Category: categories

Joke Club

I have a joke up over at Josh A. Cagan’s Joke Club (scroll down until you see my photo). Mr. Cagan is an official NaBloPoMo participant, which means a solid month of hilarious posts from the Cagan household. Go read them.

Here’s, the joke he didn’t use:

Kevin Federline reportedly wrote a nasty message to his ex-wife Britney Spears on the shower door of his dressing room at the House of Blues in Chicago. The message was scrawled in permanent marker, which begs the question, where did he get opposable thumbs?

On Grief

The best parts of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking:

“Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life. Virtually everyone who has ever experienced grief mentions this phenomenon of “waves.”

“I was thinking as small children think, as if my thoughts had the power to reverse the narrative, change the outcome.”

“I found myself wondering with no sense of illogic, if it had also happened in Los Angeles. I was trying to work out what time it had been when he died, and whether it was that time yet in Los Angeles. (Was there time to go back? Could we have a different ending on Pacific Time?)”

Putting in a Window

By John Brantingham

Carpentry has a rhythm that should never
be violated. You need to move slowly,
methodically, never trying to finish early,
never even hoping that you’d be done sooner.
It’s best if you work without thought of the
end. If hurried, you end up with crooked
door joints and drafty rooms. Do not work
after you are annoyed just so the job
will be done more quickly. Stop when you
begin to curse at the wood. Putting in
a window should be a joy. You should love
the new header and the sound of
your electric screwdriver as it secures
the new beams. The only good carpenter
is the one who knows that he’s not good.
He’s afraid that he’ll ruin the whole house,
and he works slowly. It’s the same as
cooking or driving. The good cook
knows humility, and his soufflé never falls
because he is terrified that it will fall
the whole time he’s cooking. The good driver
knows that he might plow into a mother
walking her three-year old, and so watches
for them carefully. The good carpenter
knows that his beams might be weak, and a misstep
might ruin the place he loves. In the end,
you find your own pace, and you lose time.
When you started, the sun was high and now
that you’re finished, it’s dark. Tomorrow, you
might put in a door. The next day,
you’ll start on your new deck.