"Choosing forms of worship from poetic tables."

Energy is Eternal Delight.

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place and governs the unwilling.

— from "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell," by William Blake

That Was My First, And Last, Bud Light

A bunch of us stayed late (read: 1 a.m.) at work tonight to attend a Pity Party for our entertainment editor who was waiting to replate for the Oscars.

A sampling of comments, post shitty vodka and pineapple rum and Bud Lights (free booze sent to editors. Yeah, it happens.):

"Helen Mirren has amazing boobs."

"Celine Dion looks like a beautiful woman after she's been assaulted."

"Look at Helen Mirren's boobs. Wow."

"I'd do her with gusto."

"Yeah, but you'd do anyone."

"Sure. But I wouldn’t do everyone with gusto."

I may have won the Oscar pool, but I'll know for sure tomorrow. All I can say is I picked "The Departed" for best pic, so I did pretty damn well. Now I just have to see "The Departed"…

Posts-Pity Party, four of us split a cab to Brooklyn.

But first we got in the cab. It is hailing. We are in midtown. There are rocks falling from the sky.

"We're making four stops all near each other in Brooklyn."

"I'm not going to Brooklyn," the cabbie says.

Eh uh. Not something an NYC cabbie should say.

"That's illegal," we tell him.

"No," he answers. "If you read the rules, I don't have to make that many stops out of Manhattan."

Blappity, blippity. The man is lying, we are arguing, and eh uh, I'm beginning to boil.

"Let's just get the fuck out of the cab," I say. I begin to get out.

As I'm sliding out the backseat, I hear my friend say: "Listen man, you picked the wrong people to screw with here. We're a bunch of newspaper reporters and we talk to the TLC every day. But hey, you can do whatever you want, right?"

"Okay, okay, I'll take you," he says, repeatedly, politely suddenly.

He took us. We took his medallion number.

I just think it'd be funnier if we all worked at, say, "Teen Vogue." You know: "Listen man, you picked the wrong people to screw with here. We're a bunch of reporters [at Teen Vogue]. But hey, you can do whatever you want, right?"

It's Official: The Line (Some Line) Has Been Crossed

Things that have happened on the A train between last week and tonight:
1. My friend wanted to find something in the book he was reading so he turned it over and tried to hit Open Apple + F on it.
2. I saw a nerdy boy carrying a gym bag reading chick lit, which had an oddly jarring quality about it
3. and a homely middle-aged Asian woman in a powder-blue parka wearing brown leather pants with quilted knees. Needless to say, I found this endearing.

Other than these grand happenings, I saw a fantastic film at a Synthetic Zero art event over the weekend by artist Laura Napier. It was footage she took of Astor Place with a strange dark filter. This film of hers is similar, but the Astor Place one was amazing because it showed that unique intersection and all its weaving people and cars and went on and on and all I could think about was how badly I wanted this film looped over and over on my bedroom wall. I particularly loved the shadow cars and buses that remained after they had stopped and then moved on. She accompanied the film with sound picked up by her camera—mostly white-noise traffickish, punctuated by occasional honks.

I'm also a fan of this video on her site. She directs a guy to walk in circles over four sidewalk squares—and to continue even if people get in his way. Mesmerizing. Notice how not a human seems to notice him circling them as they idle.

And now I present to you the second-best fortune cookie fortune ever:

"You will receive a fortune. (cookie)"

No. Goddamn. Shit.

It's as if this cookie knew it was destined for (me).

But Would You Be Dead by Now, Too?

I love my pregnant friend Lula. She sees it just like I do. Here's our most recent e-mail exchange:

Me: i've been super sick, but am back at work today, feeling much better post-antibiotics. i realize i would be dead by now if i'd lived in some earlier century pre-their discovery...

Lula: don't you love that realization?? I am masochistic and have been reading about the history of births and, yeah, if I was knocked up in a different century I would be drafting my will and saying my goodbyes right about now. of course at 31 I would probably have been pregnant like six times already and most likely dead from disease....

Me: i was thinking about it yesterday--i was debating whether i'd be one of those weird old people who managed to survive various plagues, all hardy and shit. then i thought, nah, i'd definitely be the first one out when the common cold came 'round when i was a child. oh well. there i went.

The Ice Pellet Storm

The plague has prevented my spinning the rest of the tale I so enticingly began last week, so here I present to you what the last number of days has involved, in list form:

Recap: Police. Brother of Famous Actor. Search of Car. Arrest. Parking of Car. Slimy Cop. More Search of Car. No Discovery of Illegal Substance. Ambulance. Phone Calls from Jail. Release.
And since: Driving the Midget, Flattish Tires, The New Jersey Turnpike.
Shitting-Vomiting Labrador. My Father's Refrigerator. Bleeping Dying Smoke Alarm.
Woody Allen Movies.
Stars.
Spindly Forest Trees. Cold Night Air.
Emergence of Ex. Tears.
Furniture Delivery Men.
More Dog Shit.
Illness. Coughing Spittling Gasping Illness. Nyquil.
Dog Shit.
The Hottentot Venus.
The Holland Tunnel.
Two Hours of Work. Coughing.
Feeding of Friend's Cat Named Shug. Disgusting Can of Cat Food. Slime.
Latino Ceiling Repair Man. Dingus Landlady. Cute Young Plumber.
Dismissive Doctor. Young Suburban Radiologist. One-Shot Miracle Antibiotic.
X-Rays. Paper Gowns. Chest Pain. Shortness of Breath. Coughing.
Insane Family Member. Kind Roommate. Irritating Landlady. Insane Family Member. Nyquil.
Dreams. Sleep in 2-Hour Shifts. Nyquil! Nyquil. Fuzzy Brain. Sleep.
Wind. Sleetish Snow.
Delay of Work.
Return of Ability to Sit and Write, Even Just in Lists.
Consideration of Romance.
Angry Wind. Ice Pellets.
Valentine's Day.

My sister tells me "afslappe" = "relaxed" in Danish.

The two ads Google has chosen to accompany this entry right now?
"Find a Cheating Wife" and "Hedgehog Supply Company."

Of This I Am Not Sure

Am I the only one who arrives home in the evening to find her ceiling falling in only to go meet a friend to find that he is being arrested outside the bar I am to meet him at, in handcuffs, only to have the actor brother of a famous actor come to the rescue?

I believe this might be so.

The longer version of this story is currently being vetted by lawyers and should appear this weekend. Stay tuned, if tuning is at all possible on these Internets.

The Evolutionary Scale of Animals

While listening to Leonard Lopate in my kitchen today, I got wind of the Amy Sedaris Craft Challenge. The idea is to add googly eyes to any piece of food, snap a photo and let Amy choose her favorite. I'm a fan of this one.

Right now, Lopate is interviewing Dr. Sharon Moalem, author of "Survival of the Sickest," an interesting-sounding exploration of disease and evolution.

Moalem (who has a name that reminds me of "golem," which is just perfectly Jewy-retro, in my bananacake head) "reveals how many of the conditions that we think of as diseases today actually gave our ancestors a leg up in the survival sweepstakes." (According to the book's Web site. Forgive my description malaise.)

I'm a big fan of the phrase "survival sweepstakes." As if it's not interesting enough to discuss why diabetes might have been a helpful adaptive trait in children long ago, the PR pips had to liken it all to a "sweepstakes." You know, like, disease Lotto! No. Powerball! Be an evolution gazillionaire!

So I go into the kitchen just now to refill my petite, but not delicate (oh no), espresso cup. I see the rock doves perched, still, on my fire escape. There are two of them today. Brown and generally skittish, these birds often rest there and soak in the sun. Good for you, I always think, enjoy that warmth on that crumbling metal perch. Don't fall through! Heh heh heh.

These two have been there for hours now. When I first wandered in, invading their peaceful sunbathing, one of them peered at me: "What the fuck are you," it asked me with its eyes, "and are you going to swat at me?" Nah, I told it. I'm not much of a swatter. So I proceeded to act as much like a rock dove as I knew how: peevish and with no sudden movements. Coffee, coffee, coffee, pour, pour, pour. Slink.

The other bird kept his head tucked into his fat feathered body, with one eye on me. And then the first one took off.

I'm sorry! I'm sorry! My heart broke a little, as it always does when this happens. I had failed, again, to be enough of a rock dove for these rock doves. I will do better next time, birds. I promise.

Smoted

So really I’d like to start today by telling you all that my friend Lula is having a baby boy who swims so fishily her doctor can’t pin down his tiny, tiny heartbeat. She tells me she’s thinking of naming him Zeke, after her husband’s father’s bookie.

“You cannot name your child Zeke,” I tell her. “I veto this. I will not let you name your child after your husband’s father’s bookie. No.”

[Peals of laughter.]

“No.”

Other than this, to continue my fascinating tales of New York subways and weather (kill me now), it is butt-freaking-freezing out there today. Which is sort of nice, considering this is the Northeast and 70 degrees in January was just a mindfuck.

(I feel cursey today. Perhaps this is because I am at a freelance job and have had zero work to do for 1.22 hours.)

I am forever fascinated by the New Yorker who walks the gray streets in the still blue air on days like this with a jacket kind of open, no scarf, no hat, when I feel my eyeballs beginning to freeze and my exposed flesh beginning to drop away from my limbs. What is this? Who are these people? Am I not made from Russian peasant stock? Should I not be the one who can heartily endure such weather? Yes and, apparently, nyet.

All I want to do is curl back up in bed in the worn softness of flannel sheets. (Flannel sheets. I know, I, too, am reminded of frat boys and plaid. But they were left behind by an ex, whose mother, I believe, had given them to him, and they’re just so cozy…if fratty.)

I swear to God, who shall smite me with his beneficent ghosty sword if I do not, I will have something more interesting to write soon. There.

I Say Get the Basics Down First

We are waiting for the subway tonight. Sunday night trains are notoriously slow to come in New York, something my colleagues and I face every week with not much humor. (Or loads of it. Depends on the stars. And our blood-alcohol levels.)

"I wish somebody would just discover transportation finally," says one of us.

I laugh, considering the implications of our 100-year-old transit system not even being worthy of the word "transportation."

He reconsiders.

"I meant 'transporter-beaming,' 'transporting.' 'Transportation'?"

Oh.

You Must Have Faith in the Units

Ok, forget everything I've ever said on this topic.

I officially have now received The Best Fortune Ever.

From a meal of Kung Pow Wheat Glutens (plural):

"Only listen to the fortune cookie; disregard all other fortune telling units."

I told you so.

Some Nights Are Weirder Than Others

So talking to a friend endlessly tonight on IM. Here's what we're doing right now, at 1:24 a.m. We're listening together to one of my favorite episodes of "This American Life." We're each sitting in our apartments in different parts of Brooklyn, listening.

http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/01/178.html

The question posed in the first act, after the prologue, is: Invisibility or flight? I don't even hesitate. You?

This reminds me of a similar question I came up with years ago. Just as John Hodgeman poses this "flight or invisibility" question at parties, I have my own. (Imagine you are drunk when I ask you this): Do you think there is a sheep being held somewhere in New York City purely for the purposes of sex?

Possibly not surprising, the answers come hard and fast. Everyone has an instinctive answer. Loads of fun for the whole family.