Just returned from my "lunch break" or, as I like to call it, my "mustard bath." I don't know why, but I can't seem to get enough of these hot mustard sandwiches (with cheese and Canadian bacon to provide vehicle for yet still more mustard).

Not much else to report. We had a girl in the testing room today who smelled like some weedy, citrusy scent from Anthropologie, which was good.

This weekend, my subtilior dreams will come to fruition at last. I sort of dropped the ball on getting book lights for Saturday night. Maybe I'll bring some lamps from home to just improve the ambiance a bit. Or maybe I'll give up entirely and just turn the damn lights on. I'm just not in a detail-oriented mood these days.

Another Day, Another Trawler

The fellow in the testing room is absolutely marinated in drugstore cologne. Or maybe it's top of the line designer man-scent; I can't tell, because my brain is occupied with just staying conscious. Really, I'm like a sneezing frog in a bell jar with a cotton ball soaked in ether and High Karate. And here comes the grilled meat smell, too. You know what would really complete this bouquet? Gun metal and bourbon.

Last weekend, we got free tickets to the opening ballet gala! The highlight, for me, was Balanchine/Bizet Symphony in C. How can you beat an army of ballerinas, frosted and frisking like whitecaps before an ocean-blue scrim? Then, at the final cadence, someone's cell phone went off right behind my head. But it turns out that the T-mobile ring is in C major, so it wasn't so bad.

A Few of My Favorite Things

This is the spot on my morning walk that I like to pretend is Paris.


And this is about my favorite feature of the entire city, nay, the Pacific Northwest. This little storm cloud is posited on the rickety roller coaster in the Fun Forest. I think the swoopy appendages are supposed to be coming from its mouth, which used to be more obviously shaped like an "o" but the sun has faded him so his mouth looks like a cute little frown. The W is for Windstorm, and this little fellow means business! Take him seriously!

Something that I love/hate about the interweb is that the ads so often look so cheap. Back when the net was new and there was nothing on it, I expectated that everything would soon look super high-tech and modern. But most of the banners I see are wonderfully hokey, like homemade furniture store commercials where they use unbeautiful Cocteau-esue devices to make amateur spokesmodels disappear as if by magic. Anyway, the ads I find to be the most Blade Runnery are the little videos of girls in tarty dresses reclining on couches. They laugh, they look amazed at something being said, they give a knowing look, and then it freezes for a second and plays again. There might be sound, but I've never seen it with headphones, so the ladies just go through their silent spasms of counterfeit zeal while I read my email.

Join me, monkey bretheren

Well, here it is. The last, lousy moments of labor, when I've given up crossword puzzles, even, and am glazedly fixed on Bejeweled. If the phone rings, will I know what to say? Oh, but the phone does ring, and it's always some crazy soul who wants to know about companies and pay rates and complexities beyond my ken. He/she might as well ask me to recite the periodic table of elements, such a runny slop is my brain at 4:15. Sometimes I beat myself up for bringing music to study and then not even glancing at it, but then I recall what miseries I put myself through back when I did study at work. It's too much. It causes me fits of angst and ennui. And anyway, they're paying me to sit here and just be cheerful, so I reckon that's what I should do.

http://get.games.yahoo.com/proddesc?gamekey=bejeweled2

Emily's 6 Steps to The Successful Execution of a Pop Song

1. Open the song with a crooney, kind of sickly tone that is more or less devoid of emotion, as if you were humming to yourself while doing the dishes or mumbling incoherently in your cell. Introduce the A section (or the first repetition of the only section) this way.

2. Next, start to whine a little, like you have some sense of foreboding or intestinal discomfort. Bring in some pedal tones or something. Crescendo final phrase.

3. Now, belt it out like the devil goosed you with his pitchfork and is now a-chasin' after you.

4. BRIDGE!!! (Just go through a previous chord progression on a rip roaring electric guitar.)

5. Mellow out a little. This is the time when it should sound super emotional, like you're in complete awe of the wrenchingness of the feelings you're feeling, but also incorporate the element of anguish/gas.

6. Finally if you're able, reiterate the last little phrase up an octave in falsetto.

I've got a wooden bracelet on today, and I'm doing that thing where you switch wrists whenever you complain about something. I think it's a good idea, especially with a pretty bracelet instead of one of those stupid purple ones, which are kind of demonstrative; I think the best part of the idea is that it's a completely private endeavor- so much the better if nobody even knows you're doing it! So I'm blogging about it instead.

This week, I am learning a very cute pop song for my cousin's wedding. As I gulp and mew in poptastic convulsion, it occurs to me that this is the moral equivalent of cramming myself into a bridesmaid gown for my dear cousin- a great looking proverbial gown, but it's moss green and a bit roomy in the bust. The question is whether or not I can get the right shade of eyeshadow and stuff sufficiently. (That was not a complaint; the bracelet stays put!)

Here is a picture of the cool looking brick pavement that lies beneath the blacktop on Fifth Avenue. Isn't it romantic? I've been googling to try and find out how old it could be, but found nothing conclusive. I think it must be about a hundred years old though. Oh how much strife must be embedded in these pretty bricks.

Something I try to keep in mind when weirdos come to register as temps: how would it be if Vincent van Gogh or Glenn Gould walked in? Gould would probably mutter during the typing test and van Gogh would definitely ask me what to put on his W-4. Erik Satie would be hilariously raunchy and would maybe draw little pictures on his application. I'll bet Sylvia Plath would be disturbed by the smell of freshly grilled meat, which often wafts up to our testing room from some unidentified bar and grill. Maria Callas would probably take offense at being timed for the tests. And I'll bet not one of them would be able to email a resume in a regular old Word document.

Throw me the idol, and I'll throw you the whip

The little strip of beach in West Seattle was sunny yesterday, if a little cold, and the pasty Seattlites were out in numbers. I was in jeans and long sleeves, but most of the people were stretched out in swimsuits, prostrate before the humble September sun as if it were the true, leonine July presence, which evidently never got here. My highlight was a little girl who appeared to be holding her family at bay with a piece of bull kelp. She lashed it about her, laughing, and her sister and parents laughed too, but I think I saw a gleam of real confidence in her eyes, uneasiness in theirs. Maybe I imagined it.

A moment of reflection on the coolest beings I know (in a superficial sense): the bike messengers. They wear cool pants and weird hats. Sometimes they sport odd, socklike accessories on their arms or legs. They are covered with tatoos and probably scars. Some people say that they smell terrible, and that this is a point of pride, but I've never noticed it. They assemble by the coffee kiosk at the foot of my building, and this morning one of them asked me if I had cut my hair. One of the cool people noticed me! ME!

-Nick, you are about to see a horrible, horrible thing.
-What's that Murray?
-People going to work.


So it goes. Time to wake up and smell the busses and the baked goods. My morning walk is a welcome change, however. I go through Seattle Center, where dawn breaks over the shiny Frank Gehry building and shines down on the bums digging through the garbage in the Fun Forest. I sail past the tempting cafes and luscious Top Pot donuts. Then suddenly there are a bunch of us hoofing it toward the center, getting ready to do whatever it is that we have to do all day. I'm trying not to overthink it.