Notes from the Post-it Wall — Week of November 5, 2017
• I would kill to be a sociopath.
I am Matisse
I am Matisse, and this is a kid’s story, because I am a kid. I am nine years old and very responsible for my age. The other Matisse, at least the only other one I know, was a great painter, the father of abstraction. I have decided to be empress of the universe. I’m what adults call precocious.
My Grandma-ma always speaks to me as if I’m the smartest person she ever met. My mom still thinks of me as only nine and my dad, well he just smiles at me all the time. Actually he beams. He doesn’t say much of anything.
The Minutes of Our Last Meeting – Columbia College Chicago - Board of Trustees Budget Committee
"Fewer people are buying our product. The only sensible solution is for us to charge more."
13 Things to Blame for the Trump Presidency
Who can we blame for the election of Donald Trump as president? Here is a short list of scapegoats and why any one of them deserve all of the blame. All of it.
If Men Are From Mars and Women Are From Venus, Where the Fuck Have I Been All This Time?
It has come to pass as I read the countless examples of sexual harassment proliferated by so many other men that I don't understand most men, either.
Dick pics?
Coming on to women by pulling the schlong out for view?
Masturbating in front of women as a seduction technique?
Catcalling random strangers?
Drugging women to have sex?
Raping drunk, sleeping women?
I Believe... [Joking About "David Cop-a-Feel" is NOT Rapey]
Holiday Season
Halloween? Go nuts? Be a slutty nurse or a guy from TV for a night. Who cares? It's not The Purge. I'm staying inside and watching Charlie Brown.
The Transactional Life (and How to Get Around It)
If one does X, then one receives Y.
Couldn't be simpler. If one mows the neighbor's lawn, the neighbor will reward you with some money. If you clean your room, you receive an extra Twinkie. Punch the bigger kid, get clobbered. Do the crime, do the time. Quid Pro Quo. If X, then Y. Call it The Transactional Life.
The difficulty in growing older or up or however you choose to look at the passage of time is that you start to see that this contract with the world, this Transactional Life, is not fair. Most of the time, the value you place on X is not in equal proportion to the perceived value of Y.
Notes from the Post-it Wall – Week of October 29, 2017
• I have always appreciated Madonna for continuing to reinvent herself with each album or decade or whatever. With her new skin care line, she’s reinvented herself as a chubby Drew Barrymore.
In The Northern Liberated Provinces of Korea
Wu Ran-sang heard himself sigh. In this sigh, there were many feelings.
His heart and body hung between the sky and the dun ground along the northwest wall of the tallest building in Onsong. Nine stories. A recovered textile factory in the process of retrofit.
Ran-sang, an electrician of a singular talent, looked out at the view which the height afforded him. A warm mid-spring sun hung in a wide open sky of astonishing blue. The diamond pearls of the Tumen River glistened in their long band not too far off. This was now the Sapphire Coast and Onsong was in preparation to be a modest city of great culture and assimilation.
College Advice I Took (to My Dismay)
I just read an interesting opinion piece in the New York Times by Susan Shapiro entitled "College Advice I Wish I'd Taken" in their On-Campus section. I disagree with almost everything she wrote.
The Minutes of Our Last Meeting – Emergency White House Task Force Meeting
- “We’re hot!” said the president.
- “Because we are on fire.” Said Chief of Staff Kelly
The Estate Tax Forced my Family to Sell the Farm
The estate tax forced their sale. To my embarrassment, this event buttresses a specious Republican talking point. If you read my previous post about the Second Amendment, you'll know how I feel about context. It is everything. Knowing the context around the sale of this farm demonstrates why I whole-heatedly support the estate tax... and affirmative action.
The Scariest Movies of All Time (According to My 12-Year-Old Self)
I’m not much of a Halloween kind of guy. In fact, I don’t care for it at all. The costumes—meh. The parties are just another excuse for adults to get hammered and dress up in racially and sexually insensitive garb, writing it off as a spoof. The candy—well, I like the candy but I like candy anytime of the year.
But scary movies? I love 'em.
I Believe... [The Monsters Are Us]
...that if aliens came to Earth with any mission but total annihilation of the human race, 2017 would convince them otherwise.
We're All Going To Die!
If the experience of life has taught me anything, it has taught me that people like staying alive. Somewhere in the very essence of what it is to be alive is that special feeling that philosophers call “qualia of consciousness." Being alive feels like something. Here we are, inside our little meatboxes, looking out at all the other meatboxes and we know they’re feeling like they’re alive too. Most all of us like being alive. At the most primitive level, we hate that we won’t be alive at some point. The fear of not being alive anymore is huge. We don’t want to die.
A Neighborhood Story of Halloween Proportions
Just your average sweep thru the rural landscape to trick or treat on a night filled with the simplicity of finding room in your heart to call everywhere home.
Notes from the Post-it Wall — Halloween Edition
• There’s nothing scarier than having your mom show up to your Halloween party dressed as a slutty caterpillar.
Until There's Only One
“After that, the people in my village believed the prisoner’s story, and everyone avoided the woods at all costs. And, if children were behaving especially badly, their parents would tell them the tale to punish them. And punishment surely comes.”
The nanny’s face was grim as she stared at the children. She rose from her chair and flicked off the light. In the kitchen, she poured a circle of salt around a chair at the table and rested there with her hands clasped in prayer.
Hagatha the Dog Witch
Hagatha, upon arriving in Chicago, had developed an allergy to cats. She tried Zyrtec, Claritin and Allegra, and all the potions and spells in her Witch Craft: Curses & Remedies book. Nothing helped. Her eyes watered, which made her face melt a little. Her nose ran constantly, and witch snot is essentially acid so she kept burning through her handkerchiefs and shirt sleeves. The only solution was to put her beloved cat, Gomez, whom she had had since she conjured him to life two centuries ago, up for adoption.
The second voice arrived on Thursday morning while Monte was attempting to make toast.