Selfish Crab

• Taking Acetyl L-Carnitine will boost your memory and cognitive functions.  [Dr. Oz]
• Fort Lee, NJ is named for General Charles Lee, a shitty general from the Revolutionary War.  He was like Lt. Dike of Foy but of the Battle of Monmouth.  [source]
• tony – adj. high-toned; stylish [source]
• tendentious – adj. expressing or intending to promote a particular cause or point of view, esp. a controversial one: “a tendentious reading of history” [source]
• a “rat king” is when when a number of rats become intertwined at their tails, which become stuck together with blood, dirt, ice, excrement or simply knotted. The animals reputedly grow together while joined at the tails.  [source, with PHOTO]
• “Meconium” is the first stool of an infant.  It’s often greenish.  [source] [wikipedia with PHOTO]
• A 60-year long breeding experiment in Siberia produced a domesticated silver fox (tamer to better handle fur trading).  It’s rather dog-like. [via] [more info]

# 2010 Nov 30 • From the 'Life' dept • #

My high school reunion was this year but I never got an invitation because apparently they did the invitations via a Facebook group. That is idiotic. If I can already re-connect to someone else through a Facebook lurk, what’s the point of paying $100+ bucks to awkwardly chat in person? (Let’s set aside the larger point of the Reunion’s general obsolescence in view of Facebook.). A reunion should be reaching out to ALL people, especially those off the grid, through mail.

Predictably, my reunion was cancelled for lack of interest.

# 2010 Nov 29 • From the 'Life' dept • high school past school• #

If you happen to see the selfish crab on the streets these days, it will be clear that selfish crab is a fatty crab at the moment. It’s not my fault; it’s November and my body wants to store food for the coming winter, like a bear about to hibernate.

Which is an entirely appropriate analogy because my kindred animal spirit is clearly the grizzly bear. The signs are there: my love of salmon, raw and wild-caught. My surly nature, particularly when awoken or startled. My snap and snarl. My fondness for back scratches and my tendency to measure the worth of a woman by how rough hewn her hands are, thanks, a little higher, right there, ah yes that’s the spot.

I resolve to work a little to shed these lee bee’s. Until then, please do not feed the bears.

# 2010 Nov 20 • From the 'Life' dept • self bear animal• #

New Girl Talk album “All Day” is finally out. It took a while because Gregg Gillis had to wait for everyone else to do all the hard work of actually writing songs and composing music for him to use.

# 2010 Nov 17 • From the 'Life' dept • ip copyright hippies say-no-to-dick-riding• 1

Dear Manhattan,

To you dear island I say goodbye. After 11 years, I quit you, you hungry furnace for change and ambition. I have always said that you were at your most troublesome when all your denizens try to have fun simultaneously, i.e. Valentine’s day, New Year’s Eve, but of late, every weekend has that feel. Must a mild dinner on Saturday require queuing with the neverending crush of patrons, transplants, and river crossers? Gushing about how you are the greatest city in the world is for the FOPs¹. The new sport is watching one restaurant-bar-lounge paper over its predecessor. By the third go-around, I’m ready to leave.

And so, I am downshifting and decamping to Brooklyn. Hold my mail, I’ll come by time to time.

Yours truly,
Crab

1. Fresh off the plane [↩]

# 2010 Nov 4 • From the 'Life' dept • nyc manhattan brooklyn changeisaconstancy• #