When Kate is in NY everyone writes more. That’s very cool.

Demolition has begun on Phase II of the famous *Kitchen Project* [which is kind of like the Manhattan Project, only very slightly less deadly] And so while the perfectly glossy, water-based, poly-everything finish is still drying on Phase I, I stand ready, Sawz-All in hand, to inflict mighty destruction. Sexy, huh.

I am super sassy today. I got 10 ½ hours of uninterrupted, dream-filled, sober sleep last night and I feel like a million bucks! It has taken me until Thursday to recover from an extremely busy drunker-fest of a weekend, from which I stumbled away with a three day hangover and a fucking sunburn. Hahahhahahaahahaa….. hahhahaaahahahahahahaaa…. hmmm.

Fighting the urge to succumb to the soothing rhythm of the extraordinarily ordinary... ... ...

Last night at the bar everyone seemed to know my name. The girl at the end of the bar with the Yankees cap on. I had a ticket to the game (Yankees vs. Rockies), but gave it away at the last minute. So then I was sitting at the end of the bar drinking my beer. All of my friends had gone home but I was far from alone. Everyone knew my name. A man from halfway down the bar came over and sat next to me…

“Hey, Maggie, I’m buying this one, why the Yankees?”

I gave him the short version of why I’m a Yankees fan even though I don’t really like baseball. The woman on the other side of him (who turned out to be his girlfriend) asked how we know each other.

“We don’t,” he said to her, then turned to me, “I’m Joel.”

[laughing] Nice to meet you. So, who are you, Joel? What are you about?

He began to speak, then checked himself. His answer was going to be his job title, but then he realized that’s not what I asked. [thinking] “I golf a lot.”

[more laughing]

Our conversation, however brief, continued in the same manner: deliberately deviating from the standard small-talk questions. His girlfriend, whom I had met once or twice before and has the most Irish name I’ve ever heard, played our little game too... even though she and I had initially skipped the small-talk when we met and covered much deeper more personal things. It was like getting to know her in reverse.

Have they caught him yet? …had been the first thing I had said to her last night, referring to the man who had raped her several weeks before. I knew the whole story. Now we were asking each other what other bars we like to hang out at, and where’s the best place to get a slice.

The bartender knew my name too. I didn’t know hers until I overheard someone else use it. I had tipped her very well, because when you’re in a bar where microbrews cost $2.25 ("that's during happy hour... you look pretty happy to me"), you tip the bartenders very well. She sat down next to me after her shift was up, lit a cigarette, and bought a round of shots for me and the 4 people sitting near me who knew my name. Andy made the “shots” and filled 6 cocktail glasses with them. It was four.big.gulps to get it all down.

“I thought you were going to the game with Todd?”

Yeah. He gave me that ticket months ago. When I got here he told me that his “friend” was going to take us to the light rail and then pick us up when the game was over. I told him that’s lame and he should just take his girl to the game.

“That was so nice of you”

Don’t be fooled. I’m a total bitch.

[more laughs]

Happy happy Birthday my Middle-est sister!!!!

Ok. So I’m a little less cynical today. Well, maybe not less cynical, but less angry, less presumptuous; struggling for an understanding of something still so incomprehensible. There is no difference. Whatever is in one man that can make him kill exists in the man who wouldn’t. The potential is inside everyone. Yes, it is a terrifying thought. No, it is not a notion I would like to entertain. But I have to. I have to because surprise is always part of the story. “I knew him. I knew him well. I never thought in a million years he could do something like this.” “No, there were no signs; no warnings. She was always such a sweet girl.”

City of smoke. Southbound Speer Blvd., 7:15am. The sun is a blurry, brilliant orange dot trying to illuminate through the blanket of smoke, like a flashlight glowing through a sleeping bag when we used to tell ghost stories after bedtime. It’s not a smell that’s in the air; this is the air. The sharp outline of city skyline is no more. The buildings blur into one another. The entire city is one dark shadow in the smoke.

Do you know why I love you, Chris? (And I’m only saying this because I’m drunk enough to lack any reasonable level of inner monologue and censorship) I love you because you are exactly the type of guy that I would meet once and completely write off. But I gave you a chance because you were my friend’s boyfriend, and you proceeded to systematically blow out of the water every one of my first impressions and pre-conceived notions. You’re a bull-headed, over-bearing, arrogant son of a bitch. And you’re a damn good joe.

[blink blink] mm-k… are you gonna answer the question or not?

I forget the question.

What do you want to do for a living?

oh. Ask me another question.

no.

[huff ]… … …

steve: Man am I tired!
me: Mee toooo!
steve: Yeah, but some people are tired from working too hard and others are tired from playing too hard.
me: Yep. And who would you rather be?

There are windstorms on the sun. [nytimes.com is free] As I write this, there are hundred mile an hour gales swirling and blowing and fanning the flame of the sun and igniting massive radioactive explosions of gas and fire into the universe.

All of a sudden it doesn’t really seem to matter whether or not a little man on a little green planet continues to be the leader of a theoretical state or not.

I’m feeling very cynical today, so don’t take the following too seriously, I’ll probably change my mind tomorrow:

Darwinism. We have no natural predators. At some point natural selection is going to have play a role in the human existence. I say if it’s our own thick, self-righteous heads that kill us, so be it.

On the other side of the world men are fighting the time honored “my god is better than your god” war and no amount of politics or leadership or peace talks is going to change the mind of a man who would rather die a martyr than live an inferior; and in spite of his extremist views and his terrorist activities it’s not possible to “punish” him because to hunt him down and kill him is only to make him what he most wants to be. Tell me if this is crazy: can we just get all the innocent pacifists out of the way and let all the people who want to kill each other go for it?

War is stupid. It’s crazy. It’s stupid-crazy…. Crazy-stupid. I am all for actions that protect people from hurting other people, but seriously, how much time and resources do we have to continue to pour into saving people from themselves? If I do something stupid and it kills me, then I’ve done my part to cleanse the jean pool. Let’s just hope I haven’t produced offspring yet. If there are two groups of people that want to kill each other, I say take away the nuc’s and any other means of hurting those not involved and let them have at it.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not talking about genocide. I’m not saying, “kill all the stupid people.” I’m just asking how far people have to go to protect other people from themselves? Mandatory helmet laws: why? If you’re stupid enough to ride a motorcycle without a helmet… … … go for it. I saw a guy on TV fighting with the fire chief in Glenwood Springs because he wanted to go back to his house to get some things. He wanted to drive into a forest fire to get some “things” from his house! Let him go. Just make it clear that if something goes wrong, no one is coming after his dumb-ass.

Hmmhmmmm….. I gotta stop reading the news.

So, here we are. Another day in paradise. Things have kind of slowed around the office. In fact things have basically slammed to an abrupt halt. Morning coffee, check my email… and my other email… and my other email [I’m such a nerd]. Read the Times (there was a really good article yesterday about a tribe in Kenya that gave America 14 cows to help us after 9/11). Then CNN for anything the Times may not have covered. I go to BBC for the European slant on things. [side: …so I’m on top of the India/Pakistan thing, but I’m still thoroughly confused about the whole Israel/Palestine situation] Anyway, MSNBC has a really good Science and Tech section. I read up on the latest developments in Astrobiology, Astrophysics, Superstring Theory, and the possibility that Black Holes might be a load-a-hooey. Then back to the Times for the book review… goddamn net filter won’t let me do the crossword!

I have not done one.single.constructive.thing.all-day-long.

These animal crackers are like little animal blobs. Totally unrecognizable as any kind of animal… unless they’re supposed to be single-celled-organism crackers. Ooh, look, an amoeba!

Random guy: Joe! How ya doin?
Joe: I could complain, but nobody’d listhen.
Guy random: Ah, it’s all a crap-shoot anyway.