The other night I had a dream that was short enough for me to recall the whole thing. I was in Boulder, Colorado visiting a friend who in real life hosts a couple of shows on a pirate radio station. I was with her while she was spinning her discs (or loading up YouTube videos, more likely). She decided to play “The Monster Mash” by Boris Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers. As soon as the song started, with nothing said, we each picked up a handy microphone and started singing along with he song. Our performance was broadcasted in concert with the recording. We were predictably awful. Our singing was for shit and we kept fucking up the lyrics. We didn’t care, though, we were laughing and jumping around and were really into it.

Maybe you had to be there to appreciate the enormity of this thrilling experience.

If you expect this to be a genuine scientific treatise of the topic, abandon that idea. I’m writing this on a Monday night from a recently Internet-free apartment and, absent anything besides memories of P-450 cytochrome oxidase and enzyme induction in general, will choose anecdotes over physiology, and post this in the morning from Mom and Dad’s.

A related phenomenon, one familiar to me, is the correlation between running performance and training. You might see two kids new to running go out and run the same times for five kilometers on no training. Yet as both undergo a similar regimen, one improves drastically while the other improves more modestly. The rationale is differences in enzyme induction, the this case the ones within mitochondria responsible for oxygen processing and utilization. Some people are wondrously capable of improving their performances on account of rapidly increasing improvements of the working muscles in terms of converting the O2 delivered to moving faster. Others are more biologically staid and improve to “average” status.

The liver is the site of many, many enzymes responsible for breaking down drugs into inert substances. It’s no secret that some people forever become drunk after part of a six-pack while others spiral down a dark a path toward needing, and wanting, ludicrous amounts of booze in order to become as wrecked as they feel they need to be. Psychological factors play a huge role in this.

Earlier today I was talking to a woman friend of mine who was once famous for her alcohol consumption, at leas withing the circles in which she travels. As she describes it, virtually all of her first- and second-degree relatives are unabashed drunks whose chief pursuits are fighting, fostering resentments, and in general committing themselves to chaos and chemical fugues. She describes on occasion a number of years ago in which she drank exactly 26 beers a day for four days in a row. This is something that would put most of of the most committed 200-pound frat boys under the table in short order. She weighs maybe 125 pounds.

I don’t know whether I ever displayed this kind of manic endurance, but I did her one better one one ludicrous day in 2003. Like most far-gone drinkers. I seemed to care far more about the opinions of store clerks than about my family, friends, and general livelihood. I’d been on a month-long, single-minded rampage that I fully expected (and hoped) would terminate in a jump off a bridge on the Blue Ridge Parkway that included a 200-foot drop onto the rocky banks of the Roanoke River.

I woke up one morning after a serious day of drinking a about 6 a.m. The convenience store I favored for my intoxicating purchases was open 24 hours a day, so I headed there without pause except to put on shoes. I bought a 12-pack of some brand of shitty beer and headed home. Bu 8:30 or so it was all gone.

I knew that the cashier shifts at this store were 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., 3 p.m. to 11 p.m., and 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. I was therefore aware that if I went back for another 12-pack I’d be facing a different cashier than the one I had dealt with earlier that morning. So I did. And by mid-afternoon I had killed that batch of suds, too.

5 p.m. rolled around and I decided I was still disgustingly sober despite pissing a pint or more about every 20 minutes. So I made my third trip of the day to this Texaco station and secured yet another 12-pack. This one was history by 8 p.m. or so.

At this point I had what passes as a philosophical moment. A 138-pound person knocking back 36 12-ounce beers in the course of the daylight of a summer day is not anywhere close to the median in terms of such pursuits. I left the apartment, walked (mostly in a straight line) to a beautiful cemetery nearby, and looked over the headstones at the prominence of the equally elegant peak known as Stewart Knob. And I thought (and maybe said), “there’s something really fucking wrong with all of this.”

Most human beings would be in a state of surgical anesthesia at whatever blood-alcohol level I “boasted” that day. I takes the perfect storm of genetically granted tolerance and personality problems to even try. And I woke up the next day and drank some more. Someone without the right genetics could never reach this kind of absurd level of ethanol tolerance no matter how much he or she “trained.” There would be puking, passing out, and maybe alcohol poisoning, but no 36-beer holiday.

There’s no lesson here other than the fact that it takes a special combination of qualities to be a genuine addict. And being a slave to chemicals sucks. I’m not proud of any of what I’ve recounted here and wish I’d been more genetically talented at something else.

I just spent an enjoyable five days in San Francisco. It shouldn’t have been as satisfying as it was, since it rained the whole time, the nadir of which circumstance was being caught in a thunderstorm, which from a probability standpoint is rather like being caught in a forest fire in the Sahara Desert. I may detail some of my trip later, but I probably won’t, since the details are of little general interest save for the fact that I had lunch with two Olympians yesterday (and I doubt anyone’s impressed with that either).

It is a genuine riot that I was telling someone as I sat in the Manchester-Boston Airport last Saturday moments before boarding that Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) was possibly my favorite large airport in the country, meaning that I was able to traverse its corridors without my head down and a machete swinging wildly back and forth in front of me. This judgment has not only faded in the two stops I’ve made their since, but has violently reversed itself, to the point at which I must enthusiastically nominate PHL as the Most Bombable Airport of 2010.

When I was here on the 16th, I had a very difficult time finding a wall outlet that was not so worn out that it couldn’t retain a plug. I also couldn’t find a water fountain that worked worth a damn. This was already no longer my favorite large airport, that title having passed into the hands of DFW. At least wireless Internet remained free.

When I got here tonight, things had deteriorated drastically. Wireless Internet is no longer free. Not only do few water fountains work, the bathroom faucets don’t work, at least the few I tried. The express walkway between terminals B and C wasn’t working, at least in the direction I was going; I wasn’t troubled by this is I see such things as a contributor to the bloatardation of Americans, but it was still symptomatic.

Finally–and this has nothing to do with PHL specifically, but what the hell–I bought a single slice of pizza from Sbarro’s without looking at the price. “$4.74,” the counter lady said. I actually chimed in to say that I only wanted one slice, not two. But one slice of shit-ass pizza really does cost close to five bucks in an airport.

Another good reason to recommend this place for a fiery extinction is its proximity to Philadelphia itself, a city in need of euthanizing if ever there was one. A lot of big cities in the U.S. are generally pleasant places with some nasty sections. Philly is the inverse, a burned-out shithole with wide swaths of human and architectural misery peppered by a few nice areas and some places of rich historical significance. So clear out the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, evacuate the ten or twelve people I know personally there, and start the fuckin’ rally.

I’ll be in San Franscisco fro Jan. 16 – Jan. 21, for no good reason at all except that five years ago I spent six months there working on a research project at UCSF and have an amazing array of fine memories from that stint, and haven’t visited a number of good friends since. I don’t have any particular itinerary in mind–I’ll have to keep up with the work assignments I’ve got and I’ll be running with this or that person probably every day, but if there are any readers out there interested in hitting a coffee joint that doesn’t start with the letters S-T-A, I’m enjoy meeting you.

That is all. I’m in one of those phases where it seems to make sense to leave the florid bashing of the squint-eyed and the slack-jaw to others, but these periods never last long.

Celebrating scads of wasted time with a time-wasting blog entry.

January

about froze his nuts off in his last run of 2008; fortunately, his non-vestigial structures escaped harm
will either get a Planet Fitness membership or accept being a lardass, because he’s not jogging outside in this
no longer needs to be subjected to Facebook ads of various men shaving their chests (and no doubt “giong south” after that)
is a pyromaniac who wets the bed and tortures small animals, yet denies he’ll grow up to be a serial killer
just crooned “tempt-ed by-the fruit-of-your mo-ther” as an old Squeeze song played in the background.
is scoffing at the skeptics who are maligning his latest idea: a solar-powered umbrella
is aiming 373 miles to the southwest
is standing waist-deep in 45-degree water while watching porn, curious as to the eventual net result
would like to see everyone offering {{{{{VIRTUAL HUGS}}}}} squeezed between the walls of a trash compactor.
, pleased for the running advisees who are making him look deceptively competent lately, is grinning around huge mouthfuls of human waste
is doubtful that his daily average of 90+ minutes this week is gonna hold up ’till Sunday.
roared at a skeptical garbage collector during this morning’s run: “IT’S NOT THE HEAT, IT’S THE HUMIDITY!”
emphasizes that although it’s allegedly always sunny in Philadelphia, it ain’t a tropical paradise
performed exceptionally well on a treadmill today for a mentally challenged lardass
chased a homeless man into the side of a moving car during a forced two-hour run this morning.
just smoked a five-ounce cracknugget and chased it with a handful of Inderal; he’s wildly impotent with a pulse rate holding steady at 45.
is concerned not so much with doohickeys, thingamajigs, or gadgets, but with Gizmos.
is on the verge of smashing his laptop over his own head, breaking it (the laptop) neatly in two in the manner of a “Jackass” reject
is sick of his friends ripping each other in private. Wanna know who’s doing it? E-mail him
just purchased a home vasectomy kit, a pint of ketamine, and every Tony Robbins DVD ever released. It’ll be a long afternoon
is running pell-mell through the streets in a helter-skelter, willy-nilly way, arms akimbo and mouth agape.
is certain that this weekend’s SNL will feature a Blago/”The View” sketch
is annoyed at the “SPEED HUMP” signs in his neighborhood; not only has he been compliant for years, but he’s rarely been praised for his efforts
realized with a jolt that he has everyone on his “People You May Know” list chained to the wall in a small room in his basement
contends that the existence of both male and female animals is not nature’s way of ensuring genetic diversity, but another one of the LORD’s sick jokes.
was told to pray for his enemies. And so, tears in his eyes, he fell to his knees and took a dump on his neighbor’s welcome mat
is fornicating on an Alter-G treadmill and incurring only 60% of the usual amount of rug-burn.
is several pounds overweight and slow as hell, but DIDN’T MISS A DAY IN JANUARY! Welcome to recreational running and pushing age 40.

February

is pondering the likely combined effects of Cialis and EPO in a three-legged race lasting up to 36 hours
is wondering whether burying dog faeces in a snowbank is as good as picking it up
prefers to look at the glass as half full of Jonestown-variety Kool-Aid.
has determined that leaning more than 25 degrees to one side when publicly breaking audible wind is uncouth
, violating the spirit of the law only, just used food stamps to buy $147 worth of cooking sherry and vanilla extract, and is now feeling salty and flavorful
and [REDACTED] are in an e-mail war thanks to the “People You May Hate” tool
is yelling, “it’s SPECIAL Weapons and Tactics! Not STRATEGIC, you twit!”
discovered he has seven sets of undescended testicles, so he can now play a truly complete game of “pocket pool.”
plans to enter a marathon on inline skates, pushing a dog in a baby jogger and wearing an iPod. Then, after adversity strikes, he’ll sue the race director
is impersonating Herbert from “The Family Guy” for the benefit of the neighborhood kids, whose parents seem roundly unamused
is spending his last day with a cat that’s been around since he was 18
is wondering when the icon for “Save” in most Windows apps will be phased out–it won’t be long before no one even knows what the hell a floppy disk is
should have paid better attention to 4,500 words he excreted almost two years ago
had some concerns about a particular thing, but luckily he was able to get it extended
is wondering if human taxonomists will ever develop the honesty to rank humans between vermin and coprophages, in some order
wonders if taxonomists will ever develop the honesty to rank humans between vermin and coprophages, in some order.
is not encouraged that Lousiana politicans are the moral and intellectual envy of most people he knows
is celebrating Valentine’s Day by watching “In the Company of Men” with a TV dinner and a broad grin
is running 4:53 pace down the Spaulding Turnpike and holding a badly decomposed human leg at port arms.
is already 19 O’Douls into the afternoon and is packing a bong with pharmaceutical-grade oregano. And he’s NOT giving up his keys
loves NASCAR: Some dude leads 100,000 people in pre-race prayer, and the next thing you know a dozen cars are smashed to shit on the infield
wants to assemble a group of Google Maps engineers, load up a fire extinguisher with liquefied faeces, and let fly.
is working on a “People You May Have Tagged” application for Facebook and reckoning such a thing will make him both rich and reviled, if he pulls it off
just surreptitiously defriended someone. No, not YOU, dumbass!
has a dead cell phone and cannot afford to sleep for a few days, which are unrelated but similarly discomfiting circumstances

March

is wondering how anyone who personally deals with the expansion of the male prostate with age can embrace the idea of “intelligent design.”
has developed trichotillomania by proxy. It has him wanting to pull his own hair out.
is again Unfuddled, if only for a spell
was asked by a potential publisher, “How open are you to creating a stronger presence on the web?” Luckily, they seem unaware of my existing one.
is contemplating the fact that, thanks to Facebook and other time sinks, having simultaneously abandoned two long-time interests doesn’t matter that much.trip.
is confident that he made his “March Madness” picks with the uncanny analytical acumen of a mongoose on an acid trip.
will tune in to the USA network at 8:00 to watch the episode of “House” that led him to a epiphany of sorts one year ago.
has never seen a single person playing frisbee golf without a beer in his non-throwing hand. Maybe there’s a rule about this?
likes working from home, where he can sit in bed with his laptop, use his shirt as a napkin without drawing odd looks, and be at his most productive at 2 a.m.
covered his entire body in Crest White Strips, and now he looks like a skinny Casper the Ghost.
muses that one person’s negative consequences are another’s silver lining.
thinks blog comment spammers should be strung up to a fence and smashed in the fucking face with a diesel-powered mattock. Nothing short of this will suffice.
is seeing ads for over-40 social networks and hair extensions. Maybe cyanide tablets will be next.
doesn’t mind that the health-care system is a thrumming clusterfuck. The more people who drop dead or stay crazy for lack of access, the more this place resembles the America he’s come to love.
is deep in the Amazon basin and just took a curare dart in the ass. In three minutes, he won’t be able to type or breathe; this sucks.
is wondering how many of his 140 or so Facebook friends have filtered his bullshit out of their home-page feeds. He figures about 130, maybe 135.
was alarmed to discover numerous hairs in the vicinity of his nipples. Then he remembered he was mostly male, and it wasn’t a big deal.
was told, “Do X and I’ll have a contract waiting.” So, he’ll be sure to turn around and do A through W, Y, and Z without delay.?
has wanderlust. Name his June vacation destination: San Francisco? Florida? The Heartland?

April

Is trying out the mobile status update thing, an asinine endeavor considering there is a computer in front of him.
has no idea what “Willy’s Sweet Shop” is about, but he’ll just keep dutifully accepting requests on the basis that this does someone, somewhere, some good.
is laughing at having influenced PZ’s Facebook behavior. They may not even know.
is screaming “HE IS RISEN!!” at random small children outside just for the sheer joy of seeing them freak out and soil themselves.
showed up for a Blue Man Group audition covered in hunter orange body paint owing to a rogue form of colorblindness. He’s giving up on the performing arts.
sees that it’s April 14. Nothing special about that, yet he has this weird idea he has a project or something due, like, immediately. It’ll come to him; no need for him to tax his brain.
Is doing 107 on the Spaulding Turnpike while texting. Before berating him for this, realize that he is also smashing spent vodka bottles against school buses.
noticed that none of 1099-MISC forms had anything listed under item 13: “Excess golden parachute payments.” This is because his golden parachute payments were quite modest in 2008.
cut himself shaving. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be a big deal, but he was using a skill saw and not on his face.
is heading into Boston this afternoon for a Blue Man Group show, and by sheer coincidence expects to wander through the Common while a couple hundred goofballs are teabagging.
is at the Charles Playhouse, thinking he should not have not have worn shorts.
is impressed as hell and dodging panhandlers in North Station.
woke up sporting an impressive example of a morning faux-hawk.
will be in Boston for the marathon expo on Saturday and Sunday and to watch the race on Monday. His greatest concern is a place to to leave the car without racking up Bear Stearns-like losses in parking fees.
thinks that GMail’s report of “Oops! We’re sorry!” when it goes down is as annoying as the same apology from a loud, fat, drunk chuck in a tiny dress who spontaneously shits herself on a crowded city bus. Don’t be so cavalier, some of have work to do!
performed a series of Valsalva maneuvers this morning in order to better shave the area above his manubrium.
expects he’ll be truly hating life by roughly 2:14 p.m. on Monday, but that by the next morning he’ll have returned to his baseline of mellow pessimism and contempt.
saw a little kid spill his tricycle in front of his house today. He ran into the street, helped the unharmed and grateful child to his feet, and then, with a paternal smile, hopped on the trike and pedaled away like a sonofabitch.
is out the door, headed for the Hynes. Should be about an hour to get to the city, another three to find parking.
experienced some Pavlovian butterflies when he walked into the Expo for the first time in six years. Then he remembered the only thing he was running on Monday was his mouth.
is observing a joke pace. Go Kara, go
wonders how frigging stupid you have to be advertise your murder plans on Craigslist.
is mulling over 2:09:40 on that course…and ya know what, that’s *fast*.
is wondering about his judge of the top three Americans.
is tired of listening to an ice-cream truck play “Do Your Ears Hang Low.”
wants to note that his laptop bought the farm yesterday, so he won’t be quick getting back to you. He will try, though.
keeps pressing the power button on his dead craptop, figuring that because this hasn’t worked the last 200 tries, the next time’s bound to be a charm.

May

, hoping to influence the judicial process, basted a Mr. Potato Head in mango sauce, microwaved it for 24:38, and left it on the Merrimack County court house steps in broad daylight.
just inappropriately fed the dog a Mentos and is watching the Celtics conclude a hell of a series.
says fuck iTunes and the fucktards behind it. Jesus Christ, how hard can it be to order a $0.99 song. Fuck their overpriced phones as well. And their CEO. And their progeny.
is wondering why the guy next door is washing the hull of his boat. Doesn’t that part usually come into contact with water?
wishes he could choose who does well using his running advice based on merit.
has successfully used recombinant techniques to synthesize H7N5, soon to be known as the dreaded “Platypus-Gecko Sniffles Virus.”
would prefer the woman in his life not repeatedly roll in the shit of various animals during walks and swims. The fact that she enjoys the high-pressure hose in the aftermath is small consolation.
is building DNA, identifying nutrients, energizing cells, and letting natural selection perform its inexorable tricks.
hopes to have the new male contraceptive injection administered right through his temple, just to see what happens.
is dismayed that Mrs. Roboto never got her share of the credit. Domo arigato, bitch.
thinks it’s great that Bristol Palin is speaking on behalf of teen abstinence. Next up: Barry Bonds and A-Rod condemn steroids.
was accosted by a drunk woman with a ferret, a beer gut, and a roommate. He slyly avoided negative consequences.
has a uniformly high, and maybe unfounded, opinion of Canadian women.
thinks that bringing back Anne Dudek was weird, sexy, and very effective.
has a new laptop and it works. Now he needs to follow suit.
just saw a sign advertising “chicken sandwich’s” and his Bob the Angry Flower self came to life.
is amused that the USA Network’s “Characters of the Month” are “celebrity marathoners,” but still had no damned idea what “characters welcome” means.
is, as of moments ago, no longer tied with David Ortiz for the number of major-league homers hit in 2009.
is wondering when the neurology community will wake up to the fact that the correlation between terminal fucking brain rot and the presence of more than one X-chromosome approaches unity.
will be liveblogging the repair of his anal fistula.
spent all day at the Boston Museum of Science, and was encouraged by the number of small children there. Let it stick!
is happy that the Concord Monitor is eliminating some of the more clusterfuck-engendering elements of its online comment fields.
and his co-bloggers have moved from ScienceBlogs.com to a WordPress cyberpit: http://bushwells.wordpress.com.
finally submitted a sample chapter to his editor at the Competitor Group. It wasn’t the most refined 4,000 words ever generated, but should be sufficient to seal the deal.

June

is planning his first-ever trip to Boulder, a combined work/play mission.
expects to take a tour of the White House soon. Now that’s cool.
will be in Boulder from June 15 to June 29.
, who has never been off the North American mainland, will likely be going to New Delhi in November. And he thought Colorado was far away.
was shocked and dismayed to see the obituary of one of his high-school classmates tonight.
walked the dog, listened to 80′s music, and feels marginally better.
Jonathan Lester just lost his perfect game.
is remembering that David Cone went 20-3 in 1988 and threw a perfect game when he was most likely drunk. Weird things happen.
is tooling around on a tricked-out unicycle, wearing a Dracula costume, handing out cigarettes and liquor to minors, and swatting squirrels with a toilet plunger.
just misread a Facebook ad as LowerMyBalls.com. Previously, he misread a Facebook notification that actually said “So-and-so liked your link,” but won’t volunteer what the letter substitution was in this case.
is doing laundry, meaning he’ll be going without clothes if he doesn’t many to do another load before leaving for Colorado.
just obliterated his profile with stupid “Top 5″ quizzes, and may have wrecked his friends’ home pages too. He apologizes for the inconvenience.
saw several wild turkeys during a run today that appeared to be almost as tall as he is, and this wasn’t in the woods, it was in a parking lot.
experienced another joyous first: taking a big bite out of a very moldy bagel.
is 90 percent finished packing for his trip and wishes he could get on that bigass bird right now.
is constructing a list of people whose every breath represents oxygen theft and who therefore never should have been born. He’s doing this carefully, and with deep compassion for his selections.
is wondering, “what is this nine hours of uninterrupted sleep deal?”
is imploring everyone not to eat silica gel, however tempting the idea may be.
is remembering a 2004 run along a Golden Gate Park trail. He surprised a homeless guy trying to urinate into a beer can for some reason; the guy looked up in bleary surprise and proceeded to topple backward. Good times.
is genuinely stupefied at how many people buy the idea that Nazism is a left-wing cause just because a fat pillhead pundit said so. He’s also posting too many status updates.
is awash in Lewis structures, valence electrons, and the inevitability of various elements existing predominantly in a diatomic state.
is trying to play “Jive Talkin’” on the keyboard and is deathly afraid someone might find out.
is not surprised that the outlets at Logan don*t work and they charge for frigging wireless.
is waiting for the SkyRide in Denver.
has already been accosted by a Jehovah*s Witness. Nice omen.
wanted to yell, “Hey! 11-year-old girl on a bicycle! If you must text your friends, pull the hell over first! Christ on two wheels!”
appreciates the fact that the humidity at 5,300 feet is practically nil.
is curious about the redundant term “theft by unauthorized taking.” Do people ever authorize thieves to steal their stuff? Maybe this is just to make a distinction between physical theft and things like wire fraud.
is really, really annoyed by the fact that his space bar is more or less shot.
is musing that anyone of consequence died within the past five days or so.

July

wishes everyone a wonderful and safe holiday 4th rife with the drunken backyard detonation of illegal pyrotechnic devices and family fistfights.
wants bioengineers to develop a way to allow humans to be born at age six or older.
just watched a grandmother and retired librarian launch a bottle rocket out of her ass and through an open window in the mayor’s house. He won’t say what she did with a Roman candle.
sucks at golf, but sucks even worse at creating course materials for a golf Gizmo™.This status contains special characters. It won’t display properly in the collage.
is startled, or not, at how much crappy news can arrive within an hour’s time. Deleting his e-mail account and flushing his cell phone ar ideas with great appeal.
is besieged by a genuinely otherworldly array of distractions and obligations. No, really, I’m posting an honest status update for once. This is is like total-solar-eclipse rare.
wonders if he’ll one day get to have a state-sponsored memorial service in a huge basketball arena.
has eight browser windows open, along with six Word documents, a file folder, and a SportTracks file. Although his anal-retentive tendencies are driving him to close a few of these, he can’t justify closing even one. “Fuck it,” he mutters. “I’m going runn
doubts the veracity of the computer models that place estimates of the potential distance of Mickey Mantle’s 1963 blast off the right-field facade at Yankee Stadium at 734 feet. Or rather, he doubts the humans that parametrize them.
understands that his nitrous oxide habit is threatening to truncate a promising career as a crossing guard before it can really even get off the ground.
is off to Supercuts to eliminate the “Eraserhead” factor.
got his old laptop–presumed dead four months ago–to start up by taking out the battery, which was 100% dead and non-chargeable and thus shackling the system. He’s still glad he replaced it, but at least he now has his Internet favorites and all of his music.
is all about volume control this weekend.
has assembled a team for a corporate 5K one month from tomorrow. So far, 20% of the team members are actually employed at the business the team will represent, which is a pretty solid number.
lacks volume control when it comes to Volume Control. The thing bloated to almost 5,800 words. This isn’t a problem, but came as something of a surprise.
firmly believes that if punishment for purveyors of pop-up scams were being bashed in the face with a spiked bat, they would be getting off with light sentences.
is getting reacquainted with what it’s like to be running enough to feel at least somewhat beat up by it daily.
is chortling over the fact that human beings, despite their biological and neurological complexity, behave essentially like wind-up toys if poked in the right spots.
has officially been offered a contract to write a running book to be published in the spring and presently has no title. Suggestions are welcome.
is wondering how many friendships have been damaged or destroyed by the vagaries and vicissitudes of electronic correspondence.
got two books he has been very much looking forward to reading in today’s mail–”Unscientific America” and “Idiot America.” Although these may sound like companion titles, their respective authors actively disagree with each other. So the question remains
wishes that humans had evolved to reproduce by budding or binary fission, as the world would be a much more harmonious place.
has finally figured out when he’s reached his upper coffee-intake limit for a single day: His armpits start to reek of it.
would love to sell a kidney to a New Jersey rabbi, but needs to determine whether he might have already done something similar during an ether blackout.
wonders if spamming his own profile counts as spamming.

August

would like to round up every toxic Fuddite in he U.S., stick them all in a huge dome in the Texas badlands, and fill the thing with inoperable pickups, checks that will only bounce, pickled eggs, muffin-top physiques, TVs that only get TNN, and beer farts
had his computer and laptop stolen by some miserable bastard the other day. Please be patient with him in the coming days as he tries to reassemble his life.

October

loves the Flatirons.
purchased a tricked-up 737 at a flea market this weekend and promptly crashed it into a local Section 8 housing complex, severely spraining his right ear and pissing off residents.
can’t stand the idiots running amok here who offer irrelevant “IQ tests” without telling you that once you’re done, you not only need to provide a cell number to get your score, but in so doing will be unwittingly signing up for some worthless service. PlayPhone.com, I’m looking at you. Luckily I actually hit the “terms and conditions” link (provided in a size 0.25 font).
FACEBOOK EXPERIMENT- if you are reading this, whether we speak often or not, post a comment of your first memory of you and me. When you’ve finished, post this paragraph on your own status; you’ll be surprised what people remember about you….I’M a bit nervous about this, got it from an old friend. Let’s keep it clean.
Is hurling the verbal equivalent of monkey faeces at other people’s Facebook walls and relishing both the predictable splatter and the unholy stench that result. Now for the coup de grace: gasoline, beer bottles, and gas-soaked rags.
is stocking up on eggs, shaving cream, and toilet paper and readying his Pope Benedict XVI costume.
just built an eHarmony profile suggesting that he’s a schizophrenic Buddhist chainsaw murderer with a preference for eight-foot-tall bearded women with multiple piercings who otherwise remind him of Sarah Palin. When this profile was unaccountably approved, he reported it to the site admins as a terms of service violation.
was lazily rooting through his left nostril with a pinky finger when he discovered and extracted the remnants of an Ecstasy tablet he’d snorted in the spring of 2006. And to think that all of this time, he thought he’d developed sinus problems and had a poor attention span.
is, despite it not being dark quite yet, involved in a vicious egg fight with a city councilman dressed up as Alex DeLarge from “A Clockwork Orange.” Oops–he just glued the guy’s wife, who’s in Amy Winehouse garb, square in the forehead. Collateral damage, baby.

November

is singularly responsible for world peace, the alleviation of hunger in impoverished lands, and the bizarre phenomenon popularly known as “fisting.”
loves his sister.
threw a giagantic and mostly frozen pumpkin through the plate-glass window of a car dealership this morning, just to see if the cops would come. They didn’t, so he now roams free. Lame-asses.
just watched an elderly woman in a bright red miniskirt simulatenously cough, belch the first 100 or so words of “Age of Aquarius, ” hiccup, sneeze, whistle, vomit, yell “BITE ME!” and expel a massive stream of tobacco juice, and there was a joint in her mouth as well. Oropharyngeal panache of that caliber is born, not made.
is beating the hell out of a dominatrix, thereby defeating the entire purpose of hiring one.
wants to write a blog post about the immunology driving transfusion reactions based on an old episode of “Lost,” but is too lazy and preoccupied to bother. Besides, no one would care–few of you even know your own blood type.
just spotted a huge jack-’o-lantern floating down the Bellamy River.
is being shellacked, maybe even carpet-bombed, from all sides. He has no reasonable defense, so he’ll just enjoy the smell of the smoke that surrounds him.
thinks today is a good day for building a new Xtranormal cartoon.
Has been receiving weekly e-mail lambastings from someone he doesn’t know well. These are as thoughtful as they are scathing, and just cryptic enough to allow for multiple interpretations, so he now looks forward to getting them with a perfect blend of curiosity and dread.
is observing the habits of the disc-golf crowd, and is waiting for someone to get confused and try to sip from a frisbee while firing a full can of beer into the trunk of a maple tree.
is musing, “If I speak of myself in the third person, no one will notice that I just sharted myself in a crowded Wal-Mart.” With that, he calmly hoisted a jabbering and inbred three-year-old over his head and pitched him through the plate-glass store front, startling the 101-year-old “greeter” out of his slumber.
saw a guy who had to be at least 70 listening to “Jump” by Van Halen as he cleaned leaves out his rain gutters. I didn’t know anyone still had boom boxes and sure wouldn’t have figured this guy for owning one. Awesome.
has set up a match.com profile that is a complete joke and is “winking” indiscriminately at various members of both sexes.
needs to do laundry or else face the prospect of resporting to wearing ratty T-shirts from road races that went extinct during the Reagan administration and acid-washed jeans.
absently rubbed a spot on his neck where he cut himself shaving. Unaware that he was still oozing, he immediately returned to typing and now has dried blood on his keyboard. This is sexy, so he’ll not clean it off.
is talking people off ledges from the sanctity of the roof of a skyscraper.
hates every last one of his built-in ringtones and will probably just lose it again to avoid the anguish.
is weary of e-mail, phones, chat software, and tin cans with a taut string between them. Sometimes it’s best to just shut the hell up for a while, which is why he’d loudly announcing as much on Facebook.
hates Windows Update and its annoying “restart now, in 10 minutes, or in 4 hours?” choices and its auto-restart-on-a-timer feature. Give me a NO THANKS option or at least a REMIND ME IN TWELVE YEARS one. I could probably disable this crap in the control panel I weren’t so busy bitching.
is despondent over having started a big load of laundry he has no desire to deal with past the washing-machine phase.
just leaped to his feet, intent on delivering a powrful sermon, and knocked himself out on the roof of the car.
thinks that people’s salary histories are not any of potential employers’ damned business, especially those who don’t reveal how much a position pays. I demand to know the sexual histories of the secretaries at every place I’ve ever interviewed!
is officially living vicariously through the accomplishments of other runners on his horizon.
is tryin6 t#is new typin6 style, w#ic# has #im #earin6 t#e “voice” of Artoo Detoo.
is shaking his head at the people bitching about crowded box stores after announcing, on their way out the door, that the day after Thanksgiving is the busiest shopping day imaginable. If you know that, then either stay home and don’t contribute or shut your idiotic mouth.
isn’t concerned so much with the “who” of the panties left outside his door last night as he is with the “why.” If you could see these things, you’d know how wrong this is.

December

regrets that some of Kim’s and Allie’s fantastic Karma couldn’t have spilled into Julieland this weekend.
is feeling elated and intolerant at the same time, which should make for an interesting day.
is playing “Bittersweet Symphony” on his keyboard (no, not this one) and avoiding getting too worked up over weekend goings-on.
always seems to have 50 unanswered messages sitting in his inbox for days at a time and is wasting time on Facebook announcing this. Regrettably he’s now having to just ignore purely recreational ones, so don’t take offense. Well, you still can.
is a New Balance wear tester, so he should get off his ass and dog more than jog.
wishes someone would press a button and wipe out the entire frigging Internet.
is reflecting warmly on his thirties: ten fun-filled years of erratic tendencies, unmet goals, chaotic shifts in focus, broken promises, and a steadfast refusal to adopt the chief traits of a responsible adult. Ever the idealist, he’s keeping thoughts of the not-so-fun stuff at a distance.
is off to an auspicious start. As he was shuffling toward the kitchen for some Geritol, his walker broke in half, and in the ensuing tumble the contents of his Depends made a mess of the AARP newsletter that was sitting on the floor.
blew what had been a fantastic birthday to smithereens with a 10-megaton stupidity bomb, then came home to find an eviction notice under his door. He paid his rent and has the check scan to prove it, so it’s not a real issue, but this put a nice cap on a day that did a 180 really fucking quick. But he’s grateful for all the Happy Birthdays today.

Dearest Mr. Roberge,

I suspect you’re the sort who does vanity Googling on a regular basis. As the incompetent manager of at least one parcel of property, I would guess that you’d have to. So maybe you’ll see this, maybe you won’t. I don’t give a fuck either way.

I live in the New Meadows apartment complex in Dover, New Hampshire. I know you’ve heard of it. Things were pretty uneventful until early this month, when I got a phone call explaining that many August rent checks of New Meadows tenants had never been cashed and were about to be. That’s fine, it’s up to me to track my own finances, but this was a harbinger of what a fucking idiot you are and how you operate this place.

So then comes December 17, an otherwise nifty and uneventful birthday for me, and I come home to find a notice stuck in the door frame claiming that I hadn’t paid my rent this month and would be evicted from the premises as of Dec. 25 if I didn’t settle up. Here’s the problem with this, you fucking asshole: I paid my rent, on time, just like I always do, and have the canceled check image to prove it. I e-mailed this image to Brian, the on-site guy who, by the way, is extraordinarily helpful and cool and apologetic. And your Facebook friend. And he told me that the higher-ups “managing” New Meadows seem to think that 90 people never paid their December rent. That would be, let’s see, close to half of the units here. Maybe more, depending on occupancy. If my guess is accurate, you delivered these demented death sentences at the same time, meaning that you were prepared to give 90 households the heave-ho on Christmas Day. How classy. You make Ebenezer Scrooge look like Kris Kringle.

I got that settled at no small cost to my Friday, but apparently this was only round one. Now I have a notice claiming that I’m in violation of my lease for not turning on my heat. Well, asshole, this building bleeds heat like a whore bleeds herpes, so despite a spate of five-degree days lately, it stays close to 60 in here overnight. That’s good enough to keep me from burning gas. And the wording of the lease (#27) consists of this:

All utilities are to be maintained by the tenant and all utility charges are the responsibility of the tenant. Lessee agrees that he shall maintain all utilities within the leased premises.

You then go on to say in your shitgram that this is somehow tied to an obligation to activate (your bold) my heat. Guess what, shithead? I don’t care if your pipes freeze, since this is what I assume you’re worried about. I signed a lease that did not obligate me to seek outside fuel. If I do, I do. If not, that’s your problem.

I also like how you slip this note to me on a Saturday morning and tell me I have 24 hours to act before Really Bad Things happen. Maybe bumblefucks like you have no concept of normal business hours, but you might want to rethink your timing when you plan your next misguided act of aggressive hollowness.

You know, I’d love to see someone evicted for not turning on the gas heat in his apartment. I laugh at the idea of what a judge would think of such a thing, especially given that fact that you can’t read or interpret the provisions in your own lease, which leave me trivially off the hook. I could call Unitil and get the heat turned on and simply not use it, but I won’t, because I look forward to your incurring court costs in trying to oust me, should you go that route. I think we both know how that would turn out.

This is on top of your brilliant directive to residents with Christmas trees. Just so your janitorial types don’t have to vacuum above and beyond the call of duty, you’re asking that people chuck their trees off their balconies. This may be news to your stupid ass, but some of those balconies are 30-35 feet off the ground. Kids playing under the second-floor balconies (and this place is overrun with small children, as you might know) often emerge from under these balconies. Are you really going to open yourself up to potential liability lawsuits bred of your own unwillingness to be mildly inconvenienced? Think of the possibilities here, Mr. Roberge.

I was willing to overlook your company’s mishandling of August rent checks and even the misbred eviction notice, but after this mornings’s bullshit I have had enough. Go ahead and try to get rid of me for not burning fossil fuels like a good boy. I can’t wait. And fuck you, and have a very shitty Christmas.

I’ll be sending versions of this to Foster’s Daily Democrat, the Portsmouth Herald, the Better Business Bureau, and anyone else who may listen. I acknowledge that I may have to clean this fucking shit up a bit first. I may also agitate among the residents by posting something on the community bulletin board in the mailroom. I bet that will make your life more pleasant, just as you’ve enhanced mine.

Fondly,

Kevin M. Beck

So my parents and sister’s family are in Orlando (or more properly, Lake Buena Vista, or wherever the fuck that resort is) and I can’t walk into their house without feeling the dead silence of no dog. It’s not right. It will take some getting used to.

Now I’m getting the shit kicked out of me in Scrabble by a family member who has already played two seven-letter words in a ten-move game while reading about Chinook helicopters and watching Lost and generally being hypomanic.

Within recent days, I’ve heard from people whose parents’ faces were mauled by dogs, from those who bounce like pinballs around the country between Boston and Miami and San Francisco, from those who are just plain having a hard time far from here and with me having no input, which is probably good.

This blog rocks.

I keep looking at this disposable camera I bought, to take pics of Nubble, because I left the digital one in some faraway state. It’s the most empty-looking device imaginable.

I knew she’d go downhill fast with my parents down in Florida. I just knew it.

Nubble had to be euthanized this morning after bleeding into her abdomen uncontrollably.

Right now I want to walk outside and punch some stranger in the face just for being there. Probably not the best instinct, so I think I’ll stay put.

I’m going to override my copy-editing instincts and reproduce this exactly as it was written.

Final Diagnosis

Splenic Mass – Suspect Histiocytic Disease

Skin Issues – Suspect Histiocytic Disease

Joint Effusion – Suspect related to the histiocytic disease.

Anemia – Suspect related to the histiocytic disease.

Hyphema (Blood in the eye) – Suspect related to the histiocytic disease. Read the rest of this entry »

Julie Threlkeld, a marathoner I work with, has posted an account of the life and 1999 death of her cat Stumpy on her blog Races Like a Girl. (You should also read her Haiku blog, as there’s some damned funny stuff in there.)

My mom lost a cat this year. This thing was basically supernatural. My mom had forgotten just how old Chloe was, but I knew, because my mom got her (not as a kitten, either) when I left for college in the fall of 1988. That meant that when I returned to New Hampshire about a year ago, she was at least 20 years old. Read the rest of this entry »

She seemed fine when I saw her today, as if nothing was amiss. She always yaps with joy when I come to see her, which is usually to walk her. Today was a little different.

I was over at my parents’ at about 12:30. My dad was off today. He was teary-eyed throughout the exchange (this is rare), with both of us expanding on how fucking cruel the universe is. Here’s this blameless and loving animal, destined to die within weeks. Meanwhile rat bastard murderers run rampant around the country. If there were a God, he’d be welcome to suck my cock.

Yes. I get it. There’s no cosmic justice. Shit happens. Therein lies the problem, at some philosophical level.

I gathered up a bunch of Nubble’s hair as I scratched her belly, and put it in a Ziploc bag. It will stay with me forever. She was calm and welcoming throughout the entire encounter. I have seen this dog on at least 90 percent of the days since I have been back to New Hampshire–probably more like 95 percent–and feel like I am losing one of my own.

I got my hands on Nubble’s paperwork. Formally, she has histiocytic sarcoma. This, as I remember from my own days of playing doctor, is essentially a death sentence. It implies a disseminated carcinoma that we as lowly humans are incapable of halting, for now anyway. This in all surety popped up in Nubble not only in her spleen but in her liver, and maybe elsewhere. Chemotherapy would be of no use. Palliative measures only. She’ll be gone soon, despite how solid she seemed today.

After I gathered up a good bunch of her hair (easy to do with a retriever in the fall!), I simply said goodbye. I’ll see her again, I am sure, but today was extremely poignant.

More later. I’m so tired.