One-liner

I turned on my mechanical brain, only to find that my mechanical brain had turned on me.

Hang Tight

I said "Hang tight" today, to a fellow I'd never met before. I am unaccustomed to the feeling of power and responsibility that surged through my veins at that moment. "Hang tight, buddy," I said. "I'll come find you." Nor was it a lost, bewildered, possibly foreign child that I was ordering to do this thing. No, this was a real man — a working man; a beefy taxi driver who was preparing to give me a ride back to work from the auto shop. Perhaps it was the fumes from all the cars being fixed with wrenches and brake fluid and other such manly things that inspired in me this sudden rash urge to tell a working man to just "hang tight," but the rush that I felt upon uttering those words was beyond anything I've ever experienced. "Hang tight, buddy." Sylvester Stallone would—doubtless often does—say that to his taxi driver. Bruce Willis. The Rock tells anyone he likes to hang tight, and they just do it. I don't know where I picked up the phrase—the only thing I'm certain of is that I have never used it before. But this will not be the last time.

Thoughts Upon Having Just Cleaned My Room

When I clean my room; once the initial reluctance has become acceptance of the task at hand, which in turn has become a relish for the project bordering on the maniacal -- or at the very least obsessive compulsive -- once I have finished cleaning my room; after weeks of squalor which feeds on itself because, honestly, what's one more pair of dirty underwear on a floor that I haven't seen in days? When my room is finally clean -- when the last book has been reshelved, the last sock reunited with its partner, the curtains opened so the world can look in again on the whole eminently presentable project ... once everything's finally tidy again in my living space, I like to just sit there and look at it. I sit in my swivel chair, swiveling gently, and take in the carefully arranged CDs, the empty desk space, the made bed, the neat stacks of notebooks, and the folded piles of clothes. When I have a room like that, I just like to sit there and stare at the fucking thing for ages, which is precisely what I've been up to for the last twenty minutes. It just struck me today how weird that is.

Not Drunk

I have given up drinking beer. This is not strictly true. It is true that today, for the first time in a very, very long while, I have not consumed an alcoholic beverage of any sort. It is also true that this seeming anomaly in my bibulousness is no accident, but in fact a direct result of a resolution that I made yesterday, which stipulated that I refrain from imbibing ale, wine, or spirits. But we are being very careful about making rash claims about what has or hasn't been given up for good. It is half past midnight and I am not drunk. The very statement is an admission of a problem. But in truth, it is my rapidly expanding flab that has proved the strongest interventionist in this case. Hedonistic as I am, my vanity trumps my lesser, appetitive desires any day of the week.
Nonetheless, the odd hazelessness that I am experiencing is singularly unpleasant. We will have to revisit this resolution tomorrow.

Wedding

I am returned lately from a beach wedding, at which I became inebriated, swam in the ocean, danced clunkily but with enthusiasm, sang along loudly to indie rock music, professed (at great length) my strong distaste for Flash websites to a software designer, and occasionally had wistful thoughts about the nature of love, the ritual of marriage, and why it is that I have gone such a very long time without having intercourse. In retrospect, the answer to that last question may very well be intimately tied to my propensity for lengthy disquisitions about Flash websites.