Today’s soundtrack: who could ask for anything more?
Today at 9:32am: manning the six-train with a stiff cup of coffee


Want to write something but not sure what. There’s something inside but I can’t quite get it. Like when you drop something behind the couch and you stick your arm back there to fish for it, and maybe your fingers scrape it but you just end up pushing it further away.

Yup, I want to write something but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a banal analogy (a banalogy) about dropping shit behind a couch.

Lately I’ve been too busy to live. You know what I mean? It’s kind of like being too tired to die.

I’ve got some living coming up soon, don’t know when. But I can smell it. Maybe next month during my trip. I’m happy to be going away, though I admit I’d be extremely thrilled if it was someplace I hadn’t been before. And I mean someplace good, not someplace like Tenafly or prison.

I want the same things you want, which is to get laid, build something, listen to good music and make enough dough to not have to worry. Forgive me if I’ve presumed too much, maybe you want something totally different. But chances are you want something, so at least we have that in common. We Want.

We also Get.

Things we can get:

- jokes
- subscriptions to Popular Science
- disgusted with ourselves
- nice work (see: subject line; also Holiday, B.)
- slapped

Things we should get:

- dinner
- drinks
- the check
- her phone number
- driven to the airport in big, expensive cars

Things we will get:

- sleepy
- spam
- hungry
- headaches
- what’s coming to you

Things that will get you:

- the monster under the bed
- city, state and federal taxes
- the Grim Reaper*

Things that won’t get you:

- girls from France who smile because they deduce you’re making some kind of joke
- the monster in the closet, because he’s too busy worrying about what his friends might think or if society will truly accept him

*Notes on the Grim Reaper:

- He carries a sickle but, this being the year 2004, should upgrade to a farm combine or something more modern.
- He started wearing a hood way before you thug-wannabes were even born, so you better recognize.
- The Russian Grim Reaper carries stars and stripes.
- It must be a cruel sort of irony if you are murdered with a sickle and then the Grim Reaper comes to pick you up and he’s carrying a sickle. You’re sitting there going “Yeah, that’s it, rub it in, asshole.”

I wanted to write something but instead I find myself up at 2:38am, ruminating on death like a high school kid with a paper due tomorrow.

If only I knew then what I know now. And what I know now is, that which doesn’t kill me...will eventually be replaced by something stronger which will kill me.

Until then, I’ll try to enjoy myself.

Eat the dessert. Stay up late. And after you land and get to the car rental counter, tell them you want the convertible.

I think that’ll make things better at the end.



GRIM REAPER: It is time, Rain Noe.

ME: Good thing I got that convertible....Hey, can I check out your sickle?

G.R.: Uh...sure.

ME: Wow, it’s a lot heavier than it looks.

G.R.: Tell me about it. My back is killing me.

ME: What’s with the hood, anyway?

G.R.: I don’t like when you get that drafty feeling on the back of your neck.

ME: Yeah, me neither. But why not a turtleneck, then?

G.R.: It sends the wrong message.

ME: Gotcha.


(Long, awkward pause.)


G.R.: You’re stalling.

ME: I know.