No Lingering

This is the sign you see when you leave Thailand.

Either it means "get moving buddy, your stay in Thailand is over," or it's a meditation on the transient nature of existence.

I am going to heed these warnings

Because these both look like bad situations to be in.

Unicorn Town

Dan and I were walking in Philly Williamsburg and we saw this unicorn. It was standing, randomly, behind a chain link fence in a triangle of dirt in the middle of the city.

At the Co-op a few days after the inauguration

Tacky front porch without the porch

Our neighbors across the hall like to use that hall as sort of a storage unit.




Good thing it doesn't bother me.

The List

I know I'm wrong about the New York Post Editorial Cartoon
I know I'm wrong about the fourth wall
I know I'm wrong to use "Straight White Guys" as a blanket term
I know I'm wrong about facebook
I know I shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition, even though it's generally acceptable now. As an English teacher, it's my duty to be a last holdout on things like this, like the English Teacher in "Frindle."

I just don't feel much like arguing, lately.

And I'm anemic, that's why I have to eat hamburgers. I could die.

R8

My commute is a safari of broken down things:

old tires
hollow frames of cars
giant spools of cable
discarded baby items
wooden palates
curves of chain link fence disconnected from their posts
shopping carts
empty train cars
and
endless skeletons of old buildings with little fleshy pieces still holding on

Today all of this was covered with snow.
When I looked down at my black coat and saw the tiny, perfect, flat and shiny snow stars that had hitched a ride on the wool, I knocked myself out contemplating the multitudes of spangly flakes piled up on all the wrecked things along the R8 line.

Lego Bees = A Systemic Problem

This is some low income housing that I made out of legos the other day while Dan was cooking my dinner:

Looks like a nice place to live, right?

Right.

Except that, like three minutes later, the whole development was attacked by lego bees!



AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Lego bees!!!



Aaaaa!

Pile of graves

This is a pile of gravestones that Keith and I saw in the parking lot of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Unicorn Town. They are really old and you can't see it in the picture, but you can make out the words on most of them, although they are worn down and broken. At first, I thought that they were disconcerting, but actually I think it was just jarring.

Ryan's First Try Ale

Ryan got a beer making kit for Christmas.

He describes his first effort as "warm flat and sugary."

Coming soon to a beef and beer near you!

Zombies Ahead!

Whoever did this is awesome, but the goofy Texan moralizing is less so.

Recycling Ninja!

For some reason there is no recycling on our side of the street. Instead we have these two industrial sized metal dumpsters out front that provide a squirrel feast of mythical proportions. Sometimes you can see a squirrel jump out of the garbage and back in, just like a dolphin.

Dan and I have been acting like there IS recycling, by putting our recyclables into a bin in the kitchen for the last six months. But now it's getting out of control and company is coming, so Dan sneaked across the street and left our six months of recycling in front of the neighbor's house.

Dan is a Recycling Ninja!

Que?

I love taco night, but why would a bear be riding a donkey?

It doesn't make any sense.

Hey! I made bubble tea! In the kitchen!

Here it is in a glass Chris gave me for Christmas two Christmases ago, a set of four with the Brooklyn Bridge, Grand Army Plaza, Williamsburg Savings Bank and the Penitentiary. I love them. As we all know, I'm a crap Buddhist, and from the moment I got them, I've lived in terror of their breaking, but so far (knock knock) so good.

Re: Hipsters

I've noticed that Philly hipsters are totally OK.

I used to avoid the L like a mythical plauge train: shuttling disaffected pabst-drinkers from their haven in Williamsburg to whatever business they had in the city, and then back to bocchi ball and television.

But Philly hipsters are happy. And they have hobbies. They smile.

Leigh explained that it's because the Philly hipsters like wearing those clothes.

As opposed to in New York, where who knows why they do anything.

Yeah Philly! And yeah Leigh! (It's her birthday)

Doin' Girl Things

Here's a dress I made with my new sewing machine, which makes buttons FOR you! That means I finally got to use the dinosaur buttons I got at pearl paint.

I don't know why

but cakes are making me laugh so hard that I think I am going to pee my pants.

see cakes

Ph'awesome

There is a holiday tree in the middle of city hall, and it is so ghetto. It's all leaning over and covered in cheap looking ornaments from the dollar store and these kind of halfheartedly draped lights. It fucking rules, I love it. Dan says Mayor Nutter put it up himself in the dead of night, and now he's tired.

Addendum: There is also a totally lame Christmas Village with vendors vending really lame stuff. It's, like, the lamest Christmas village ever, and 74% of it is "Authentic German Style Christmas Tree Ornaments." What is that?

It's Holiday Time!

And you know what that means!

Time to start following rules!

Tree

More here.