jabberwoCKY

I don’t think that 18 year old me in Poetry class would have been capable of understanding Emily Dickinson’s “Done with the Compass - Done with the Chart!” in the way I understand it now.

So I guess “Take America Back to the Dark Ages” didn’t fit on a baseball cap.

I’m grateful to have survived my childhood as a shy, awkward misfit weirdo and grown up to become an awkward misfit weirdo with a good therapist, a better understanding of who I am and how I got to be that way, and much nicer stuff.

I want to introduce a version of me that’s only available to premium subscribers as part of a new revenue generation strategy.

Which of these should I add to my name to communicate a level of exclusivity, luxury and opulence that I have no intention whatsoever of providing?
Max
Pro
Extra
Platinum

The post-factual era continues to suck.

“We want a government that’s small enough to drown in a bathtub, but only after it gets us a date.”

The thing about America’s collective concept of its own history — the way it’s recorded and most commonly taught — is that in the telling, the ends will always justify the means. And the voices of the people brutalized by those means are seldom if ever part of how the story is told.

The only way I could’ve eaten that burrito any faster was if somebody’d shot it into my mouth with a t-shirt cannon. Which is a method I’ve seriously considered, to be clear.

As sure as the sunrise, you are going to be too much for someone. And as long as that someone isn’t you, you’re going to be just fine.

I have learned the hard way that for many things I might be tempted to think of as self-evident, I am the only self they’re evident to.

The Venn Diagram of people who believe a creative process driven by thoughtful, informed planning is a waste of time and people who don’t understand why projects consistently become unprofitable after countless rounds of revisions is a cheeseburger made with the precision of a Swiss watch.

We’re planning our adventures along the coast north of Boston for tomorrow on Google Maps and scrolled past a business called “Howard’s Flying Dragon Antique” and I would absolutely believe it if you told me that was the title of a Studio Ghibli film.

I do not understand the compulsion to fill every moment with constant chatter. Are there people who are truly terrified of spending two consecutive seconds alone with their thoughts?

No cheating post your Lock Screen

At least once a day, I wish that silence was the default setting, especially in confined spaces. There’s enough noise inside my head as it is, and the rest of the world seems to have terrible taste in music.

“Is this research or mesearch?”
The question I’ve often needed to find polite ways to ask in project briefings when sweeping claims about the audience mindset are made sans reality-based substantiation.

Thank you for the encouragement. Here’s hoping my truck full of epsom salts gets here soon.

I’ve struggled to stay positive on both fronts, and it occurred to me last night that three years ago my body wouldn’t have been capable of doing this. So today, I’m grateful that it is, in spite of the fact that everything hurts and I’m dying.

I’ve spent the last five days moving out of one place and into another, and it’s been most demanding and exhausting stretches I can remember, mentally and physically. And it’s not done yet.

I don’t love every mural, but I love that the Greenway is becoming the best sort of public art gallery. A place where people can be surrounded by creative expression as they make their way to wherever it is they’re going.

Everyone should, whether or not they were Cornflake Girls.

All due honor and praise to Tadej Pogacar, a generational superstar and already an all-time cycling legend. But my new favorite pro cyclist is Ben Healy. An Irishman making his mark with panache in the Tour de France? I’m in.

One of those days when I’m having to remind myself that my brain is often an unreliable narrator. And also an asshole.

These things come in threes, I’ve heard tell.

Writing is probably the least dangerous thing I can do with my time. It’s the thinking part that always gets me into trouble.

My body feels as though it’s been worked like the heavy bag at an MMA gym. Anybody got a spare Tramadol?

Following the machinations every Minneapolis election cycle on social convinces me that this is a feature, not a bug. I understand politics at any level is never going to be pristine and idyllic process. But it could certainly suck a whole lot less than it does. Hear endeth the musing.

Years ago, I participated in a nominating convention as a volunteer for a friend who went on to win a city council seat. At the time, it felt like a process that enabled, if not empowered the most insufferable sorts of bullies, brats and blowhards. I left thinking “Well, I’ll never do that again.”

No one tells you that as you get older, your ability to convincingly feign enthusiasm all but abandons you. Or maybe it’s just a severely diminished number of f*cks to give.

…at a Coldplay show.