Showing posts tagged favorites
Played 21 times
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Tell Me Pretty Things

I’m just a little lonesome —
Tell me pretty things.
Tell me that you’ve missed me
Through all my wanderings,
Say you loved my roses,
Say you had them dried,
Say you couldn’t leave me
If you tried.

I don’t know where I’m headed —
Tell me pretty things.
Sigh them sostenuto
Like a lover sings,
Say the spreading sunset
Darkened like the day
You said, “I’ll never leave you,
Come what may.”

Don’t make this any harder —
Tell me pretty things.
Tell me what the past holds
Is what the future brings,
Swear that you’ll be faithless,
Swear you won’t be true,
Swear to me you’ll leave him
Lonesome too.

(audio: as read by the author)

Dunno about this date-auction thing…

…if I wanted to spend my money for the privilege of spending my money and my time with someone who probably doesn’t want to spend time with me anyway, I could always do community organizing.

(The more I think about this status, the more I like it. This suggests I should stop thinking about it.)

♫ My socks are soaking, my socks are soaking,
They’re wet, they’re wet, they’re totally wet;
My socks are soaking, I’m hardly joking,
I’m slightly more than mildly upset.
I’ll stay inside
Until they’ve dried… ♫

(Video: Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, 3rd mvt Rondo, the main theme of which provides the setting for these lyrics)

Why doesn’t anyone ever appreciate how hard I work to make everything seem effortless?

Joanna’s Birthday Poem

Joanna Naples-Mitchell
Is terrifyingly nice —
She must have secrets which’ll
Be worth a pretty price.
There must be something dark there
Behind her savoir-faire,
Some telltale, hidden mark there
Like tan lines under hair.

Joanna Naples-Mitchell
Expects us to believe
She’s an activist who’s neither
Humorless nor naïve.
Though evidence volumin-
Ous should show it isn’t true,
To her, supporting human
Rights means liking people, too.

As I was telling Chels’ at
Length, I’ve got to find some flaw.
She’ll likely ace the LSAT,
So perhaps she’ll — practice law?
Perhaps she’ll run a spy ring
That’s a front for an NGO —
It’s thankless work, and tiring,
But that’s no surprise with Jo.

I hear she’s got a sister
Who chose (!) to go to Yale —
I’m hesitant to list her,
But if all inquiries fail…
I’m worried her escape’ll
Hinge on all the dirt I get.
Be warned, Joanna Naple-
S-Mitchell, I’m gonna catch you yet!

Truth is, I can put up with a lot more than people think I can… which isn’t saying much.

hid:

Just listen. Every time I listen to “You’re the Top,” I’m always charmed. Honestly, if someone compared me to Ovaltine the way Porter uses it, I’d totally say yes to anything.

This was inevitable, really:
♫ You’re the top!
You’re the stocks of Murdoch.
You’re the top!
You’re a backed-up Word doc.
You’re a flag unfurled at the end of World War II,
You’re “The Best Of” CDs,
You’re Archimedes,
You’re Tamiflu!

You’re the top!
You’re a goal of Gretzky’s.
You’re the top!
You’re a pair of Jet Skis.
I’m Professor Gates when he irritates a cop,
But if, hid, I’m the bottom, you’re the top! ♫

A Love-Haiku

(By Brian)

Roses are red. Vi-
Olets are blue. Sugar is
Sweet, and so are you.

Played 20 times
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Just a Little Flutter

Just a little flutter,
Just a cardiac arrhythmia
Whenever you are with me, a
Skip in my pace.

                                Just a little intake,
Just a pulmonary spasm —
They say everybody has ‘em —
Breathing like I’ve lost a race.

Let me see you more, in incremental doses,
To inform the differential diagnosis,
And we’ll settle on a treatment
Pending if that off-beat beat meant
Love, or maybe just arteriosclerosis*,

On account of all the butter-
Flies that palpitate my stomach, so
I’m acting like a lummox — oh,
But who needs style or grace?
Just a stammer or a stutter,
Just a flicker or a flutter,
But you turn me to an utter
Hopeless
                  Hopeful
                                 Case.

(audio: as read by the author; *’ed line has been revised since recording)

“
God bless Cameron Parker, he even cracks up when my statuses aren’t funny

Over and Over

Feeling overburdened, feeling overbooked,
Looking over all the little things I overlooked,
Bending over backwards, smoothing over stress,
Stressing over small stuff (but we broke up over less).

Getting overanxious, getting overwrought,
Thinking over all the things I think I overthought,
Still can’t overstate how wretched being over feels,
Still can’t overcome the way my head’s still over heels.

Fawning over many, fretting over one,
Getting over what I did is getting overdone,
Turning over fresh leaves, starting over new
(To paper over, day on day, how I’m not over you).

Good thing I was watching the fireworks on TV so I got to hear the announcers announce this year’s theme was “patriotism”.

(full punchline at vaguelyamusing.tumblr.com )

Cribbed shamelessly and by request from a rant I went on, mid-Gchat:

me: Boston’s [fireworks show] was about the same as every other year, I take it
The announcers announced that this year’s theme was “patriotism”
Chelsea: HAHA
okay, maybe better that you missed that show
me: Well, it’s definitely a good thing I watched it from the couch
because otherwise I wouldn’t have found out about this year’s theme
I mean, if I’d been watching it from some bridge I might’ve thought it was, say, “sandwiches”
“cell biology”
“Vietnam”
“Christian imagery in the popular novel”
“the death of Socrates”
“anarchism”
But “patriotism”, that’s an oddly appropriate theme for a Fourth of July celebration
better than last year
which I hear was “hating America”

“
Except for the parts I didn’t copy from other people, all my code works!!

“I’ve done a lot of Ruby before, but I’d never done any Rails until this summer. It’s pretty mindblowing.”

“Sounds like hard stuff. I’ve never used anything harder than PCP.”

“Haha, you mean PHP. PCP’s a drug.”

“…Wait, what were you talking about?”

1. This is Ruby.

This is Ruby on Rails.

Any questions?

2. This was, for once, a fictitious conversation, although I think Will was the first to suggest to me that “doing Rails” was an unfortunate phrasing.

3. People really seemed to like drug references! I got an XKCD comparison, which I guess I’m narcissistic enough to picture. But If I’d had four panels to work with I could’ve gotten the pacing down better (e.g. “Sounds like hard stuff.” “Oh, it is.” “I’ve never used” etc.)

4. This is an instant favorite of mine, if only because I was very much at the end of my tether about coming up with a status for today, and this felt really miraculous, how easily it came together. Not sure if I was more satisfied or more relieved.

“
Ever wish you could wipe away all the problems of the past, everything holding you back, everything tying you down? Ever wish you could start fresh, with a blank slate and a world of possibilities open? Yeah, me neither, but have you seen how expensive hard drive recovery is?