For the uninitiated, "desperately single" is a state of being entirely distinct from "single." The latter implies a happiness or at least acceptance of one's relationship status, the former indicates a proneness to truly bad decision-making and an overwhelming, unattractive neediness people can smell from a mile away. I have, at times, been both single and desperately single.

Yes, I Actually Saw This Happen

2011-10-16T01:19:00.000-05:00

I spent too much time in my apartment tonight and it started to feel claustrophobic, so I went for a walk.

It was a beautiful fall night, cold and crisp with a smattering of stars visible through the urban haze of streetlights.

As I was walking, a red sports car whipped around the corner. Then, without any warning that I could observe, it stopped in the middle of the street.

As I got closer, I saw the driver had gotten out and was kneeling beside his open door. My first thought was that he might be sick, or that he had dropped something important. Why else would you stop in the middle of a street like that?

When I got closer still, I realized he wasn't sick and he hadn't dropped anything. He was urinating -- urinating as surreptitiously as someone in his position could.

Oh.

Do You Speak My Language?

2011-10-10T14:11:00.002-05:00

The scene: Mach1 has found the coffee pot empty. So, like the good person he so desperately wants everyone to think he is, is starts brewing another one.

Just as it begins brewing, a man enters. He ignores the coffee pot that is clearly full of already-brewed coffee and instead goes for the one that is in the coffeemaker itself. Mach1 is puzzled by this behavior.

Mach1: "Oh, I just started brewing that one."

Him: (Frowns). "Oh." (Jiggles handle to no effect).

Mach1: "No, I mean, I literally just started that. Like, two seconds ago."

Him: "Huh." (Frowns. Takes a step back. Observes coffee maker)

Mach1: (Silence as he waits for the recognition to dawn, then...) "This one right here as coffee in it."

Him: "Oh, well." (Exits)

I guess we could cut him a little slack, since I guess he hadn't had his coffee yet, but really....

The Mystery Woman

2011-10-06T09:27:00.000-05:00

It has recently come to my attention that I, of all people, am having an affair.

With a woman.

I know that sounds unlikely, but all the evidence I have gathered points in none other than that direction. See for yourself -- assess the facts described below and come to your own conclusion:

The other morning, I found three strands of long blonde hair in my hairbrush. I have short dark hair. (Conclusion: So she's blonde and therefore, possibly not all that smart. When did my tastes change?)
As I was doing laundry over the weekend, I saw what seemed to be lipstick on the collar of one of my white shirts. I suppose I could have nicked myself shaving and these stains were actually blood, but my blood is not waxy. Nor is it a color I would describe as Blushin' in the Bahamas. (Conclusion: This woman is either 12 or has really trashy taste in makeup. Or she's in a sorority, which I guess would cover both of those things)
Lately, when I come into my apartment after work, it smells very faintly like women's perfume. Yes, I wear cologne, but I know what it smells like and this isn't it. (Conclusion: She hangs out in my apartment when I am not there. Sexy? Or "Fatal Attraction II"?)
Sometimes I find charges on my debit card that I cannot explain. I try very hard to figure out what they are (they are not fraudulent charges, I don't think) but can't come up with how or why I would have spent $25 at some weird place with a name that indicates nothing about what kind of establishment it is. (Conclusion: I am taking her to secret hideaways so that our torrid, clandestine meetings can go unnoticed by prying eyes. That, and she's a really cheap date.)

Dorky Things I Like

2011-10-05T21:17:00.000-05:00

This list is by no means exhaustive:

Dear Abby: I say with complete genuineness that I think Dear Abby gives good advice. Sure, a lot of people write to her with social dilemmas that are pointless and stupid, but not all of them are. One guy recently wrote in to say he had found a sex tape of his wife with another man on the Internet and didn't know if he should tell her about it. Abby, being the brassy dame she is, responded that if there were sex tape of her (and particularly if the lighting were unflattering) she would want to know about it. She also asked how the husband had come across said video. I give her points for not getting the vapors about the fact that there was a sex tape involved. Keep it up, Abby! Polite society is depending on you.
Paying bills via the U.S. Postal Service: These days, most of my bills are automatically deducted from my checking account.There are a few, however (like my Internet bill, mainly because those bitches seem to think trying to sneak new and unauthorized charges past me is some kind of sick game) that I still pay by actual check. There is something so satisfying about sealing the envelope, putting a stamp on it and dropping it into a mailbox. It's like returning a library book on time - it makes me feel like a good, upstanding citizen.
Pudding: Contrary to popular belief, pudding is not just a nursing-home favorite. Some 26-year-old men who have all of their teeth like it, too.

Theater Roundup

2011-09-30T21:26:00.003-05:00

One of the reasons I renewed my lease this year (besides, you know, just not wanting to put all my stuff in cardboard boxes and haul it across town) is that moving out would mean I would be moving away from the Guthrie Theater, and that's just not something I want to do. Right now, I live about three blocks away and that makes it very easy to take advantage of the super-cheap ticket deals the Guthrie runs with surprising regularity.

The benefit of these cheap tickets is that my theater intake has increased dramatically as of late, enabling me to sound like one of those cultured, snobby aesthetes I so desperately aspire to be without paying full price for that privilege. (Because it isn't as if arts and cultural organizations need our financial support or anything, right? We all know they're rolling in dough.)

About a month ago, I went to see "H.M.S. Pinafore." Normally, I dislike musicals and if there ever were a candidate to further entrench this opinion within my roster of deep-set beliefs, you would think it would be this lighter-than-air Gilbert and Sullivan confection. "H.M.S. Pinafore" uses a class-conscious love triangle as a wafer of support for a whole lot of musical frolicking and normally, I need a lot more substance than that.

It's true that, at first, I wanted to groan. There was just so much...dancing and everything was so...pink. But soon, after I gave in to the whole idea that concepts like "plot" and "logic" and "realism" are elements not present in the musical universe, I actually wound up enjoying myself. There is some legitimacy to criticizing musicals for being frothy and frivolous, but that is also stating the obvious in a pretty major way and ignores their pep and vigor, which are qualities I forget I actually appreciate (in small doses).

Then there was "reasons to be pretty" (all lowercase, 'cause it's more daring that way. Duh.) This story about two feuding couples was one of those edgy, caustic plays by misanthrope du jour Neil LaBute. I wanted to see it because it was described as "bracingly provocative" and phrases like that are like catnip to me. (Frankly, I expected nudity and was disappointed that there wasn't any.) "reasons to be pretty" was good. I can't say I liked it, because it was basically like bathing in battery acid for two hours and who likes a thing like that? But it was well-acted, effective and gripping...and going to see it made me feel avant garde, which is important to me.

Last night, I saw "Much Ado About Nothing," Shakespeare's romantic comedy about mistaken identity, finding love in unexpected places, etc. etc. etc. I read this play and saw the Kenneth Branagh/Emma Thompson movie version in high school amd I remember being unimpressed (but then again, "unimpressed" was sort of a lifestyle for me at age 17, so maybe that isn't saying all that much). Maybe it is because I am now better able to understand the very old English dialogue, but this time around I really liked the crackling witty repartee. The fact that this production was set in the 1920s and entailed many sumptuous costumes and opulent set pieces didn't hurt, either. Seeing this play is what I think of when I think of going to the theater - a lavish production of a classic, the viewing of which somehow leaves you a better and more classy person.

Postscript: Oh, by the way? This was my 1,200th post. Congratulate me.

I Had A Jim Brandenburg Moment Here, Folks

2011-09-30T18:45:00.004-05:00

Decorative grass is tacky.

Frosted glass is tacky.

But together, they are not tacky. One of those mysteries of the universe, huh?

I Have Many Wonderful, Terrible Ideas

2011-09-29T09:39:00.005-05:00

I often have trouble sleeping.

Sometimes, I can't fall asleep. Other times, I wake up randomly at 3:37 a.m. (precisely, of course) and can't nod off again for about an hour. Regardless of what happens to keep me from sleeping when the rest of the world is unconscious, I always come up with ideas that seem wonderful at the time but, in the really, really harsh light of the subsequent morning, are exposed as the truly terrible plans they often are.

Here are a few things I've come up with instead of reading or watching a movie like a normal person would do if he or she couldn't sleep:

"I am going to research horseback riding lessons! Look, they are only [way too expensive an amount] a month! Now, I wonder if I could afford a horse and, more importantly, what I would name it if I had one."
"It would definitely be a good idea to start about 16 games of Words With Friends all at once, regardless of the fact that my brain right now sees the letters, but couldn't arrange them into an actual English word if my very life depended on it."
"I should read 'Jane Eyre.'"
"I am going to run 10 miles! Like, right now!!!"
"Every single piece of furniture in my apartment needs to be rearranged!" (Note - Once, I actually did re-arrange all six or so pieces of furniture I own at about 4 a.m. I hated the new layout and moved it all back two days later. That task, performed at a sane time of day, took me about an hour whereas the whole thing took about 20 minutes when the insomnia was raging. That made me wonder where in God's name I had found that wellspring of energy and strength.)
"Why, yes. Facebook-stalking that girl from my philosophy class sophomore year sounds extremely fun and productive. Wow, she's put on a few..."
"Are the open ends of my pillowcases all facing the same way? I think they are. No, wait. They're not. Let's just fix this...Why is that still not right? What is going on? Why can't I fix this? Why can't I fix MYSELF? Oh, God. Everything is terrible right now."

The Cheap Price of Shock Value

2011-09-28T20:44:00.001-05:00

Lately, I have been reading a lot of genteel, well-mannered books - books that, when I close them, make me think "Hm. Well, that was nice" but don't exactly shake up my world. After the last one, I felt I needed to do some switching up.

When I need a change of pace, I reach for a book by A.M. Homes. Her short story collections "Things You Should Know" and "The Safety of Objects" were sufficiently weird and unsettling enough to make her my go-to author for adding some danger to my literary landscape, so this time I went for her debut novel "The End of Alice."

Yikes - that's all I have to say: yikes. You could stop reading right here and that one word would sum up my reaction to this book.

I should have known this would have been more than I bargained for when I read the synopsis and found out it is about correspondence between an incarcerated child molester and a teenage girl bent on seducing/possessing/molesting a 12-year-old boy. I guess I thought it would be artistic and edgy and defensible on the grounds that we need to explore people different from ourselves before we can fully understand them.

In retrospect, that was a little high-minded of me. "The End of Alice" was, in a way, edgy. It was also just gross. I did not detect a whole lot of artistry or elegance in the writing here. Mostly, I just noticed the shock value. Of course, a book like this is meant to be disturbing and Homes easily succeeds on that front. But as the book inched towards its sickening crescendo, I found myself getting increasingly squirmy and not all that interested in reading further. Maybe there were some deep, underlying merits here, but it was too hard to notice them when all I could do was grimace at the passages involving maternal period blood, twisted sexual fantasies about children and rape sequences (and yeah, those are all present and accounted for here).

I am still glad I read this book because I do think it is important to get out of one's comfort zone. But now, I want to read about 12 genteel, well-mannered books so I can exorcise some of "The End of Alice's" more disturbing parts from my brain.

Postcard from San Francisco

2011-09-27T12:25:00.000-05:00

I went to San Francisco last weekend.

I debated writing a breathless, minute-by-minute account of my trip, but instead, I just thought I'd tell you how much I enjoyed spending Sunday morning at La Boulange Bakery, where I drank coffee and wrote cards.

"But Mach1," you say. "Don't you do that all the time in Minneapolis?"

"Yes," I respond. "But this was different. This was a San Francisco bakery and these were San Francisco cards. Not at all the same thing."

Maybe I Could Have Tried A Little Harder Today

2011-09-22T10:19:00.004-05:00

Me: "You look sharp today."

Him: "Thanks. You look...warm."

Presented (Almost) Without Comment

2011-09-21T20:30:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite things to do is take pictures with my phone and pretend I am artistic. This is rain on the railing of the Endless Bridge, my favorite spot in Minneapolis.

Compare and Contrast

2011-09-11T13:56:00.002-05:00

For no real reason other than that it was Sunday and I needed groceries, I decided to go to Aldi. I had never been to one, but I knew it was famous for its rock-bottom prices. I thought it might be like Trader Joe's, but cheaper.

This was a terrible, terrible mistake.

Get ready for some bitchy white-person observations, because here they come: there was trash in the parking lot. The lighting was sickly, the brands generic, the produce weak and diseased-looking. The people shuffling through the store looked like they have just given up on everything. I bought some paper towels because I didn't want the trip to be a total waste and left. The one saving grace was the cashier - a chipper, efficient young woman with a name tag that said "BREANNA." She made eye contact, asked me how my day was going and did her work quickly and enthusiastically.

Later in the day, I went to Lund's which, as you probably know, is where I plan to do all my grocery shopping after I win the lottery. Cartier doesn't display its wares better than Lund's displays it produce. There are fresh flowers and the store is clean and nicely arranged. Naturally, everything Lund's sells is priced to reflect these upgrades.

But here, vapid-looking young women brushed fake strands of hair out of their eyes and screeched into cell phones. A woman nearly hit me with her cart and then looked right past me, as if I didn't exist. The cashier didn't look at me and just kind of grunted when I greeted her.

I left with a variation of the same feeling I had leaving Aldi. People don't change as easily as settings do, I guess.

I Assign Meaning To Just About Every Inconsequential Thing

2011-09-09T10:19:00.000-05:00

I woke up with the collar of my shirt damp and a feeling of disorientation presenting itself stronger and more proximate than I really cared for. The light was changing and the tree outside my window was sending shadows cascading across my bedroom wall.

To me, they looked like escape plans.

I Don't Know What To Make Of This

2011-09-07T09:47:00.001-05:00

"I am such an asshole."

She was wearing a gray tweed winter coat, for some reason, and gulping on a Marlboro Light the way a diver breathes fresh air upon surfacing. I didn't know her.

"Did you see that guy? The one just standing there?"

She gestured behind us. Nicollet Mall was crowded and at first I couldn't see any guy "just standing there." Then I realized that she had jerked her thumb in the direction of a bus stop.

"I think he might be just waiting for a bus," I said.

She rolled her eyes.

"I am such a racist. I'm sorry, but I am. I just get freaked out. It's a Muslim thing"

Now I was a little puzzled - was the woman, who was black, saying she was a Muslim, or that the allegedly suspicious man was? And did either scenario really matter?

"Like, he could have had a bomb strapped to his chest!"

The woman's cell phone rang.

"Well," I said."I don't know that we need to worry too much about that in Minneapolis."

She rolled her eyes again as she grabbed her cell phone.

"Nicole! I am such an asshole!"

Thoughts Unbidden

2011-09-04T09:25:00.004-05:00

I was sitting at my kitchen table this morning when it happened.

It was quiet and through the open window, I could hear a lone sparrow, the stirring of tree branches and the far-off hum of traffic. I remember looking out at the gray sky and wondering what kind of day it would be. I remember feeling like my hair needed to be washed and being pleased with the coffee I had made.

And that, that very unceremonious moment in time, is when I realized it - that there is just no one more perfect for me than you.

This is definitely the kind of revelation I wish would happen in a more momentous fashion, like while I was watching the stars or walking in the rain or something, but it didn't and that's just how my life works. Whomever adapts my autobiography into a movie (and that's going to happen, by the way - both the autobiography and the movie) is really going to have trouble coming up with Oscar-winning scenes.

Nostalgia Makes Me Do Things Like Read Books

2011-09-02T14:06:00.003-05:00

As I’ve said before, Anna Sewell’s “Black Beauty” was as much a part of my childhood as were “Sesame Street” and parental concern about pesticides on apples. My friend Em and I recently decided to re-read it for our Two-Person Book Club. Doing so reminded me why "Black Beauty" is, by some counts, the fifth best-selling English-language book of all time.

“Black Beauty” is the story of the eponymous horse and how he is treated by his human caretakers. Born on a farm in the English countryside, he trades hands many times, becoming a nobleman’s favorite mount, a carriage horse in London, a broken-down piece of horseflesh and finally the pet of a warm-hearted friend.

As you can tell from that synopsis, “Black Beauty” is above all a gentle book. Reading it made me feel like a parent was speaking to me in a soothing voice. It’s a demonstration in favor of kindness and civility – values I think we all could use an extra dose of from time to time.

Coming to "Black Beauty" as an adult, I realized a few things I hadn’t picked up on as a child. First, it has a strong morality tale component. Sewell was a Quaker, so she uses characters to demonstrate the evils of drinking and roundly condemns the abuse of animals. There are also several thinly veiled instructions to child readers, such as that it is important to be good and well-mannered. And since this is a British book, the concepts of class and being “well-bred” extend even to horses.

“Black Beauty” is meant largely for children, so to criticize it for a few flat characters and its improbable plot would be to miss the point entirely. I’d prefer to focus on its soft and sensitive nature.

How I Know It's Fall

2011-08-31T10:48:00.000-05:00

I went for a walk this weekend and my time outside told me it was fall better than any calendar could.

The sunshine was a little more watery than it was in July and the air was still in a way that implied the vitality that coursed through plants earlier in the summer had run dry. Cicadas droned unseen in limp-leafed bushes. Goldenrod and pale purple aster flecked the waves of tawny grass.

It's the quiet things that announce the changing of the seasons first, I think.

My Favorite Running Route

2011-08-24T12:17:00.001-05:00

After work, I usually run along the Mississippi River, across the Stone Arch Bridge, through St. Anthony Main and back, repeating the same lap two or three times. It's one of Minneapolis' most popular running areas and is always crowded with other runners, people walking their dogs and couples out for a stroll.

When I have extra energy, though, I extend my course a little bit and go on my favorite running route.

It starts when I duck off the main path and onto a soft gravel trail that travels through some thick, overgrown woods. It's cooler in this part and, because the branches of the trees overhead nearly touch, darker and jungle-like.I like the sound of the gravel under my feet and the gurgling of a back channel of the river that I can see through the leaves to my right.

I then cross an old wooden bridge and enter a park everyone seems to have forgotten about. Seeing all the benches and pavilions with no one around is just the right amount of eerie. The parks department seems to have forgotten about this park, too, so it's a tangle of tawny grasses, black-eyed susans and beach pea. It feels a little like it's going back to nature and is very beautiful in a wild, un-manicured way. I am reminded of "The Secret Garden" every time I am there.

Then I cross over to the other bank of the Mississippi via a bridge that seems to have been under road construction forever, so once again, there is never anyone there. This bridge crosses a wide, dark spot in the Mississippi and there is always a cool, moist breeze coming off the water - a perfect refresher for when my energy starts to flag.

The last portion takes me homeward through a park that is much more popular, which is good because by this time I am ready to see other people again. Here, islands of trees dot the gently rolling hills and huge bushes of those dark pink roses that seem so popular with landscapers cascade onto the path. I don't actually think this type of rose is very pretty, but I love the smell, which lingers in the air long after the last rosebush retreats behind me.

The last part of my run is an intense sprint up a switchback flight of stairs onto the graceful Hennepin Avenue Bridge, which, in my opinion, is one of Minneapolis' nicest architectural punctuation marks.

Often people ask me how I can run so much. With a route like this, I question how they can not.

The Time-Warped Bookshelf

2011-08-22T09:13:00.002-05:00

I returned to the ancestral manse this weekend. Because I lack the ability to relax or participate in any sort of non-physical leisure activity, I was overcome with the intense desire to clean out my bookcase. As the rest of my family watched movies or went for walks, I was alone in my room, ransacking my bookshelf.

This was more interesting for me than you might think. Looking at the books I accumulated from roughly age 14 until about 22, when I moved out, was sort of archaeological in that I could clearly see different eras of my life.

The Pulp Fiction Phase: Between the ages of about 15 and 17, I could not get enough Michael Cricthon and John Grisham, particularly the latter. I think I have read every single one of his books and will never admit in public just how influential he was in career choices I have made in the past few years.

The American History Phase: History was my favorite subject in high school. This is probably what lead me to read "1776," and "Undaunted Courage". I also bought a copy of the journals of Lewis and Clark, but I had to stop reading it because all the mispellings irritated me. Seriously, guys - exploring the western two-thirds of our country is great and all, but would it kill you to learn how to spell? It's not like education was very rudimentary in the 1800s (oh, wait...).

The Science Phase: Early on in college, I wanted to be a zoologist. Specifically, I wanted to study antelope. (Does the world need more antelope specialists? I doubt it. But like I said, this was early on in college.) This is why I have several books about African mammals as well as copies of "This New Ocean," "Endless Forms Most Beautiful," and "Darwin's Dangerous Idea." I also have a beautiful copy of Darwin's "On The Origin of Species," but I distinctly remember buying it just because the cover was attractive and I hoped people would see it on my bookshelf and think I was smart. What's sad about this is I used to be very up-to-date on theories of evoluation and natural selection, but now they are all blurring together, sort of the way art movements are now getting mixed up in my mind.

The Wannabe European Phase: Later on in college, it became very important to me that others see me as a worldly and cultured young man. Obviously, the way to accomplish this is to be as European as possible. I refused to be hampered by the fact that I speak foreign languages with very limited proficiency and plunged headlong into "The Royal Physician's Visit" and "Embers" and the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca. The funny part about this phase is that since these books were transalted into English (which labled me as a poser in about 72-point font), they were not very satisfying because so much didn't survive the transfer between languages. The exception is Lorca's poety. That I still like and find dramatic and powerful.

The Art School Hobbyist: Deep down inside, I am a rather square, plain-vanilla person. This is probably why I like art and artists - I lack that thing called "talent" when it comes to visually expressing ideas, so people who have it are interesting to me. I really enjoyed "The Forger's Spell," "Seven Days in the Art World," "The Accidental Masterpiece." I still really like this kind of book. I just haven't been reading much in this field lately, and as I said before, my rustiness shows it. The other day I confused Art Deco and Art Nouveau and it caused me to lose no less than 24 minutes of sleep that night.

The "What Are Other People Reading?" Phase: I would say I am still in this phase, which is the longest and most enduring of them all, because I like to talk about books with people. Luckily, though, things have changed. I started out reading things like Billy Collins' poetry (gag me) and "Mystic River" (excellent and highly recommended) because those were what other people are talking about. I read one too many duds, though, and wised up a little. I got a little more picky and turned instead to books like "Seabiscuit," "Freedom" and "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" because they were popular but also worth reading. So, these days, I don't care how much you liked that Danielle Steel novel - I won't read it. But if the author lands on the cover of a magazine or I overhear attractive people discussing it at a coffee shop, I will definitely fire up my Kindle.

Noticeably absent from this list: philosophy (ugh), biographies (never really warmed up to them), science fiction (unless you count "Never Let Me Go," which I don't) and classics (I resisted a copy of "Don Quixote" even though it had a great cover because I knew I would never read it).

Postscript: I took some of the books I will never read again (mostly Crichton and Grisham - one-time reads that are of no importance) and sold them back to Half-Price Books. I had about 30 or 35 books and earned a grand total of $8.

Mach1 And The Horrible-Smelling Cheese

2011-08-18T09:33:00.001-05:00

I went to Kowalski's the other day. There were several reasons for this trip, but they were all kind of made up. The real reason I felt like going is because I wanted to visit The Buck Bin, where the cheese department sells small and irregular pieces of very expensive cheese not usually for a buck, but close. (I felt I had to make up other reasons because going to the grocery store for a $2.32 piece of Manchego seemed just a little sad, for some reason, like I don't have enough to do in my life or something).

This time, I settled on Emmental. I didn't really know anything about it, but I had heard the name before.

Let's just say I got an education in a hurry.

As for the taste, Emmental struck me as pleasantly sour and a little briny. But the smell! The smell is what we need to talk about.

I noticed its unusual odor, kind of like rotting swamp vegetation, when I opened the cheese, but didn't think too much of it at the time. All good cheese smells like a high school locker room during a heat wave, right?

I left my apartment and came back a little while later, though, and was immediately greeted with a nauseating scent. Why did my apartment smell like a barnyard? I couldn't locate the source of this olfactory offense at first, but then I realized it was coming from my refrigerator. It was that cheese -- the damn cheese was stinking up the place.

I ate the rest and threw the wrapper away outside, but the story was far from over. Everything that was in my fridge along with the cheese (which was present in my apartment for maybe two hours) took on that putrefying-mushroom smell. I couldn't wash my hands enough to make them stop smelling like a goat with diarrhea. I became very afraid that this smell would just ooze out my pores and make my coworkers feel like they were being mustard gassed. (I have no idea whether that happened, by the way. I couldn't think of a graceful way to walk up to someone and say, "Hey, do I smell disgusting?")

What's really funny about this story is that this piece of cheese was smaller than an index card. Clearly, I was dealing with some powerful, powerful stuff here and had woefully underestimated just how noxious it was. I will be more careful on any future trips to the Buck Bin, that's for sure.

Seriously?

2011-08-13T16:03:00.002-05:00

Don't mess with Wanda, y'hear?

Children's Classics I Am Going To Assume You Are Familiar With

2011-08-11T13:14:00.004-05:00

"Black Beauty" was one of my favorite books growing up. It was such a part of my childhood, in fact, that I assumed it was one of those things, like Winnie the Pooh and Sesame Street, that is a natural part of every child's experience of growing up in America.*

Imagine my surprise, then, when I found out that not everyone has read this book. In fact, it seems very few people I know have.

I made this discovery when I was crammed into an overloaded car on the way to an establishment that serves beverages. I went around the vehicle and demanded to know who was familiar with the story of Black Beauty, Duchess, Ginger, Rob Roy and Merrylegs and no one - not a single person - was.

I was shocked.

"Black Beauty" is not the only book that was so integral to my youth I just take for granted that it holds the same meaning for everyone else. If you aren't familiar with these, I am just going to assume you are some horrible beast from the furthest reaches of outer space or something because you cannot possibly be human and not know these books:

"My Side of the Mountain": I loved this book so much I had my fourth-grade picture taken with me holding a copy. No joke. And I still want a falcon as a pet.

"Where the Red Fern Grows": This is one of those really sad children's books, and yet I read it over and over again. I have a vague recollection of my mom seeing me read it, probably for the 112th time, and gently saying "Honey, isn't it time you read something else?"

"Misty of Chincoteague": Yes, I read a lot about horses when I was young. Didn't everyone?

"Sideway Stories From Wayside School": Oh, how badly I wished that I, too, could go to a school where everything was weird all the time.

"The Mouse and the Motorcycle": Or really anything by Beverly Cleary, including the Henry and Ribsy and Ramona and Beezus books. Cleary's work, to me, is Americana in writing form.

The Goosebumps series: Because kids need mildly frightening stories about swamp things and masks that take over your face exactly the same way they need sunshine and vitamins.

The Boxcar Children series: Eventually, these came to grate on me with their wholesomeness, but that was only after years and years of devouring flimsy paperback after flimsy paperback of the Alden children running around solving mysteries.

*If you want to be technical about it, this is a 19th-century English novella. But still - America!

There Is Something Deeply Wrong With Me

2011-08-10T08:30:00.006-05:00

Last Monday morning, I tore around my apartment in a frenzy, looking for my car keys. I could not find them anywhere.

After a few more minutes of panic than I am entirely comfortable having that early in the morning, I had to do that thing where you stop and retrace your steps. I realized that the night before, I had cleaned out my car and thrown a bunch of stuff away in a garbage can in my parking garage. I rifled through the trash (a very dignified thing to do at 6:55 in the morning, let me tell you) and found them there, resting beneath a delicate covering of McDonald's bags and empty junk mail envelopes.

I said a silent prayer of thanks that no one had emptied the garbage can between Sunday night and the following morning, chalked the whole thing up to a momentary lapse of responsibility and moved on.

Then, this Monday morning, I could once again not find my car keys.

I looked everywhere - in the pocket of the pants I had worn the day before, underneath couch cushions, even in my medicine cabinet in case, I don't know, I had forgotten that I had gotten drunk the night before and hid things from myself because that kind of thing is fun. No dice.

Then I remembered what happened last week and checked my garbage can. There they were, mixed in with carrot peelings and coffee grounds. At least this time it was in my own personal garbage can and not one in a public place, but still. Why am I trying to sabotage myself like this?

Uptown Art Fair Favorites

2011-08-07T21:52:00.005-05:00

I went to the Uptown Art Fair this weekend. Of course, I found about eight million things I wanted to buy. I will spare you a list of eight million things and instead will give you my four favorite artists:

Rusty Leffel: When I saw Rusty Leffel's "Cafe Smokers, Paris," I followed my rule - I set it down, walked away and let time pass so I could figure out if I still wanted it. An hour later, I still did. I found the picture, a candid shot of a young man and a woman smoking in a Paris cafe, so mysterious. Who are the young man and woman? Do they know each other? What are they concentrating so intently upon? I'm happy to say it's now hanging above my dining room table. I also liked a picture he had of a Parisian newsstand (I don't remember what it's called) and "Bowery Kitchen."

David Royce Glass: This artist made beautiful, globe-like vases and bowls that looked like something you'd find delicately attached to a rock in the shallows of a tropical lagoon. They were beautiful and jewel-like. I have expected them to be living, trembling things.

Photographs by Cali: Cali Hobgood-Lemme's super-saturated pictures are grainy and yet soft at the same time. In her lens, everyday objects seem functional, solid and oddly comforting. They ("they" being both her pictures and their subjects) exude an air of hard-won refinement, like they know their usefulness has earned them their hard-won place in your life. Had I had an extra $400, I would have bought her clean, gentle photo of folded white shirts and hung it above my dresser. Had I had an extra $800, I would have bough the shirt photograph and the black and white cake picture, which would have gone in my kitchen. Had I had an extra $1,200, I would have bought those two and then her clean, crisp picture of an envelope for above my desk. You get the idea.

Monica Rudquist: Monica Rudquist's pottery reminded me of broken seashells, or else seashells that are wonderfully and strangely fluted and winged.

Also, at a promotional booth, I won a water bottle from everybody's favorite last-place network, The CW. Wins all around!

Life Is An Open Book

2011-08-03T17:26:00.003-05:00

Sometimes, I feel like my life hasn't changed much recently. I still live in the same apartment in the same city in the same state where I was born. Hell, I am not even sure how old some of my socks are, other than that they were due to be replaced long ago.

Then I found this assignment notebook from three years ago. In it, I see appointments with friends I don't get together with anymore, reminders to make payments on a car I don't own any longer and frantically highlighted reminders not to forget to go to work at a place where I quit about six months ago. (I also see reminders about assignments for classes that just make me think "Thank God that's over.")

So, I guess things change. They change slowly, but they do change.

This Post Is Just Me Blathering On About Coupons

2011-08-01T14:54:00.001-05:00

Can we talk about coupons again? I know we kind of just did, but they're so great I have trouble controlling myself.

I look at coupons as free money. The ones that are like "Save 35 cents on six cans of chickpeas" are kind of insulting, but then there are also coupons like the one I used yesterday - $2 off a tube of Crest toothpaste. Target was also running a two-for-one promotion, so I got two tubes of toothpaste for 99 cents. Amazing.

The slight problem is that I do not, at the moment, actually need toothpaste. Nor do I need hand lotion, cereal or laundry detergent, but I clipped coupons for those items from today's paper as well. Coupons are a little too effective with me because they induce me to buy things I don't need because I feel like I am taking advantage of a real opportunity.

Spending money to save money, everyone. It works

Approaching August

2011-07-30T14:20:00.006-05:00

August is not my favorite month.

I love the first flush of summer. It's so nice to not have to swaddle myself up in wool just to run across the street for a cup of coffee and after a long winter, my eyes are so starved for green I stare and stare at everything that's growing like a simpleton. I basically want to bathe in it all.

By August, though, a lot of that charm has worn off.

August is hot. Everything feels parched and gritty and overbaked. I spend a lot of time scanning my surroundings for shade and trying to ignore the drone of cicadas (a sound some people like, but I find agitating).

There are some good things about August, like the State Fair and the monthlong permanent excuse to have ice cream whenever. That being said, now is when I start looking forward to Indian Summer. It's still warm and sunny but there is no more waking up with a damp back (sorry for that image) or feeling like my face is has been broiled.

Is it October yet?

This Is The Most Serious Problem I Face

2011-07-29T13:17:00.003-05:00

I almost bought the shirt you see above from J.Crew today. I had it in my shopping cart and was all ready to check out - and then I realized I already have a shirt just like it.

No problem! Undaunted, I went back and chose a different shirt. This time, I went with a blue gingham one...and promptly realized I have a shirt just like that one, too.

This made me realize I either need to broaden my horizons or stop shopping at J.Crew.

I am very reluctant to do either.

Picture Perfect

2011-07-27T20:33:00.001-05:00

Sometimes, I really like where I live. This was one of those nights.

Shameless. Utterly shameless.

2011-07-21T10:33:00.005-05:00

Normally, I am an irritatingly socially responsible person. Nothing strokes my sense of self quite like taking public transportation to my local co-op, where I fill my reusable bag with sustainably grown produce and pay for it with exact change before heading over the library and mailing a letter to my Congressperson. (And then smugly rubbing it all in your face, of course. That part is key.)

There is one area where this does not apply, however - flowers.

If there are flowers for the taking (i.e. not in a garden, but on a public roadside or something) I will avail myself to them. Furthermore, I will feel absolutely no shame for doing so.

Lately, under cover of darkness, I have been sneaking to this little patch of ground near the main post office. Right now, it's a carpet of clover and Black-Eyed Susans. It is as irresistible to me as catnip. At last count, I had filled three vases and my apartment had so many flowers in it it was verging on funeral home-like.

Once again, I would not take flowers from a garden. That's tacky. But flowers in a semi-wild space are as good as mine. Yes, I know I should leave them there for other people to enjoy. Yes, I know that if I let them grow it will result in more flowers later. I just don't care. I have zero restraint and plan to make no attempts to fix that.

Someday...

2011-07-19T01:13:00.003-05:00

I got this in the mail today. It's an invitation to a swanky fundraiser at the Walker Art Center.

I gather it's some kind of treasure hunt where you buy a golden key and then...I don't know, wander around looking for door or something? It doesn't matter, really, because the golden keys are $500 bucks a pop.

This is definitely a non-starter. I love me some art and there is a burning in my soul that can only be satisfied by being a generous philanthropist, but seriously - that burning is not going to get quenched any time soon. Yours truly has bills to pay, folks.

But someday. Someday, I will be able to flit amongst the tastemakers and their ilk at events like this and support worthy causes without even thinking about it. Someday...

Aptly Titled

2011-07-14T14:57:00.005-05:00

Given where I used to work, I was bound to like Tom Rachman's "The Imperfectionists." Any romantic portrayal of newspaper or reporters will get me every time.

But "The Imperfectionists" has more going for it than just its topic. Rachman has collected several vignettes of people whose lives are connected to an international paper in Rome and strung them together with a historical narrative of the paper through the decades. It's a clever way of linking what otherwise would feel like a collection of short stories.

Almost every chapter has a theme of sadness or loss, but Rachman writes like a journalist - which is to say, almost clinically detached and remote - so these don't feel like sob stories. Rather, they're surprisingly lifelike and engaging.

Ultimately, a little variety would have gone a long way here. That the tone never varies leaves "The Imperfectionists" with little sense of urgency or drama, even at the climax of the loose narrative connecting all the chapters. Still, it's a minor flaw for what is otherwise a perfectly pleasant - if not exceptional - read.

Gold Star For The Week

2011-07-08T08:27:00.002-05:00

I think my biggest accomplishment this week may have been working my way through the three 7/8-spent tubes of toothpaste I had lying around. More space in one's medicine cabinet is always a good thing, and in addition to cutting down on waste and excess (see previous post), each brush was a fresh and invigorating medley of different mint flavors.

Take your victories where you can get them, folks.

Graffiti Speaks The Truth

2011-07-03T19:53:00.000-05:00

Vandals can be so wise, you know?

Caution: Cooking Zone Ahead

2011-07-03T11:43:00.003-05:00

Did you ever see that movie "Julie & Julia"? It wasn't all that great, but there is one scene with which I really identified.

The heroine, who is trying to make every recipe in Julia Childs' "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," gets really fussed one day when her dishes aren't working out - pots boil over, things fall, ingredients won't blend, etc. Things go from bad to worse and by the the time her husband or boyfriend or whatever comes home, he finds her lying flat on her back in the kitchen. "There's just so much stuff on the floor!" she wails.

I can relate to this. I went to the St. Paul Farmers' Market today and have been trying to turn the what I bought into something edible. It isn't going very well and now my floor looks like a really bad contemporary art installation - one that will make the soles of your feet sticky.

Cooking really should be left to people who have a natural talent for it, I think.

Gay Bars Step by Step

2011-06-25T14:11:00.005-05:00

It's Pride Weekend here in Minneapolis, which means that every fixture of the gay scene is about three times more whatever it is than usual. This includeds gay bars.

The popular notion that gay bars are sexually charged preening grounds filled with painstakingly dressed men dying to be noticed by each other through a haze of alcohol fumes and thumpy electronic music is a stereotype that is absolutely correct.

In case you've never had the pleasure, here's what it's like to go to one:

First, make an entrance. This is key. Gay men are obsessed with new things, so they watch the front door very carefully. How you make your arrival will set the tone for their impression of you. Strutting, for instance, may make you seem confident and fun, but it can also make you come off like a jerk. Going the meek and unobtrusive route may up your nice-guy points, but it could also make you look boring. Give your entrance strategy some serious thought.

Second, scope out the scene. Is the bar empty? It might already be time to start whining to your friends about going someplace else. (Note: Be careful with this one because it gets annoying quickly. You don't want to be That Guy.) How much fun you will have in a night bears a strong correlation to how many handsome men are roaming around. Empty bars are empty of possibilities.

Quickly go on high alert for other slim, dark-haired individuals with chunky-framed glasses. Upon spotting such a rival, instantly assess whether he does it better than you. No matter what you decide, after a few drinks you will come to the realization that you, in fact, are the Real McCoy and that other dude is a pale imitation of what you've got going on. Own that geeky-chic look. Own it!

Now it's time for a trip to the bar. Try to choose a place that isn't clotted with men dressed 10 years more youthfully than they should be and be wary of potent amounts of ambient cologne. Those concerns are overriden, however, by the presence of a hunky bartender. Wherever he's working is the place to be. Vodka tonics taste so much better when they're made by muscular, attractive, straight-but-I-know-I'm-hot-so-I-work-it individuals. It's just a fact.

Next, it's time for a trip to the bathroom. Of course, you aren't actually going to the bathroom. You're just looking for an excuse to get in front of a mirror so you can make sure your hair looks good, that your shirt is tight but not too tight, etc. You will do this several times over the course of the evening.

Here's where it becomes acceptable to hit the dance floor. Realistically, though, you haven't had enough to drink yet, so postpone your music video re-creations and instead locate someone you and your friends can talk about. Attractive individuals are always good conversation fodder, but so are unfortunate-looking bar patrons. That's mean, but it's also true.

Now the night goes off-script. There are several possible courses of events. You could drink yourself into a hot-mess state, which is fun while you're doing it but painful in the morning. You could do what you promised and have a moderate amount of alcohol and go to bed at a responsible hour, but this occurs only rarely. Most likely bar close will find you bleary of eye and patchy of memory, vowing never to do this again but knowing that won't happen.

Fun, huh?

So Worth The $1.70

2011-06-21T09:39:00.004-05:00

I was pretty groggy in line at the coffee shop this morning and the place's oppressive corporate-ness - that canned music, those falsely cheerful signs - was starting to get to me.

But my coffee was paid for, the woman behind the counter smiled at me.

"Good luck slaying the dragons today, kiddo," she said.

I feel a little more ready to face the day now, and I don't think I can attribute that all to the caffeine.

Close Encounter

2011-06-14T21:51:00.003-05:00

You said you needed to let your dog out. I wondered if it was just a ploy to get me back to your parents' empty house. I hoped it was.

You walked ahead of me on the side path to your backyard. The only light came from the jaundice-yellow streetlight. The path was rutted with ice and the shadows made it difficult to walk. I was glad you couldn't see how I had to hold my arms out like a bird taking off to keep steady.

Inside the house it was dim and warm. In the kitchen, I saw the debris of a family making a hasty departure - an inch of coffee in the bottom of the coffee pot, an open cookbook, dishes in the sink. I make it a point to keep my apartment clean to the point of sterility, making it look as if no one lives there, so this, to me, felt close and almost uncomfortably intimate.

Your dog had cloudy eyes, gray-flecked fur, a rheumy wheeze. He thrust his nose between my legs, as if there weren't enough tension already.

Your bedroom confused me. There were books on car repair (you like cars?) and investing. There were weights in the corner, though nothing about you suggested you used them. It smelled strongly like your cologne. I didn't know what to do, so I sat down on your bed, which was unmade. I realized then that I had never met your family and I had never met your friends. I knew only you, and the context of your bedroom made me wonder just how much of you I really did know.

At this point, we came to the part where I didn't know what to do. I had come along and thought that would be enough, so I was surprised to think more might be required of me. How much of a move would I have to make? Why did you have your back to me? Why did you bring me here - had you changed your mind?

I don't think about you too much anymore, but you left something in my apartment and it acts as a silent reproach each time I see it, reminding me I need to give it back to you. I think about texting you to arrange a hand-off, but with every day that goes by in which I don't do it, I lose more and more nerve.

I guess I never stopped feeling towards you the way I felt that night in your bedroom.

Scent-Sational*

2011-06-06T22:28:00.003-05:00

Running in oppressively hot weather has its drawbacks, but the smell isn't one of them.

My regular loop across the Stone Arch Bridge, through St. Anthony and back across Hennepin Avenue smells more wonderful these days than any perfume counter. The heat makes things smell more powerful, I imagine, and I really like it.

Running across the river smells like water, like the wet wood of an old, mossy dock. In St. Anthony, plants I can't see fill the air with a sweetness so thick it's almost cloying and brings to mind shampoo marketed to 12-year-olds (in a good way). A grove of lilacs on Nicollet Island reminds me why their smell is one of my all-time favorites.

I love running anyway, but I would consider taking it up if I didn't do it just for the smells alone.

*Forgive the cheesy headline. I am a little tired tonight.

Trapped In A Prison Of My Own Making

2011-05-29T23:37:00.003-05:00

Are you familiar with TapFish? If not, make sure you never get that way.

Until now, I never really understood games adults found addictive. I never got into FarmVille, which I hear is like Facebook's version of crack, and I played Angry Birds on my iPhone, but never became enthralled with it.

But TapFish - TapFish is different.

There's really no object to the game. You can't really win or lose. The whole point is just to buy fish, sell them when they're mature and use the proceeds to buy more fish.

I can't explain to you why this is the game that got its hooks into me. Maybe it's because the tanks are pretty when they're full of exotic fish, or maybe because it's something simple you can do when you're waiting in line at Target. I don't know.

I do know, however, that I now have five tanks and get giddy when I reach a new level (which only qualifies you to buy more expensive fish). I should stop because it's pointless, but I won't. If there is an AA for people with weird attachments to iPhone games, I should at least peruse its literature.

The Meaning Of A Lit Cigarette

2011-05-12T09:04:00.000-05:00

He was much older than she was. He could have been (and, for some reason, I hope he was) her father.

They were sitting outside an office building. Both were wearing dark business clothes. He had one hand on his forehead and was explaining something to her in an agitated way. She was looking off into the distance in a way that said she wanted to be someplace other than here. In her left hand, a motionless cigarette was trailing smoke.

It's that cigarette that kept me thinking about them. It made me wonder whether she was nervous or unhappy or bored. She wasn't actually smoking it, which adds a whole new layer of questions.

I wonder what their relationship was. Why was he so upset and why was she so lackadaisical? What was the reason for that faraway look in her eyes? I doubt it was anything good.

The Cure For Finals

2011-05-08T08:35:00.002-05:00

It's easy, during Finals, to enter what is basically a two-week hyperventilation spree. Thoughts about quitclaim deeds and Prosecution History Estoppel and Chevron deference pile up, making your mind feel like a smoldering pile of wreckage.

To fight this, go for a walk in the woods. You'll see a haze of green buds floating like mist around bare tree trunks. You'll see jack-in-the-pulpits poking through a carpet of dead leaves. You'll hear - but not see - a chorus of small birds.

This will make you feel immeasurably better.

I'd Better Earn Extra Carma Points For This

2011-04-27T15:41:00.004-05:00

Today was class picture day, so I wore a suit - not just any suit, but my favorite suit.

And, as luck (or my luck) would have it, today was also the day I happened to come across a white van stalled at an intersection in Washington Avenue, one of Minneapolis' most busy streets.

Based on her accent, I'd say the driver was a recent immigrant from somewhere in West Africa. Her van had run out of gas and she had an emergency gas can, but she didn't seem to understand how to get the gas into her van. When she asked me for help, I knew what was about to happen, but I felt powerless to stop it.

I tried to stand a few feet away and tell her what to do. When that didn't work, I tried to demonstrate by only briefly touching the gas can. That didn't work either. Cars were flying by and with every minute she stayed at this busy intersection, the chances of her getting hit increased, so there was but one thing to do - grab that gas can myself and fill up her tank.

And, of course, my fears became reality - clear yellow gasoline cascaded from the leaky seal around the can's spout, flowed over my hands and splashed onto my shoes and pants cuffs.

Gas. Everywhere.

Once, in high school, I got gas on my shoes and ended up having to throw them away because the smell wouldn't go away. I can't tell yet whether such drastic measures will be necessary in this case, but seriously - I hope some cosmic power took note of this and will reward me accordingly in the future.

Sentimentality Now Arriving At Gate 4A

2011-04-24T10:00:00.005-05:00

When I am traveling, airports can be stressful places. Delayed flights, lost baggage, someone else's screaming whelp - I'm gritting my teeth just thinking about it.

But when I am picking someone up at the airport, it is a different story entirely.

Curbside pickups aren't my style. At all. The only way to do it is to actually park and go in and wait. There is nothing inherently interesting about sitting in a mostly empty baggage claim at a godforsaken hour (see above), paging through a business section from two days ago and drinking watery coffee. But then there's that moment when I look down the terminal and see the first trickle of passengers getting off a flight that just landed and know that, in just a minute or two, I'm about to see whomever it is I came here for.

That, of course, is why I like airport pickups. They're a half-hour of anticipation with the payoff of a reunion. Even if the person has been gone for just a few days, it's such a nice feeling to see him again. It's almost - I said "almost" - worth having someone go away just so I can have the privilege of sitting in that deserted baggage claim, waiting for him to arrive.

They Shoot Trusty Steeds, Don't They?

2011-04-20T10:36:00.005-05:00

The tow truck came at 8:30 this morning, injecting suffocating diesel fumes into the thick snow. The driver asked for my keys. He asked for the title. He wrote me a check, and that's the last time I saw my car.

That very melodramatic opening is my way of saying that after five years of mostly dutiful service, my 1998 Volkswagen Jetta recently gave up the ghost. The transmission started to go and a mechanic told me all its fluids were blackening, which spoke to some sort of interior fatal flaw. The thing had become a money pit recently and evidence that it was time to cut my losses was starting to slap me in the face. Scrapping it was the only way to go.

On one hand, I'm a little sad. That car was my first grown-up purchase. There are streaks of oil on the backseat where a girlfriend used to put her bike. The floor had burn marks from where Greder, after a particularly riotous birthday celebration for which I was the designated driver, dropped a lit cigarette and no one noticed. The glove compartment was stuffed with about 60 pens and dull pencils from my days as a journalist because I was always afraid of being caught without a writing utensil. In a lot of ways, that car was better than any scrapbook.

On the other hand, the damn thing cost me more than $1,000 in repairs this semester alone and, with its constant groaning and wheezing, was stressing me out every time I drove it.

Sometimes, you have to let bygones be bygones and I'm okay with this is one of those times.

Start The Revolution

2011-04-19T11:24:00.001-05:00

I don't know who wrote this on the wall of the men's bathroom, but I fully support him in whatever endeavor he undertakes.

Postscript: Though I'd also advise him to take his message to more, um, visible mediums.

How I Study

2011-04-15T20:18:00.002-05:00

Finals time is rapidly approaching. Accordingly, I will be spending a lot of my time in the following manner:

"Okay! Primarily misdescriptive geographic marks. They are marks that are primary and geographic and misdescriptive and primary and....Hmm. I think I need to change the music here.

Okay, back to primarily misdescriptive geographic marks. Under Lanham Act Section 2(e)(5) - wait, is that the right section? (Spends five minutes confirming that it is indeed the right section.)

So, now. Where was I? Oh yeah. Primarily misdescriptive...does that word have a hyphen in it? This is going to bug me. Also, I need a sweatshirt.

You know what? I am a little hungry. What is there to eat around here?

Oh, hey guys! What? You're getting coffee? Wait for me! I've been studying all day! I need a break."

Rinse, lather, repeat ad nauseum. Love you, Finals!

New Month, New Music

2011-04-07T14:18:00.004-05:00

I spend a lot of time these days running between places and arriving five minutes late, hair a-crazed and a wild look in my eyes. It's just the way my life is these days.

Accordingly, my monthly roundup of new-to-me music is a little late this time around. Don't hold that against me.

"Please Ask for Help" by Telekinesis: This song reminds me of The Cure. It makes me want to wear lots of leather and mascara and get an asymmetrical haircut - a feeling that lasts about three minutes, luckily.

"Rill Rill" by Sleigh Bells: I think this song contains the lyric "Wonder what your boyfriend thinks about your braces? I'm all about them."

"Rich Girls" by The Virgins: I have a pretty awesome music video to this song (starring me, of course). You should see it sometime. It's cool.

"Kim and Jessie" by M83: I like this song, but I can listen to it exactly once a day. Any more than that and it would annoy me, I think.

This Really Happened

2011-04-07T09:38:00.003-05:00

Guy Who I Am Required To Spend Time Around: "Are you on Facebook?"

Me: "Yes."

Guy: "I accepted a friend request from someone I didn't know and the next thing I know, he tagged me in a pornographic picture Luckily, I had it untagged within the hour."

Me: "Oh..."

Guy: "Yeah, and I keep getting requests from all these ladies in Vietnam and the Phillipines who are like 'I want to be your friend. I will be really nice to you.' Do you ever get that?"

Me: "Well, no."

Something To Think About

2011-04-02T10:32:00.004-05:00

From p. 72 of "Hate: A Romance" by Tristan Garcia:

"It's not just that, it's this whole era, all this sex for sale, plastered up everywhere, in the music. It's become impossible to have any kind of intimate love, any kind of actual desire..."

I stretched out next to him, frowning.

"You know, it's much nicer like this. You know, it's almost an act of resistance just to know, still, how to hold hands."

-----
I'm not sure I entirely agree, but it's an interesting viewpoint nonetheless.

This Is Why I Can't Have Nice Things

2011-03-31T08:59:00.006-05:00

I used to have one of those nice ceramic commuter mugs.

Notice I said "used to have."

I wanted one because I get coffee often and was feeling some serious enviro-guilt about all the disposable cups I was burning through. A ceramic commuter mug would be stylish, eco-conscious and would get me a 25-cent discount with every cup. I decided to ignore my long, long history of breaking things (like my face), losing objects and generally ruining anything nice that makes an appearance in my life and got one. This time, things would be different! Really!

Foolish. Seriously foolish.

Today, I dropped this mug on the floor of the coffee shop. I wish I had a reason for you, but I don't - I'm just clumsy. The sound of it shattering briefly silenced conversations around me; my shame could've filled that void and then some.

Postscript: Silver lining - the barista gave me my coffee for free because he felt bad for me. Being accident-prone has its perks, everyone.

Say What?

2011-03-26T15:01:00.007-05:00

I fully admit I have a really embarrassing tendency to mispronounce words. I still haven't figured out "economics," for instance. Sometimes I say "eek-onomics" and other times "eck-onomics." This has been going on for years now and it's time I just admit I have a condition or something.

Here are some other words I have difficulty with. On some, I still believe I am pronouncing them correctly and it's the rest of the world that has the problem, but others I have just given up on completely.

Pita: I still maintain you can pronounce this pit-ah or peet-ah, sort of the way you can pronounce "Carribean" Cuh-RIB-ee-uhn or CARE-a-bee-un.

Clematis: My mom used to have this kind of flower growing on a trellis in the side of our house. I was taught that it is CLEM-ah-tiss, with emphasis on the first syllable, not clem-AH-ttis, with stress on the middle part of the word.

Focaccia: I know how to pronounce this properly now, but when I was first confronted with it as a ninth-grader at Duluth's most edgy coffee shop, I pronounced it Fuck-a-chia. The barista, to her credit, didn't blink an eye.

Serengeti: This is a foreign word, so I don't feel guilty about the fact that I mutilate it every time. I truly have no idea how to say it. Whenever it comes up in conversation (which is more often than you might think, because I spend a lot of time discussing African plains) I just bulldoze my way through it and hope for the best.

Globetrotting: When I was young, if I saw a word I didn't know, I would just make up my mind as to how it was pronounced and go with it - in fact, I still do that. Anyway, upon encountering this word the first time, I must have been reading too fast or something because I decided it was pronounced "Gobble trotting." I can say it correctly now, but when I see it in print I still read it the original way.

Plunging Headlong Into A Bad Idea

2011-03-21T12:06:00.003-05:00

One thing you need to know about Mach1 is that he loves coffee.

(A second thing you need to know is that he sometimes talks about himself in the third person.)

But Mach1 has noticed something lately - he's extremely jumpy. Agitated. Moving a mile-a-minute all the time, even treating relaxation likes it's an ultramarathon in which is life is at stake.

It is not an entirely pleasant way to live life.

After some self-assessment, he has identified a possible culprit: caffeine. Coupling a naturally high-strung personality with a stimulant and the propensity to abuse privileges ("Yeah, I went to the coffee shop four times today. What's it to you?") is not a recipe for sane behavior.

This week is spring break, which removes any real incentive to caffeinate oneself, so Mach1 has decided to downshift to decaf. It's a hard decision - because decaf is for wimps - and may have consequences that manifest themselves in headaches, sluggish behavior and being a joy to be around. It is probably a terrible idea, but it may also be the right thing to do. I guess we'll find out.

So Close And Yet So Far

2011-03-08T13:39:00.002-06:00

Well, it finally happened.

Every winter, I try to see if I can make it through the whole season without losing a pair of gloves. Losing gloves seems to me like one of those things you should leave behind in childhood. Adults should be able to keep their personal artifacts with them at all times. It's really not that hard. I think I succeeded last winter and I was quite proud of myself.

I did so well this winter, everyone. I made it until March. But I haven't seen my gloves for days now and I think it's time to accept that I failed with the finish line in sight. I have no idea where they are. Yet another pair of gloves has been lost to the ether, or wherever it is lost gloves go.

Damn it. Damn it all.

Well, That Didn't Go Well At All

2011-03-06T13:47:00.003-06:00

The scene: Mach1 is at Caribou Coffee. The trivia question of the day is "What two states have the chocolate chip cookie as their official state cookie?" It is not a busy time of day - remember that - and there is no one in line behind Mach1.

Mach1 is in a puckish mood and is soon to learn that his barista is just not having it.

Mach1: "Oh boy. Tough trivia today."

Sullen Barista: "Yeah."

Mach1: "Give me a hint."

Sullen Barista: (Pause) "Like what?"

Mach1: "Which region of the country?"

Sullen Barista: "Um...East coast."

Mach1: "Big states or small states?"

Sullen Barista: "Dude, what? It's like ten cents. Just guess."

Oh. So Captain Coffee there behind the counter didn't really get that Mach1 was into the trivia for the trivia's sake and didn't actually care about the discount. What was meant to come off as playful came off as cheap. Better luck next time, Mach1!

Two Takes On Friends

2011-02-28T11:11:00.003-06:00

I think it's really important to have friends who can introduce you to new things. I like new experiences, but like anyone, I only have so many avenues or resources to use in finding different things to do. I like people who can introduce me to things I wouldn't have come across myself.

A good example of this is the movie "Les Amours Imaginaires," a Quebecois film I had never heard of until a friend suggested we watch it.

I really liked this movie, which is about a love triangle between two friends (one gay, one straight) and the oblivious (or is he insensitive and manipulative?) object of their affections. "Les Amours Imaginaires" is beautifully filmed; saturated with color, creatively constructed and populated with intriguing characters. What I most liked about it, though, was its keen emotional intimacy. In my favorite scene, you see a man and woman walking down a street in slow motion. It's raining and she is holding an umbrella and he is not. You see her turn her face towards him just enough so the viewer knows she's looking at him but can't actually see her expression. Then she moves her umbrella so it covers him, too. It's a tender scene; not particularly original in its sentiment, maybe, but its executed in a way that doesn't make it come off as maudlin or overwrought, and it says a lot about the relationship between the two characters.

Postscript: "Les Amours Imaginaires" also had an awesome soundtrack, including this song.

My Wardrobe Is Getting Impatient

2011-02-27T12:02:00.004-06:00

In my bedroom closet, light green, peach and soft purple dress shirts float idly, still sheathed in plastic sleeves from when I picked them up at the dry cleaner's last September. In the hall, a thin khaki spring coat hangs undisturbed next to my heavy winter jackets. Pairs of dress shoes - completely impractical for anything but the most snow-free sidewalks - haven't seen action since about October.

I've been waiting all winter to take these things out of rotation. Chunky navy sweaters have served their purpose now. I'm ready to start wearing things that are lighter and frothier.

This is less about wanting to wear new and different clothes (although, let's be honest, that's a factor) and more about wanting to make a statement - a statement that winter is over.

I'm tired of having to wear clunky boots because I'm slogging through ankle-deep slush. It'd be nice to wear pale pants and not have them be flecked with grimy snow at the end of the day. Being utilitarian and practical about what you wear is fine, but only for so long. I look forward to the warm and gentle weather that lets me go outside without being bundled up underneath layers of insulation.

Mentally, I've scheduled March 1 as the start of spring and the end of wool, thick soles and dark colors. But of course, I live in Minneapolis and the weather here doesn't exactly correspond to my personal timetable. It's still flinty and cold out and in the mornings, it seems every single outside fixture is flocked with a new, thin layer of snow.

But I am sticking with March 1. I have to. At some point, you have to stop making concessions to boring things like "weather" and "cold" and "potential frostbite." If you don't, they've bludgeoned you into submission and that means they've won.

March 1 is going to find me in light colors and a thin jacket. Yes, it will also find my shivering and cursing my frivolous side, but I'll be happy in my own weird little way.

Yoga and Such

2011-02-24T22:08:00.003-06:00

Yoga has always been one of those things I've wanted to try. My thought process has been something like "Yeah, Yoga. I hear that's good for you. I should try that sometime. Yoga."

It took an offer of a free week of yoga classes from a local yoga studio for me to actually try it. Now, I'm in love - with the concept, at least.

My first class was called Yoga Sculpt. It was done in a 95-degree studio at a pace that a strobe light could relate to. I had no idea what I was doing - when the instructor called out something like "Chandanansharakyava" I just aped the contortions the people around me were working themselves into - and it was extremely difficult. I consider myself a pretty in-shape person, but my shirt was so soaked by the end it literally could not absorb another drop of my copious amounts of sweat. I was the definition of a hot mess and it was awesome.

I can't remember what the second class was called, but it was more the traditional "strike an awkward pose and hold it" sort of yoga. I thought I did pretty well - considering, once again, that I had no idea what I was doing - but then I mentioned this to my infinitely patient and understanding friend Em, with whom I went to the class, and she said "Yeah, except for those times you almost hit me in the face." Evidently when I thought I was being a graceful sunflower (or whatever), I was windmilling my arms dangerously close to her head. Whoops. Sorry, Em!

So, yoga has proven to be something I am not naturally good at. I have no poise, no grace and absolutely no balance (see: this post). But I definitely want to keep doing it. My body ached for days after each class, but in a good way - a way that said "You're becomig like those lithe, muscular people in class" and that, my friends, is what I want. I will willingly take on physical pain for that oh-so-desirable lean and toned look.

Yoga is also extremely expensive, so I have not yet taken the plunge and actually signed up. I'm calculating how many meals I'd have to cut out to pay for it, but I already know I'm going to do it anyway. I will keep you posted on my efforts to turn myself into a human pretzel - I'm sure it's going to provide some entertaining stories.

How I Spent My Snow Day

2011-02-21T22:11:00.003-06:00

For the first time since high school, I had a snow day today.

I discovered this important piece of news as I was sipping my morning coffee and the combination of joy and caffeine sparked a dangerous brainstorming session. My mind immediately filled with ways to spend this unexpected piece of the most precious of all commodities - free time.

I had visions of myself whipping the the pile of sweaters in my closet into something that could be called "organized." I saw myself curling up in a coffee shop with a book that one reads for fun, not because it has been assigned. Perhaps I'd even go for a walk, just for the hell of it. What a plethora of possibilities stretched out before me!

Instead of doing any of those things, I did homework all day. Mach1 for the win, everyone. Mach1 for the win!

Little Eyes

2011-02-20T23:34:00.005-06:00

"Little Eyes," the new play at the Guthrie Theater which I saw last week, really snuck up on me.

Heading into it, I was prepared for something disingenuously derivative of Arthur Miller. Paranoia and unrest in the suburbs? Trenchant social commentary about the commercial, shallow way we live now? I felt like this has been done before.

Luckily for me, "Little Eyes" was better than that. It's hard to explain without giving too much away, but what begins as someting that feels standard and formulaic gradually deepens into something odd and somewhat disturbing - exactly what was intended, of course. Progress made this play better; characters who were, at first, annoying became more interesting. Plotlines that didn't seem fresh or interesting in the beginning took on added meaning. Those, to me, are the marks of a well-crafted play.

(Hmmm...this isn't much of a review, is it? Oh, well. I think you're just going to have to take my word that it's good and go see it.)

Where Flowers Go To Die

2011-02-15T10:41:00.000-06:00

From the moment I wake up, my head is filled with nothing but the most important and pressing issues of our time. How is increasingly ever-present technology affecting our interpersonal relationships? What can be done about the obesity epidemic among our nation's youth? And, most importantly, is that vase killing flowers, or is that my imagination?

Some backstory: these vases are very popular in my hometown. They're essentially rocks with flattened bases and a column drilled two-thirds of the way down the middle, which forms the actual vase part. I got one for Christmas and really like it - I think the rustic stone looks nice when paired with something as fragile and ephemeral as a flower.

It's been my impression, however, that everything I put in this vase mysteriously withers and dies prematurely. I acted on these suspicions recently, using an especially profuse spray of lilies as an accomplice. I put part of this branch of lilies in a normal glass vase but reserved a smaller sprig for this stone vase.

When I came home today, my darkest inklings were confirmed. The other lilies were fine, but the stone vase ones were slumped over like Lance Armstrong after a shipment of whatever cattle hormone he takes was held up at the Tijuana border.

The going theories right now are that the stone leaks some kind of naturally occuring flower-poison, or that it sucks up all the water and dehydrates the flower.

I don't really care, actually. I'm going to keep using it. I just like that I was able to definitively settle the inquiry as to whether flowers placed in this vase die earlier.

Solving issues, people - it's what I do.

Two Weeks In Love - Always In Love

2011-02-14T23:39:00.003-06:00

A good friend of mine was frowning today. I asked her why.

"I hate Valentine's Day," she said.

This surprised me a little. First because she has a naturally sunny disposition and second, because hating Valentine's Day? Really? To me, that's impossible.

I feel like Two Weeks In Love has been a little heavy on posts along the lines of "I'm a burning ember of unrequited love and sadness blah blah blah poor me." I experience those feelings, obviously, but they make up a very small part of some wonderfully big and shapeless experience that is far too great to be contained.

(Get ready, because I am about to whip out the most syrupy, no-holds-barred thing you've ever read. Reserve your judgment and steel yourself, because here it comes.)

I feel like I'm in love with it every day - "it" being something that changes all the time. Just like anyone else, I've had days utterly go to shit. But even on those days, there's been someting worth holding on to. If your life is like mine in that it's a collection of these days, a fine string of small things that are each priceless and invaluable in their own way, how could you not be?

This all comes to a head on Valentine's Day. I really like the pink-and-red monstrosity that is the Valentine aisle in Target's stationery department. It was utterly charming (and I refuse to back down from the use of that word) to see the florists' delivery people around downtown today, lugging armloads of boquets wrapped up shapelessly against the cold.

I'm proof that you can have a love life in nuclear winter phase and still like Valentine's day. Cycnicism and bitterness grow old. Being in love with it never does. Ever.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Postscript: Yes, I totally stole the title of this post from Wilco's "I'm Always in Love." That shouldn't surprise you. I'm shameless, for one thing, and for another, Wilco totally owns the rights to everything my woefully mortal heart has ever felt.

Post-postcript: I just realized the username of the person who posted that Wilco video is "MoreHairyTesticles." I'm sorry about that. People are weird.

Some Things Weren't Meant To Be Healthy

2011-02-14T22:24:00.003-06:00

It is with a perverse enjoyment bordering on mania that I seek out food items that are both healthy and fun to eat.

The path of this quest is littered with bitter defeats (you will never darken my door again, weird brownies made with applesauce!), but there have been a few winners, too; cherry Jell-O and I are still in the throes of a passionate, intimate relationship that shows no signs of waning.

I was in charge of bringing dessert to a dinner party recently. I decided on banana bread (not exactly healthy, but also not exactly Fatty McPerkins' Double-Fudge Chocolate Decadence Mega-Calorie DeeLite, either) with caramel sauce.

The sauce presented the kind of an intriguing challenge I'm always up for. I've made it before and recalled it requiring cream, butter and sugar in amounts sure to induce obesity. This, of course, could not be allowed, but nor was I going to give up on this idea so quickly - you should know by now I don't do that, even when it's prudent. As luck (and Google) would have it, I found this recipe for what sounded like a healthy alternative.

When I finished making it, I was thrilled. It looked like caramel sauce. It smelled like caramel sauce. Then I tasted it. Let's just say that something that is mostly water and cornstarch doesn't exactly thrill the taste buds.

So, I poured half of it down the kitchen sink. Then I melted about two times more butter than the recipe called for, added enough brown sugar to send a diabetic into a coma and, when it had browned nicely, stirred in the remaining water and cornstarch mixture.

The resulting caramel sauce, at last, tasted good. In its own sad way, it also tasted like defeat, but I just need to accept that the light versions of some things are abominations. Add caramel sauce to that list.

Two Weeks In Love - The Nicest Thing You Ever Did For Me

2011-02-12T22:54:00.002-06:00

I remember when I was about 14, someone in town rented a billboard on the main drag of town. "Michelle," it said. "Will you marry me? Love, Jason." The inevitable newspaper story that followed related that Jason managed to keep it hidden from Michelle until he took her to lunch one day, gestured out the window and said "Hey, what do you think of my billboard?" (She said yes, of course.)

As far as I'm concerned, grand gestures like that are fine, but they're fine for someone else.

What I really remember is that time you gave me a book you knew I'd been wanting to read. What really matters is when you hand me a mug of coffee made exactly the way I'd prepare it myself. Sending me a link to a new song by a band I like tells me more about you, more about me, more about us than anything that would ever attract attention from anyone else.

Two Weeks In Love - I Remember

2011-02-11T23:03:00.002-06:00

I remember we were lying on your bed.

I remember the feeling of sweat cooling on my chest. I remember the peculiarly pale and low light of your bedside lamp and how I always wondered, but never asked, whether the bulb in there was weaker than it was supposed to be. I remember the crickets outside, the loudest part of the curtain of low sounds that forms on a summer night.

I remember I was fighting sleep just as you said it.

"Hey."

I remember looking at you through half-closed eyes. You had your head on the pillow, hair pulled back, face close to mine.

"I love you."

I remember being surprised. This was supposed to a summer fling. We both thought it wouldn't get serious, but then again, we both felt it when it did. I just thought we weren't going to acknowledge it.

I remember trying to mumble something and how quickly and vehemently you wouldn't accept it: "Don't say it if you don't mean it," you said.

I said it a few days later - and I meant it. Absolutely, I meant it.

I remember this all because that was the first time any real person had said "I love you" to me. Parents and relatives don't count because they're obligated. You weren't. You were different. You knew me and understood me and saw things in me I didn't know were there.

Sometimes I think about whether you've forgotten this. In the end, though, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because I haven't. I remember it. Now, all I wish is that you'd know I do.

Two Weeks In Love - Getting the Sentiment Right

2011-02-10T14:03:00.002-06:00

The biggest challenge I face around Valentine's Day is finding an appropriate card for my parents.

This card was hidden behind some others in the ginormous rack of mass-produced Valentines at Target. I picked it up, thinking it might say something like "Happy Valentine's Day" or something suitably affectionate-yet-neutral.

Instead? "Lick Me."

Oh. Um...yeah, well. No. On to the next one, then.

Two Weeks In Love - Meet Sean

2011-02-07T10:00:00.004-06:00

The date was going horribly.

It had been his idea to meet at a wine bar, yet he wasn't drinking. His constant texting was getting in the way of our conversation, but not nearly as much as was his profound lack of any interesting attributes. The most grievous offense: he yawned several times, conspicuously and without covering his mouth - seriously, could he not make even the smallest effort to be gracious and conceal his boredom?

So when he finally looked at me and said something like "So, what happened with your last relationship?" I panicked a little inside. I could not - could not - let this rude and disengaged person look down on me for the fact that there really, um, there really wasn't any kind of last relationship to speak of.

So that's when Sean came into being. Sean and I, I told him, dated for two years. It ended because we were just at "different stages in life." (I may have also implied that Sean had a drug problem that I was okay with until it got out of hand - I don't remember that part so clearly). Sean now lived in Chicago, I said, and we talked occasionally. We were on good terms, but he was now definitely out of the picture.

It was a bald-faced lie, but he bought it and I didn't feel bad even for a second for having told it. That date ended a few minutes later (and not a moment too soon) but Sean proved to be far too useful a fiction to retire immediately.

Sean has come to my rescue several times when I've been trapped, mostly when I've found myself stuck talking to someone who doesn't interest me. When that happens, he isn't an ex anymore, but rather someone who is going to show up any minute. I don't need a drink, sir, or your number, because Sean - wonderful, amazing Sean - is going to show up any minute, or is in the bathroom, or is "just right over there" (accompanied by vague gesture toward the most crowded area of the bar). In such situations, it's probably a little more obvious that Sean is not real, but whatever - he gets the job done.

I have no concept of Sean, by the way, other than what I said the night of The Worst Date Ever.* I haven't bothered to think of what he looks like or to flesh out his backstory anymore than I already have. Right now, he's a very handy figment of my imagination. Everyone needs one of those, I think.

*Really, that was an awful date. I think it ended after less than half an hour, and it was a rare instance of when I found something to be a complete and utter waste of time.

Ghost Town

2011-02-06T23:01:00.002-06:00

Downtown St. Paul is a ghost town on weekend mornings. It's even moreso that way when it's blanketed in thick fog, like it was today.

It was nice to walk to work beneath those tall, unfamiliar buildings (my favorite name: The Degree of Honor building) early this morning. Maybe it was because the fog made it harder to see and that sharpened my senses, or maybe because it was so quiet, but I could feel the warmth of my coffee in its cup and smell the dampness in my wool coat and hear my shoes against the pavement.

Peaceful. It was very peaceful.

Postscript: It was nice, that is, until a homeless man followed me for two blocks, yelling at me. That added a little tarnish to the whole experience.

Two Weeks In Love - So Secretly In Love With You Right Now

2011-02-05T20:33:00.002-06:00

I'm an enormous fan of being secretly in love with people.

When I say that, I don't mean pining away for someone in silence, hoping he or she will one day love me. I mean having feeling for someone that is larger than my small connection to him or her would merit.

Getting to know a person is hazardous. What if I find out someone likes bluegrass or drinks too much or is boring? Ruination, that's what. So I don't do that. Instead, I let these feelings register and then store them away in a metaphorical white paper-wrapped box, keeping them clean and unsullied and full of unrealized potential.

Dustin: I think your name is Dustin, or at least I've decided it is. You work at my favorite coffee shop. You are so handsome in a completely un-manicured way - "winsome" is the perfect word for you. I don't care a bit that you never remember what I always have. I just want to keep muttering my order, paying in a hurry and escaping your presence as quickly as possible. You are so charming every time with that smile I need to pretend I don't see it because if I do, then I'll start to wonder if there's maybe a sliver of possibility and I don't want to do that.

Naomi: Other people would say you're quite unfriendly to me. That smile of yours is so thin and wan and forced it must be a struggle every time you see me. But Naomi, to me you just seem lonely. Your apartment - it's so clean and white and empty, and you're always alone. You don't have to have anyone special in your life, Naomi. But a friend - a friend might be good for you to have.

Allison: Well, well, well. Look at you, with your hyacinth-blue coat and your perfect hair and flawless skin. Comparing women to dolls has all sorts of weird and unacceptable implications, but really, how can I better describe you? I didn't even know it was possible to have hair that impeccably in-place. But Allison (which is not your real name, by the way. It just seems appropriate for you), when someone is that rigid and unruffled, to me it speaks of a sort of coldness, of a very serious and very cultivated drive for a life architecture made up of order and structure and discipline. Those things are fine and good, but they are costly, too. If I may be so bold, do you know what I think you need? Some human warmth. I don't want you for myself, Allison. Not at all. I want you to meet a guy who's disorganized and a little goofy, but effusive and charming and romantic enough to compensate for the inner reserve you have such trouble overcoming. I imagine he has curly hair and wears sweaters a size too large and drives you crazy with his habit of setting his coffee mug down without using a coaster. I imagine he'd set something warm astir inside of what now looks, from the outside, a desolate and wintry.

Two Weeks In Love - Heart Beats

2011-02-04T12:04:00.003-06:00

See that title? Gosh, I am so punny. 'Cause I made a play on the phrase "heartbeat" and this post is about music, so "beat" refers to that, too! Dang, I'm good. Wordplay!

Anyway, here are five songs that, to me, sound a lot like love - some for traditional and obvious reasons, some because... I don't know, they just do.

Temper Trap "Sweet Disposition": Hmmm. Yes. Well. The lyrics of this song - isn't that what, when you really get to the bottom of it all, all we're really looking for?

The Verve "Sonnet": Thanks to a certain mix CD made for me at a pivotal time in a pivotal relationship, I find this song far, far too sad to ever listen to again.

Empire of the Sun "Half Mast": I have no idea why I find this song romantic. The lyrics aren't particularly love-related or anything. I just think it sounds like someone trying really hard to earn someone else's affection. I can't explain it better than that.

Early Day Miners "So Slowly": This is a long and slow song, so when I listen to it, my attention kind of fades in and out. It's entirely possible that if I were to really focus on it, I might feel completely differently, but for now this song sounds like two people who've know each other for a long time, have been through a lot and still have a big, amorphous unresolved feeling between them - and they're kind of okay with that.

The Postal Service "Clark Gable": This is totally cheating because I know without even checking my archives I have written about this song multiple times before. But I really like this song. A lot. I first heard it on, again, a very pivotal mix CD (perhaps even the same one as "Sonnet"). It reminds me of a day when I was a sophomore in college; it was just after Easter, cloudy and getting warm, and I went for a run by Lake Michigan. I must have listened to this song 25 times in a row. I really loved the person who gave it to me, I really liked the song, and I was happy that winter was over and spring was on its way. I recall that feeling very vividly and it comes back to me every time I listen to this. (Oh, and the lyrics - obviously, very romantic.)

Two Weeks In Love - By The Book

2011-02-03T22:26:00.004-06:00

I was probably 15 or 16 when I read "Prague" by Arthur Phillips. I remember this passage vividly. I liked it so much I wrote it down:

"He would stand in front of his bathroom mirror or the telephone in his hall, would mumble to himself, would say aloud the names of everyone he knew in Vienna, search for someone he could talk to, but he could never think of the right person. And so instead he would scramble to fill the sudden gaping, gasping spaces of his heart...If he could explain to her in real time everything that had happened to him - every single feeling and misunderstood action and distorted, grotesquely misconstrued intention - the in the passion and tears and apologies that followed there would come at last their connection, and she would be his and there would be a we."

-( Oh, and I've written about this before).

When I read this for the first time, I had never been in a relationship, and so this passage taught me what it was like to lose someone. It didn't scare me. Oddly enough, I felt some sort of odd anticipation - I was ready to experience things on a deeper level, even if they were painful.

"Prague" isn't the only book that taught me a thing or two about love before I experienced it myself. "Cold Mountain" by Charles Frazier remains, in my mind, a perfect portrait of yearning, exceed only by "The Great Gatsby." Nicole Krauss' "The History of Love," Michael Cunningham's "By Nightfall" - I could go on and on.

Two Weeks In Love - Christine

2011-02-02T11:12:00.002-06:00

It was a May night in Milwaukee; not quite warm yet, but richly humid in a way that hinted at wet soil and growing grass somewhere in the dark beyond the crumbling off-campus apartment where the student newspaper's end-of-the-year party was being held.

The living room, warmly lit and smelling of cheap vodka, had gotten hot, so I had come out to the fire escape for some fresh air (ironic, given that smokers were shrouding the rickety metal staircase with Marlboro Light fumes). That's when I saw Christine, huddled close to a friend and laughing about something.

I remember Christine looking up at me with that dreamy kind of smile unique to people who've had to much to drink.

"Mach1," she said. "I just - I look forward to seeing you every day in Biology."

That dreamy smile renewed itself afresh.

"You smile at me."

That took me by surprise. I suppose I had known Christine was in my Biology class, but it was a huge lecture hall crammed with hundreds of students, so I guess I had forgotten. My impression of Christine was that she was gravely serious, given to keeping her hair a little too long and wearing coats just a little too thick and formless. She was a photographer and spent a lot of time skulking around the office, muttering about cropping and page placement and "her art."

Yes, Christine was drunk that night. But something about what she said seemed like it might have been true to me in a way that went deeper and further than just that night on the fire escape.

I don't remember what I said in response - I probably just shrugged, said thanks and went back inside. I do remember we never talked about it again. For the little time that remained in the semester, Christine went on being serious and I went on being oblivious.

And that's why this story crosses my mind from time to time - because I was oblivious. If Chrisine hadn't blurted this out, I would not have given anything a second thought, but now I had questions. Should I have gotten to know her better? Did I, metaphorically speaking, walk around with my eyes shut? How many flickers of something had I just skated over?

I try not to be oblivious anymore, Christine. I really do.

Two Weeks In Love

2011-02-01T09:55:00.002-06:00

All right, everyone.

It's time for the hotly anticipated (not really) return of my annual two-week walkup to Valentine's Day, and you know what that means. Expect a blog post each day with some sort of rumination about people making the dangerous, necessary effort to connect with each other in a real and lasting way.

Be forewarned: you might get some sentimentality, some wistfulness, some naivete. You might roll your eyes. I don't blame you, but this is just happens to me this time of year and I think those feelings are entirely essential to the whole ordeal of existence as a human being.

Last year, it was The Valentine's Day Experience. This year's effort is called Two Weeks In Love. I hope you like it.

New Month, New Music

2011-02-01T08:31:00.000-06:00

Well, well, well. Looks like it's February 1. You know what that means.

Coconut Records "Nighttiming": So, I guess Jason Schwartzman does more than just appear in Sofia Coppola movies. It's unfair that his band Coconut Records is actually good. You should either get to be a movie star or a musician, not both.

Arcade Fire "Month of May": I've had "The Suburbs" in my CD player since it came out and this is the track I'm all about right now. Expect that to change next month - or maybe not.

M.I.A. "XXXO": I think this song gets frowned upon my M.I.A. purists because it's different from what she's done before. I don't mind, though. I started hearing this song this fall and only recently figured out which song it is.

The XX "Crystallised": I don't know much about The XX, but I imagine the band members to be the love children of Robert Smith and Morrissey.

Clive Tanaka Y Su Orquestra "Lonely For the High Scrapers": Everything Clive Tanaka does makes me feel like I'm taking a five-minute tropical vacation. That is a very valuable feeling in Minneapolis in February, let me tell you.