Wit & Whim

I think the odds that I will some day be struck by lightning are slightly higher than average. This evening was good. It was very good. I have come to realize, over time, that with very few exceptions, there is no pair I'd rather be marauding with than Jonathan and Andrew. Tonight, we went down to enjoy the sights and sounds of Foodstock before Jonathan went over to the Civic for Les Mis. Of course, there was no easy parking for a few blocks, so it began with a short walk. Walking with my brothers is a separate experience, when we are not communicating in our own bizarre language of movie quotes, song lyrics, inside jokes, and favourite disses, even our body language and the way we walk and move--to say nothing of facial expressions--feels so comfortable familiar and natural, that even our silences do not feel empty or pregnant. We were feeling amusing tonight, however, so there wasn't much silence at first. We made it down to Foodstock in good order, just before it beg...

I really have not been in the mood to write on here, and because of this unreasonable frame of mind, I have kind of missed out on chronicling many of the things that I have done this summer while they were still fresh. Some I should have blogged about, others I would not have blogged about either way. Sometimes the things you would like to write out are the things that you least want a permanent public record of, and so forth. Perhaps it is better to allow certain summers to fade into memory, which gradually colors them to the point of being indistinguishable from fond imagination. I was not so productive this summer as I thought I would be. I have kept up on my German, and have been making regular efforts to restore my lost--in some cases never acquired--mathematical acumen. Nonetheless, summer is flying, and I have limited yields to show of a useful nature. What I take from this summer are memories, and even those fade with time. I could write them all down in an effort to pr...

Living where I do, I now regularly meet with a most pesky form of individual: the panhandler. Especially on our street, but often also on walks, I will be approached by individuals asking me for money, with cigarettes being the second most favourite request. There is always a pattern when they approach, such that, anytime now when I hear the phrase "sir, may I ask you a question," my internal dialogue responds "here we go again." Before any mention of money is made, I am given the first story. This story establishes why the person is in such dire straits. The variety of stories I have heard on this front are quite remarkable; this is the basic story, meant to engage. They may not have eaten in five days. They came to the city to visit family, but their family was gone when they got here. They are gathering money for a sick family member. There are many initial stories. The interest always comes with the details. It may just be perverse curiosity, but I always li...

I must clock in at work in just a little more than three quarters of an hour. For some reason, one entirely unknown to me, I find it difficult to relax in the time before I leave for the day. I will work somewhere between eight and nine hours, and instead of using the last hour beforehand, I always blow it on restless pacing, interwebz surfing, or staring off into space. No matter what I do, I can be fairly certain that I will not really enjoy it. I am always glancing at the clock--much more often than I really need to--and counting the minutes until I need to leave. On the bright side, I am never late. On the negative side, this has become something of a major time suck for me. I am going to try, however brief the time I am given for the task, to spend these restless moments writing from here on out. I have neglected to restore my old hard drive, so I am cut off from all of my old stuff for the time being, but I can go ahead and start again, start fresh. Three minutes have passe...

Maps give the illusion that there are no more secrets, that everything has been discovered, and that all is well ordered. But there are places and things that those maps do not show. I know. I have been there. This morning I left home with the intent of finding Immanuel Lutheran Church, where my friend Winston would be preaching. I left home in plenty of time to get there and mingle before the service. Unfortunately, I knew but loosely where I was going, and I did not have any maps in my car. After a smooth beginning on the wide, well marked, roads of the city, I departed onto the infinitely wilder, narrow, arrow straight yet somehow winding, roads of the country. The signs became smaller, and went by much too fast for a careful perusal. Despite my great care, I was soon lost on the back roads, little more than a single lane wide, with not another soul in sight for miles. It was there, lost in the fields of Indiana, that I found a place not marked on maps. A strange and wonderful ...

Facebook, besides being a fantastic tool for stalking old friends and acquaintances, also seems to serve quite well for destroying old friendships and acquaintances. In particular, the political rhetoric of Facebook seems to be the most caustic and least reasoned that I can find. This is part of the reason that I tend to assiduously avoid such discussions on said site, because, even if you are engaging an individual of upright character and great intelligence, everyone has a few friends who have more opinions than they have brains or courtesy. Perhaps it is because I am surreptitious, but I have never been unfriended for an opinion I have expressed, nor have I ever unfriended someone for stubbornly insisting that conservatives are neo-Nazis, although I may have had to filter posts from some people as things got closer to the election. The thing is, I know those people do not think that I am a neo-Nazi. They know that I try to be kind and generous as a rule, and they would never t...

I wonder if I am not actually just another hipster? I apparently dress the part. I flirted with keeping a beard. And I do try so very hard to find merit in folk music, essentially devoid of virtuosity, for the sake of its organic, homey, and therefore unassailable, pure form. Alas, to no avail. I make it through about 5 songs before I begin to suspect that I have actually only been listening to different lyrics set to the same tune, which consists of four repeated guitar chords. Perhaps I am a failed hipster, or an odd hybrid creature which exists on the outer edges of hipsterdom. Irony is fine, but is often cloak used to distract us from the fact that there is nothing much deeper behind it. I remember Lee once talking in class about how badly modern Germans abuse irony, to the point that its subtle use is almost lost amidst the crass sarcasm and lower forms. I appreciate irony, but to take it to heart as a defining characteristic--to mold oneself to a more contrary nature--seems a b...