boys like turtles
10/22/2005 09:37 a.m.
traitor. i'm going to be that guy. soon enough i'll be considered a california resident. i'll have a california driver's license. i'll be here full-time. when i was living in chicago i never thought much about being an illinois resident, i guess i always knew that chicago was temporary and transitional. but this west coast thing is much more climactic and surreal and permanent.

thus, coming "home" is going to feel weird now. i'll be the guy who dreamt big and moved big and for many the move alone is accomplishment enough. however, for a few, myself included, the move should only be the catapult; accomplishment denotes success and success is something that i'm still working towards. much like maturity, stability, and independence.

have at it once and you haven't had it at all.

i wish i could articulate something more about the issue of going home. i'm losing something in the translation from brain to words. i wish home had a name like elizabethtown or garden state. instead i'm working with lynn and/or bay state as alternative names for home, and neither says enough about where i'm from.

either name, somehow i feel like going back there comes with the expectation that i will have a halo or less ear wax or a better figure or darker skin or a larger bank account or better credit or more connections or an agent or something about me that breeds spectacle. and, um, i'd hate to let my homies down but go ahead and paint a portrait tonight and that'd be slightly more accomplishment than i have to show. seriously.

catapult.

automotive horns should no longer be allowed to be used as a device that might move the car in front of you. listen. the car in front of you wants to move just as badly as you do, and when the driver (aggressive or not) feels comfortable taking that left-hand turn into on-coming traffic, they will. so please, stop beeping. your horn is not a magical instrument that can propel objects forward. take this opportunity to rediscover patience.

furthermore, once said car and driver do advance on the turn this does not give you (the beeper) authority to accelerate beyond your car's potential past them in order to prove how big your balls are. you are still impatient and in the end you look only more like an asshole. save the aggression for something significant, like sex with your intern, or that s&m class you planned with your spouse, or yelling at a televised sporting event, or better yet, save it for that moment when your over-compensating esuvee does a triple-lutz and lands top-down on a median somewhere and you're ushered to the gates of hell where you and your limbless body can release your stress on satan himself.

catapult.

starbucks employees. unite and listen carefully. you know what a medium is. stop kidding yourself and stop correcting me. bite your tongue, ring me up, take my money, and if you let my use of the word medium slip by then you might just get a grande tip. thanks.

catapult.

cities should be retro-fitted with better public transportation. no longer should we remain concerned merely about older buildings that do not have appropriate sprinkler systems. we should also be concerned with the city entirely. i recommend that every city herein should be burnt down in the style of the great chicago fire and then rebuilt with convenience in mind. based on the size of the city and the size of the population, the more accurate and accessible the public transport system should be. simply providing buses does not count. the buses have to go somewhere. creating a transport authority isn't sufficient enough either. start from scratch and realize that if traffic is continuously getting worse than we are doing something wrong. i'll get the matches.

catapult.

unrequited love should be outlawed. and people in love should not flaunt it. heartache aside. we should not have to fret over why every person we ever want a relationship with finds some way to convince us that we're better off as friends. look, if it's unrequited then it's elevator music. everyone on board is aware of it but everyone on board wants to ignore it. pick a floor and get off. and those of you who found an elevator without music... you have no right to brag. i know you well enough to know that you've been on our elevator before.

catapult.

dishwashers should actually wash dishes. otherwise they are dishrinsers and thus they serve no true purpose. if i wanted a dishrinser i would just find another roommate. i shouldn't have to wash a dish before and after i put it in the dishwasher. this is non-sensical. putting high pressure water jets and soap dispensers in a machine is obviously not enough. all dishwashers should be made with the same technology. nothing less. maybe it is time for recalls and free replacements.

catapult.

someone needs to tell chinese restaurants that there is a grammatically correct way to use the word we when in any one of the following formats: