After spending the past two weeks with my nose in a book, I realized what an atrocity it is that I waste a good couple of hours every day not reading. Therefore, potential 2010 reading list:

• The Book of the New Sun – Gene Wolfe
• The Dream of Perpetual Motion – Dexter Palmer
• Murphy – Samuel Beckett
• Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
• Moby Dick: or, The Whale – Herman Melville
• The Digging Leviathan – James P. Blaylock (and the rest of the trilogy)
• Additions:
• The Barrytown Trilogy – Roddy Doyle (via Cormac)
• Reading in the Dark – Seamus Deane (also Cormac)

Before I start on those, I’m reading Mike Carey’s Lucifer, courtesy of Ericat.
So far, so good.

If anyone has any suggestions or vetoes, let me know. I hunger. I have appetites.

Don’t worry Shakespeareans, the Amazon links are only for reference. I wouldn’t dream of ordering from anywhere but Kit Marlowe & Co.

Harry Potter said right into Ron’s soul, “You know what we are, baby? We are wizards. We are finally what we were always going to become. We are wizards, and the world better get ready because I have just begun.”

Max Riffner’s Drunk Elephant Comics

My drunk elephant sketch finally arrived just before yesterday’s game. Hanks depiction above is pretty analogous to my day. Not drunk – anxious with fists clenched, which sucks because I have blisters on every finger where I picked up the hot baking sheet of waffles fries last night.

Current Employer #1 is currently holding my paycheck, and Current Employer #2 never pays me on time anyway. Rent is due in 7 days, and I still owe @jondowner $500.

Prospective Jobs A and B – both of which I had phone interviews with last week – have not gotten back to me at all. The interview, complete with tests and lesson plan presentation, for Prospective Job C is tomorrow. My sweater vest is prepped and ready.

We’ll be talking about compound words.

Tim is here.

Actually, he’s staying at Rachel’s tonight, but I have all of his stuff. Custody will be mine.

Phone interview with TFA on Thursday.
News back from Unity at the end of the week.
NYCTF interview next Tuesday.

It’s slowly becoming a real possibility that my future could hold a legitimate, full-time job.

I also eat crimini mushrooms and had guacamole at the restaurant last night.

Sometime last/this week, everyone decided to take ill and hole up in their rooms for a few days. This behavior is unacceptable, and all will be present and accounted for on Sunday under pain of pain. Chris Dane Owens has made the Unbreakable Vow.

Tonight was our first Eos game in weeks. Due to a last-minute dropout, Will rolled up another character and defended us while simultaneously wielding the cleansing flame. The campaign feels fresh. I’m digging the setting more this time around. Might also be excited about playing someone who pretty much just cuts things in half and teleports around the room.

PAX is closing in and the pressure is on – just a little – to make sure I’ve got enough money for a smooth trip + my normal monthlies. I wanted to sneak a few parts onto the Pake while Erica wasn’t looking, but it might have to wait until April.

3:47am – the prince’s bed

I cut the tip of my finger off.

That “sweet vignette” is due to the Samsung’s flash, not my wicked PS post-processing. Bro.

We’re like the Lunts.

This is when I like seeing a girl on a bike. Fully clothed and throwing a barspin.

-John Prolly

Since moving to Brooklyn, I’ve wanted to hit up the Peel Sessions on Thursdays, but I am a total pussy. Every tiny Korean girl on Fixed Gear Girls is 140% more badass than me. That goes without saying I guess. Maybe Matt Mispagel will move to New York, and we can do wheelies together.

This afternoon, I had an interview for a job.

Later, I ate chili and watched Appa get heartbean. DM talked about his droopy sash.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Entirely unsure as to how I ended up reading Keats today, but it happened.

Further confusion persists regarding where the rest of my day went.

We all work for someone.

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful — a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh’d fill sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.

seriously, you were what – hiding inside a pillow case?

Everyone cross your fingers. I don’t want to say for what yet. Lord Sauron has many spies… many spies with many eyes. Just keep ‘em crossed.*

The past week has been a boon. Cloud 9 the whole time. It started about 25ish minutes into Lobo on Friday. Waking up in amazing early light on Saturday. Sunday, all of it. Shower. Nap. Snacks for dinner. Commonwealth on Monday. Snoday Wednesday. Intermittent Harry Potter throughout. It may have something to do with my new girlfriend, Dinah.

I do hate Foodtown now, however.

I play against robots.

Why is there wrapping paper in my bed? Whenever I end up at my place alone, I get confused as to when I’m supposed to go to sleep.

*Even if you were born with crossed fingers and have to wear special gloves.

Like the mighty fist of God, armageddon will descend upon the city of Los Angeles.

how could i have forgotten? / last year was a dark time.

I want your Ugly. I want your Disease
I want your Everything, as long as it’s Free.

—America’s leading contemporary philosopher, Stefani Germanotta (aka Lady Gaga)

Insight comes from unlikely sources. Lady Gaga nailed the health reform dilemma. We have a healthcare delivery system that is an orgy of profligacy and excess that offers the false promise of making ugliness, disease and death all optional. And, we the public love all of it, as long as it’s free, at least to us as individuals.

And later:

Doesn’t the premium come out of my pocket as taxpayer, employee or individual? How can I have everything, as long as it’s free?

We are caught in a Bad Romance with healthcare.