Top Ten of 2014

10. A noticeable achievement in killer robots.
9. King street station clocktower in the fog.
8. The time a pop star/rapper and we were all outraged, or calling the outrage what it was: something we disagreed with because it seemed to indicate an attitude we disapproved of.

blooorrrrrghphmampharrrrgleshupdtreeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuugh! poi poi poi nooooggggheeeeeephrelmoppskj!!! amph!

7. Krangovers: the specific shame and sickness one has after being up all night creating TMNT memes.
6. A very important Tweet.
5. Inappropriate levels of__ expressed by falling on the floor with a microphone in hand.
4. 86ed.
3. A punch in the gut, a slap in the face, a growing fear for ones life every time the news comes on. Huddled around a working phone, desperately refreshing, in hopes to hear something good.
2. A five-page long dictionary of ambivalent definitions every time someone 'revolutions.'
1. Pizza by the slice in lieu.

this is the only 2014 list there is.

When Whiskey Becomes Coffee--

or Five Useful Responses For The Navigation of Smallish Talk, a Follow Up.

When dealing with the sort of every day interactions I outlined in the last post, there are options. Say you don't want to stonewall someone, but because of circumstances, it's not appropriate or feasible to really get into it at the time (you're at work, they're at work, you're late for something, etc) there are still ways to avoid the bland sameness of "fineness." Here are five responses to the "how are you/what's new" querie that tend to kickstart a friendly banter, let people know you like and appreciate their presence, without rabbit trailing too much.

1) "Well, I'm on the right side of the ground. Everything else is gravy!" Grabbed this from crusty old dudes at the bar. It works better delivered by crusty old dudes, but even saying it as a half-joke has a weird way of re-enforcing a wider perspective.

2) "Kickin' ass and takin' names." This seems like a joke, but depending where you put the goalposts, this can always be true. Perhaps the kicking ass was winning the Lottery and the names you took were those who high-fived you afterwards. Or maybe it was getting out of bed and making coffee.

3) "Livin' the dream, man, livin' the dream." No matter who you're speaking to, it is always appropriate to refer to them as "man" when one is living the dream.

4) "Well, I'm at work, so you know. But, I have a job, so, hey." This is obviously most effective when you're actually at work.

5) "My family just died in a fire and I had to watch the Arsonists laughing eyes as I helplessly struggled against the flames. Nightly I hear his ruthless cackling and all around me seems confirmation that John Calvin was right; and endless hell of predestined torture awaits us all, and I am only futiley counting down the hours until the Bat King flies off with my soul into is torment-cave. But there's a new Italian place down the way and I hear they have a good happy hour. We should check it out."

Universal.

5 Timely Band Names

HURRY!

1) Joe Biden and the Clarifications

2) Wisconsin Importance

3) In-Cum Tax*

4) The Non Voters

5) Megadeth

*LA only

5 American Americanisms

1) Crispy bacon.

2) Use of "American" as an adjective denoting newness, rawness, difference, frontierism, "the west". American slang. American Gods. American hearts.

3) Boots, and the various ways one finds their feet in them, and the uses for those ways.

4) Threatening to move to Canada.

5) The snide dismissal of Europe, internalized along with the near-reverence, the longing for tradition.

Feb '11/this ends here/has ended/trouble with tenses.

Things that I realized/did/experienced in February that were not related to readings, as such:

1) starting a blog post and getting distracted and starting it up again twenty minutes later is a good way to forget all your awesome ideas.

2) sitting on the floor in the middle of your living room, trying to write things (of any nature) while the universe and your family cavorts around you is less than optimal. the reason this sitting occurs in this place is because of the necessity of physical wires for the internet.

3) roy williams is capable of high levels of support, fun-having, charm and unobrusivity, all at once.

4) my dad know everything about seattle's history and still wants to learn the new stuff ("why don't we swing through georgetown-- where exactly is all the stuff supposed to be happening there?")

5) planning for a class that you are going to teach requires actually planning for a class you are going to teach.

6) having a cute new baby around means people bring your sister food, which you can steal.

7) a broken phone screen is a pain at first, but then, liberating.

8) lists are the lowest form of communication.

How it might go at this very site in the near future.

Several thoughts on year-encapsulating sorts of posts. Because I feel enough has happened this year that I should try to talk about it * some * how. Still, short of a Graham's Year In A Short Novella, not sure. So a format is inevitable. Ways it may yet happen:

-->Month by month, in Song Quotes.
Pros: Concise, emotionally evocative, vague enough to protect the guiltocent.
Cons: So very LJ, circa 2001.

-->Month by month, in Numbered Poem form
Pros: Hey, look! A new poem! (and folks will give it a pass, since its obviously a Personal Piece. . .)
Cons: Hey, look! A new poem! (no way, in the annals of Graham's Numbered Poems, this gets anywhere close to Genus, Species and Flavour.)

-->Film an interpretive dance in full-snow-goose outfit, post on youtube, link here.
Pros: Majestic!
Cons: None.

-->A 2-part summary: Wales, U.S.
Pros: Splits pretty much right in half, conveniently enough for archival purposes.
Cons: Bo-ring.

-->Compare/Contrast with 2006,7,8 in terms of goal-reaching, time-management and personal progress.
Pros: Would probably compare largely favorably.
Cons: So very Seven Habits of Highly Motivated Success Stories . . . or Patrick Bateman.

-->Do what I often do sometime mid-January and shrug it off and look ahead
Pros: The whole "looking ahead" thing.
Cons: See beginning of blog post.

Stay tuned. I bet you can't wait.

My 100th post and its not even a real post.

Read a fairly non-committal review of the new Pearl Jam album that I wrote. There are also jokes in it.

From the department of cultural realisations and differences--

Comes 7 Ways you Can Tell You're in Washington State!

7. You go back to a girl's apartment after a night of flirting and drinking, and that apartment is in Seattle.
6. You and your friend are going for a drive and your friend says "hey are those the Olympics?" and you say "Yes," because they are the Olympics, a Washington State mountain range.
5. Looking on a map you can accurately identify the borders to the area that you are in as the State/Province lines to Idaho, Oregon and British Columbia.
4. When you anger someone and they tell you to "go jump in Puget Sound" it is hyperbole simply because it is unlikely you will do so, rather than technically physically impossible.
3. You were legally allowed to vote for Washington State Governor and State Legislators.
2. You go to a refill station in your HYBRID and there's an ESPRESSO stand and the guy there (who has a BEARD) says "Hey, when I'm not working at the ORGANIC FOOD AND GRANOLA CO-OP, I'm in this really hip GRUNGE* BAND." And you're like "Wow, so AM I! Want to go HIKING and FISHING later? We can RECYCLE TOGETHER! I voted for OBAMA and DON'T LIKE SPORTS THAT MUCH!" and you write a gay-rights referendum together, and call it the TOTALLY GAY RIGHTS REFERENDUM because you still have a sense of humour about how liberal you are.
1. Whilst driving on the freeway you pass a sign that says "Welcome to Washington."


*sic