A project for 2007

Okay folks, enough pfaffing about. It's time for me to find a suitable mate. No more dallying with charming but fickle young things. WAY more trouble than it's worth.

Friends, your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to help me identify and recruit appropriate candidates. Impossible? No! I say it is not impossible. Rifle your rolodexes, ask your friends about their brothers and uncles, I'm serious now. I'm willing to entertain options from 10 years younger to 10 years older.

Let's get creative about this. Because life is too short for pointless excursions into the absurd.

Merry Christmas!

My visit to Boston reminded me that although our lives are really much more about people than things, the THINGS can pile up in the scariest fashion.

I'm having a relatively low-key, non-thingy holiday, and that's just fine by me. I am richly blessed with kind and loving people in my life, and for that I'm continually grateful.

Suspense

Last night I was at the Uptown Tavern, where a horde was gathered to watch the Bears game. Just before the game started, Barack Obama appeared on the television screen, speaking in solemn cadences. The entire bar fell silent as everyone turned their attention to what Obama had to say.

Of course it was a promo for the game. Psych!

But I'm here to tell you that anyone who can make an entire barfull of drunk and rowdy football fans shut up and pay reverential attention to his every word has a fabulous political future ahead of him. Okay, we're in DC, where everyone is interested in politics. But still: you could have heard a PIN drop.

How to Build Consumer Goodwill: Assume I'm a Thief and a Drug Baron

Okay, so predictably with all the work and the stress, I have another major cold. This is the second in three months, which is something of a record for me.

So I go to my local drugstore to pick up some Sudafed. I want the the real Sudafed, you know, the stuff that actually works. I made the mistake of buying the new, non-pseudoephedrine stuff last time and it was utterly useless.

In order to purchase this CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE now, you have to pick up a card off a rack (which conveniently has no prices associated with the various products and sizes of products) and go to the pharmacy. You are then required to surrender a photo ID, your name and address, and provide a signature. FOR ONE STINKING BOX OF DECONGESTANT PILLS.

Let us count the ways that this is fucking idiotic.

1. Meth manufacturers are surely going to buy boxes of Sudafed one at a time. Yeah, right.


2. Meth manufacturers are going to use legitimate ID when they buy their single boxes of Sudafed. For sure.


3. Meth menufacturers are frequently middle-aged women with runny noses and stuffed up sinuses who go to the same drugstore year after year.

To add insult to injury, the razor blade cartridges I like are now behind the counter too. So I had to pay for my cold medicine at one end of the store, and then buy my pricier than gold razor blades at the other end. Maybe if the razor blades weren't SO PREPOSTEROUSLY EXPENSIVE they wouldn't get boosted so often. You think?

Modern life is degrading and depressing. Of course it beats the heck out of any other period in human history, but still.

Swamped

Swamped with professional work.
Swamped with school work
Swamped with family stuff.

Missing friends and fun.