This past weekend I moved to Minneapolis from St. Paul, where I have spent the past year - not entirely happily but not entirely unhappily. From what I can tell, many Minneapolitans (including the librarian who helped me today switch my library card back to the Minneapolis system) seem to grab any opportunity they can to gently poke fun at our ( Read more... )

Who can text the fastest?

I had a very strange dream last night. The first half featured cameo appearances by my Icelandic saga professor, David Bowie, and maybe Brian Eno (details are not clear any longer). In the second half, I was invited to a suicide party. Suicide isn't exactly something I'm interested in, but I said I'd stop by and check it out. When I arrived, ( Read more... )

HEY
(clap)
HEY
(clap)

I have just returned from being out of the country for three weeks. I had a letter waiting for me letting me know that I was not chosen for the job I had interviewed for. I'm not all that disappointed, I suppose. The only real plans I have now are to cat-sit until mid-August, and also to stew in the humid weather. Tomorrow I will unpack.

I haven't written anything here in a long while. This post, though, comes under some not-so-cheerful circumstances: I am sick today. It's an odd sort of illness that comes to visit me every year or every year-and-a-half, and each time I become totally exhausted, my muscles ache, and I shiver constantly. When this happens, I can't do much of ( Read more... )

R.I.P. Cinder

Today I rode with the most considerate bus driver I can remember. When she started driving after each stop, she announced to the folks standing up, "Hold on, please - the bus is moving." Then, later on, she announced to us all, "Hold on, please - pothole." And sure enough, we hit a rough patch of pavement.

Nearly every day, I wonder what's become of Tom and Jason Smith.

My grandparents have been married for 60 years now. We went to visit them today in Sioux Falls, and we ate out at Grandpa's favorite restaurant, Coyote Canyon (formerly Sirloin Stockade). It brought back many merry memories of JoDeans, where we used to go pretty often as kids. In place of paintings of pheasants on the walls, though, today we had ( Read more... )