Complaints etc.

I have not complained in here for at least a month.

Heroes: get rid of Mohinder, the fire guy, and the fear guy, as in kill them or send them into oblivion. Also, Hiro and Ando are getting annoying, I used to like them. Claire is also annoying. Peter is kind of irritating. Please get rid of the speedy-girl. Sean is okay, I call him Sean because of Felicity, but his name is Parkman, and he can be sort of blah. Bring back Mika, or however you spell his name, the kid-heroes are cute, BUT don’t make up NEW kid-heroes. There are too many characters already. NO MORE spirit walks, desert locations, or bowling alleys. Basically, stop sucking. I’m being mean because I know you can do better.

Privileged: You are also starting to suck. I will decline to specify why, I did not watch the last few episodes very closely, because they were not all that entertaining. I was cleaning up a bit. If I choose to clean rather than stop all activity, or record you, then you’re in trouble because I’ll watch almost anything.

30 Rock: I love you, but every time I try and watch that Jennifer Aniston episode, I fall asleep. Every time. I don’t know what that means, but I still think the season premiere is the best episode so far, even though episode 2 has more quotables. My favorite so far:

“I watched Boston Legal nine times before I realized it wasn’t a new Star Trek.” – Tracy Jordan

Genius.

Edit: I just watched tonight’s 30 Rock, and it was okay, but not great. I think the quality has been declining since the premiere. Please stop bringing in special guest stars, except for Elaine Stritch, she should be on the show more often. The rest of the special guests have not made the show any better. The best line of the night goes to Tracy Jordan again: “Stop patriciding!”

Confessions

I’m a little cranky at the moment because I’m hungry and my foot is asleep.

I ate ~20 KitKat and Coffee Crisp mini-bars in about 3 days and I also ate an undisclosed number of other-type mini chocolate bars during that period. I was SHOCKED, seriously, when I reached into the bag and there were no more KitKats or Coffee Crisps left. And then I was momentarily sad because I didn’t really savor that last one. Then I ate 3 more substandard chocolates (2 boxes of Smarties and 1 Aero), and I felt marginally better. Smarties and Aero used to be among my favorites in my elementary school and early teen years, but they have since lost their appeal. I also used to like Smarties in undergrad, but I think they taste different now, somehow they are not as good. I think I’m just a bigger fan of wafer-y-goodness than plain chocolate.

I have not gone running in over a month. It might even be 2 months. And now there’s snow on the ground, and it’s too cold. I could go running, but I would not enjoy it. I have become cold-intolerant due to my shoebox-apartment living. Because of all the adjoining walls and not many windows, I’ve never had to turn the heat on in the wintertime and am still able to walk around in my underwear without being cold. I am not looking forward to the 11C daytime temperatures at my parents’ house. And no, I am not exaggerating, for once. I think the worst part is deciding when to take a shower. You have to properly time taking your clothes off and warming the shower water, otherwise you will die from exposure (not really). Then, you have to dry yourself quickly and put on your COLD clothes as fast as possible. Getting dressed in the morning is also similarly unpleasant, but at least you’re not wet. I have tried keeping my day clothes in the bed with me, to warm them up, but it doesn’t help much. One time, last year, I think, I was trying to make a loaf of bread, but it was too cold in the kitchen for the yeast to be very active, so I took the bread dough into the bed with me, it didn’t help much, but it was better than leaving it at 11C. I think it took 2-3 days for that dough to rise. It ended up being a small loaf, obviously.

I’m going to stop justifying my text because I read somewhere that it was easier to read stuff that has a jagged right-edge. So I will see. It is certainly not prettier though. I don’t like the look of it, but I will try it out.

Commendations

The Thanksgiving episode of Gossip Girl was excellent. Although, if I were to be picky, I would say that Aaron needs to be deleted, and Serena’s clothes should cover 2X more of her body than recent wardrobe choices.

Golden delicious apples are great for tarte tatin, empire apples also do well in a pinch, but they are a bit mushy overall.

Thank you Firefox or WordPress or whoever for letting my cursor appear in the right place while editing my posts.

Finally, here is a letter from Ryan Adams to his invisipet, Wilson, pictured here, with Barnabus:

Barnabus and Wilson

Dear Wilson,

I know you have been skipping school ( I was once your age too although I am old now and I know you think I was born old and that is the essence of youth dear invisi-pet sheep dog) BUT, I am not upset with you. I just want you to know that. I can tell you are trying desperately to hide that fact from me on the phone since I have been away. I also saw the phone charges on your “fictional-not-real-animal-cell-phone” you got for your last birthday, and I am not sure who you are calling at those hours (?) but as long as you keep it to once or twice a week I am sure it will be fine- but remember- if it someone you admire, some invisi-pet across the globe, that writing a letter can be sometimes far more effective and also, a personal touch- an actual document is regarded very highly to a friend or a possible crush- as we are now (even for some time before you were born)- in a world of fleeting digital sentiments and they can sometimes make for disconnections-( trust me )- there was once only us living things and our handwriting and our memorized telephone numbers (we had to do that, i knew TONS by heart) to pass along our story, day to day, year to year.

Please listen to Baranbus, he is older and he understands a great deal more than you think even if he comes off “bossy” (your words not mine) but this is because he cares a great deal for you as you are his younger brother and PLEASE make sure Dumont is taking his medication. I noticed when he started to get “a little quiet” a few weeks before I left for work. I worry about him. He reads far too much Sartre and I think as much as he loves you and Barbabus and home he really feels far away inside. He has some of the same issues I have- and you must be careful with him.He is and will always be French through and through and his issues are his own. He is proud and noble and it is his nature to hide things from you when he is feeling very unwell and sad. Be patient with him Wilson, you are by nature full of hope and as much as he seems put off by that, when you are not looking, it does rub off on him and I see a slight smirk in his posture, sitting there not moving as invisi-pets often do when they are lost in thought.You have to just try and understand your adopted inivi-brother and accept him for who he is, and love him all the same on his good days and bad.

Work has been very trying and I miss staring blankly at you at home and sleeping for four or five days in a row. Also, I miss movie night and even though you are always so happy to eat fruit-salad with me on the t.v. tray on the bed while I suffer my depressions, I think it’s marvelous you have taken such affinity for Elizabeth Bowen. I will buy you  copy of “The Heat of the Day” while I am abroad and I’m sure you will like it as much as “The Death of the Heart” although, I did notice you are reading it AGAIN- (you do that a lot when you like a book- and you think, “oh dad, he’s so self-centered he doesn’t notice”)  well- ha! and just look, pops has some life left in him yet.

anyway, it’s cold here and I stayed at a hotel (         ) once stayed at and I left feeling just haunted. It is a lot of work growing up. The hardest part is not allowing it to happen to your heart, because, and Wilson, you will discover this in your own time, the real battle of life is not caving into letting go of your sense of wonder.

When you get to be my age you will discover that is what most of this “growing-up” is about. It’s about allowing yourself to know who you really are, forgiving yourself for how you let yourself think you were something you weren’t while you were settling in for that very moment of realization, and not letting that destroy the thing you were before all that “thinking” and “self-analysis” get in the way.

Anyway, I miss you even though we are both invisible things no matter how much light we might pass under, if only for those moments, and I want you to be sure that no matter what choices you are making with your school work as long as you are feeling good and okay about just being “you” I will be happy and I will always be here for you.

after all, we are family-

and it is much easier to not exist comfortably together as long as we are together.

I am off to work now, please send my love to your brothers and tell them I will see them soon and of course, I love and miss you very much- and you may read the books you requested in my locked book-case on the condition you DO NOT write in them (they are not paperback copies to be thrashed around) and also that you replace them where you found them as they are in a specific order and I may need to reference them in a hurry when I am working from home, just so we understand each other- ok. The key is in the mouth of the fake real looking skull above the book drawer next to the picture of Humphrey DeForest Bogart, your father’s favorite actor besides Johnny Depp who is amazing in everything. To open the skull (they used it once in classes at a university ib the 40’s so the story goes) you press the side- the springs holding the jam to the head will unlock and you CAREFULLY reach inside and, ta-da- there is the key. Barbabus may also read whatever is inside but please keep Dumont away from the Existentialist and Classical Romantic Novels as he is depressed enough as it is. Maybe you could ask him if he’d like to go to the park some afternoon. I think some fresh air would do him good.

Yours Always,

Pops