And I think I've found my Ernie

From Cookie Monster...

You Are Bert

Extremely serious and a little eccentric, people find you loveable - even if you don't love them! You are usually feeling: Logical - you rarely let your emotions rule you You are famous for: Being smart, a total neat freak, and maybe just a little evil How you life your life: With passion, even if your odd passions (like bottle caps and pigeons) are baffling to others

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

If the Brakeman Turns My Way

I’ve got the symptoms: late nights in front of the TV, achingly predictable Friday nights with a book, catching up instead of partying, green tea for coffee, sugar-free pastry, and just recently, a nagging weight around the neck.

It took awhile but here it is, still too soon.

When panic grips your body and your heart is a hummingbird
Raven thoughts blacken your mind until you're breathing in reverse

I'm settling comfortably in my thirties. I'm done being the dog walking in circles flattening the grass. Though I enjoyed the experience tremendously, the band thing came just too late in my life. I'm just not that person anymore. I prefer slowly spiraling to drunkenness conversations with friends over quick, massive attacks of alcohol. I'm the catch-up guy now. What are you reading? What are you listening to? And do you remember that time...?

All this automatic writing I have tried to understand
From a psychedelic angel who was tugging on my hand
It's an infinite coincidence but it doesn't form a plan

At work, I'm surrounded by mostly skittish young people, but also the most hardworking and (frighteningly) responsible of the young folks that I have ever met. We ambush work with furrowed brows and take 30 minute coffee breaks in between. The meeting of deadlines, a given. The fooling around, also a given.

Bright Eyes' Cassadaga is not a record you spin over and over. The dusty folk and soul creeps from behind you and quietly breaks your smile. Not at all depressing. But thoughtful. Thoughtful of time passing. I listen to the album at work to ground me. To remind me that work has to be done, that work is where I am, that work will pass in time.

It is an old world it's hard to remember
Like a dime store mystery
I'm a repeat first time offender
Who has rewritten history

This is, then, the bed of grass that sometimes takes a couple of fuck-ups to find. The bed you made, and the people you choose to fill your space. Growing old sucks. Knowing that you're growing older sucks more. But it's a given.

The rest---the books, the music, the silliness, the couch in front of the TV, the love, and most especially, the friends you've grown old with---these, you grab and never let go.

Bright Eyes, "If the Brakeman Turns My Way"

The Coming Cold

Raindrops keep falling on my head. Every time I step out the office building, there it goes again, falling on my head like a memory. Right as rain, never did get that.

I've often told friends that I need my sunshine, a spoonful of sunshine everyday in my world. A day of hovering clouds, fat and dark, and I'm swirling down the drain of depression. Romantic depressive. Not giving up the ghost, as foolish as it may seem. Bring on the Sinatra, the glass blower's daughter, and the invisible ink. Jump in my drink.

And here I am, naming toothbrushes. It's actually cool. The client wanted us to assign them personalities, like the Spice Girls. So I went looking for some synonyms of "sporty." "Whorish" came up.

Whorish Blue. With Flexi-Grip.