-- Why aren't you guys ringing in the New Year together?
-- She refuses to acknowledge it's 2017.
-- What?
-- Her father is Greek Orthodox and they adhere to the Julian calendar. To him New Year's is on January 14th. So for my wife, it's just another Saturday night.
-- That's crazy.
-- Not half as crazy as the other side of her family.
-- What are you talking about?
-- Her mother is Jewish, so to her it's the year 5777, and New Year's is on September 24th.
-- Wow, that's nuts. Well, what is it for you?
-- It's New Year's, man! Let's party!
-- Whoo!
January 2, 2017
We're already one whole day into a new year. Still going strong on those resolutions?
January 4, 2017
It's -26 this morning. I look at the little songbirds eating black oil sunflower seeds and marvel at their ability to survive this constant cold. But with such small mass it doesn't seem like an impossibility to get enough food to live. But what do the 300 pound deer, the 600 pound elk and the 1,000 moose eat? How can these large animals consume enough food with 2 feet of snow on the ground and -26 temperatures?
January 5, 2017
This dude went on vacation to Nepal never to return. He said that he felt more spiritual in the mountains then he ever felt in his home country and that he saw no reason to go back. His visa, however, suggested that he return immediately or be in breach of his travel documents. He ignored that, moved to an isolated rural village and began his new adopted life. Really, was anybody going to do anything about it?
January 6, 2017
I seriously thought that Bush the moron was as low as America could go, but the soon to be 5th grader-in-charge is obvbiously just as ignorant, and a blowahrd to boot. Come on, America, is going down in flames with this douche your best effort?
January 8, 2017
Dear Keith,
I have a disinterested husband and a nosy sister. My New Year's resolution is to allow myself one indiscretion per month as my husband doesn't seem to care anymore. The problem is my sister. She is very religious and has said that she will tell our pastor everything unless I take her with me on my dalliances. Is this weird?
Signed,
Flirty in 2017
Dear Flirty,
What's your pastor got to do with this?
Dear Keith,
I'm afraid God will find out.
Dear Flirty,
You think your pastor has some hotline to god? Silly woman.
Dear Keith,
Maybe you're right. It's more about my sister watching me have sex with strange men that kind of freaks me out.
Dear Flirty,
Maybe she wants to join in?
Dear Keith,
No, she just wants to sit in a corner with her bible uttering passages about adultery. It's really putting me off.
Dear Flirty,
So let her tell your pastor. If it's a problem for you, switch churches. They're all the same.
Dear Keith,
I showed my sister these e-mails and she said she is praying for your soul.
Dear Flirty,
Tell her to save her breath. My soul is just fine. You might also tell her that watching her sister have sex while reading from the bible is a perversion that says way more about her than it does you.
Dear Keith,
I guess you're right.
Dear Flirty,
Of course I am. Now get out there and find a man. Happy New Year.
Gives way to an 800 foot free fall with only the echoes of their grisly screams as they gruesomely die horribly all for a picture.
January 10, 2017
Got into a ridiculous argument with a bored, obnoxious cashier about a price that was clearly posted on the front door of the store not more than five feet away from her ennui filled eyes, and in the end, five people were involved in a storewide spectacle, including a mentally challenged man and an irate store manager who couldn't believe a customer and two other people were arguing with his terrible, disinterested teenage cashier over a price that was clearly posted in front of everybody involved. The manager was livid when he spat at the cashier, "It's a SALE!" The cashier says, "Well, we've always sold if for the other price. His price (pointing to me) was way lower, so I charged him the regular price. The way I see it, I saved the store 9 bucks. That's profit." Evidentially this wasn't her first bit of tomfoolery because the store manager's blood boiled over like a cartoon character blowing his top and he fired her in front of all five of us. Her parting words? "Nah-uh, I quit."
January 11, 2017
Today's lottery musings: If the contest has, say, 49 numbers. Any of them will do.
Some of yesterday's ideas: Make a great sandwich; politics is obviously riddled with imbeciles, fools, shills and lying bastards - why do we put up with this; ice cream in the dead of winter is good but damn different than ice cream in the dead of summer; there has to be a foolproff gutter solution; with the outside temperature at -22, my skates, leaning against the door of my office, are shaking in contemplation of being used; what an amazing planet; that was a great sandwich.
2017 in a nutshell: Eleven days into it and I'm liking what I see. If 2017 had a smell, it would be bread baking.
A little nostalgia: When I used to drive cross country tractor trailers, I remember making a mixed tape of all the great trucking songs from The Grateful Dead, Little Feat, Steve Earle, etc. and laying down miles listening to it and then somewhere along the way, losing that tape and lamenting it for all the rest of my truck driving days.
The best clothes for a man: Work clothes. Carhartt pants, a work shirt, work boots. Total manly comfort with the ability to do work at any moment, or not.
Parting thought: You can play it safe, or you can go for it. The results may be different, but the actual way to accomplish either is the same.
January 12, 2017
Don't be fooled by someone telling you something is for your own good. Often it's for their own good.
January 14, 2017
Overheard at the pharmacy.
-- I say hooey on that. Darren don't need them pills 'cause he's always ready to go.
-- Darren's also what, 31?
-- 30.
-- Well Harold is 62. He needs these pills to, uh, perform.
-- I sure hope Darren don't ever need 'em. He's already wearin' me out. Can't imagine him on some sex drug - Lord a mighty.
-- Yes, well...
-- How come Harold don't come in here and buy 'em for hisself?
-- As you could guess, he's a little embarrassed.
-- What?! A man buying tampons should be embarrassed, but buyin' boner pills for hisself? I say, grow a pair.
-- It's not just for him, you know.
-- What are you talking about?
-- If he doesn't get hard - I don't get sex.
-- Ohhh...
January 16, 2017
How can we possibly think that we humans are the pinnacle of development? Why wouldn't other species like lizards, dragonflies, microorganisms and the like not think the same of themselves? Of course they would. You know why? Because everything has consciousness. Rocks, trees, water, lizards. And when everything has consciousness, everything is relative.
January 18, 2017
So many clamber for just a small glimpse into my personal world. Am I a monster for denying them? Too cruel. Ahem. The gate into our side yard. Hand built by moi and friend Peter.
January 19, 2017
She was tall, he was short. He had red hair, hers was dyed blue. Her posture was excellent, his a bit sloppy. She had a pronounced paunch while he was thin as a rail. Just looking at them, they seemed a mismatch, until they managed a weird synchronicity: They were both attracted to something on the bottom shelf, bent down at the exact same time, and cracked heads hard. He started bleeding immediately followed by lots of cursing; she fell to her knees, dazed and concussed. The store manager came running over to ask if they were all right, which they weren't. She tried to stand, lost her balance and fell into a shelf of magazines; he continued bleeding and cursing; the store manager frantically dialled 911; the crowd started to gather; a spectacle was born. An everyday spectacle.
January 20, 2017
Not sure what's going on in your life? Close your eyes. Imagine you're old and laying in your deathbed reviewing your life. What will you think? Will you be content with what you did? Happy about it? Will you once again revel in your successes? Remember only the good times? Or will you decry the missed opportunities? Will you regret the things you've done or haven't done? Will you be dissatisfied with how you lived your life? By projecting forward, this exercise is a good way to judge where you are right now - with time still to amend a bad deathbed review or reinforce a good one.
January 23, 2017
A contemporary was bad mouthing millennials as being lazy, good for nothings when a nearby millennial told him to suck it. The bad mouther sneered at the youth and said, Get off my lawn, punk! Even though we were inside a store. 'twas ever so cute.
January 24, 2017
It was his first screenplay and he managed to get it to an agent who was now on the phone telling him of the $2.5 million dollar offer they had just received. The struggling writer became nostalgic when he realized that the life he had been leading up to this point would never be the same again. The funny part? The movie deal fell through, the movie never got made, the agent dropped him and the screenwriter was back to where he was before any of this had started. It was then that he realized that nostalgia's only good if you truly leave something behind, otherwise, you risk looking the fool.
January 25, 2017
Days ago I was digging through some old files and came across a mysterious one that had a picture of two people I had never seen before and this note: Don't forget the Allisons! Who the hell were the Allisons? Why were they in my files? Forget what? Since I needed the space, I trashed the Allisons. Now it seems I can't forget them. It's like...black magic.
January 26, 2017
Dear Keith,
I understand you only publish your own material and that is nice and all but you should also publish me. Why? Because my name is Keith too! We are two Keiths in a world of Randys and Michaels and Jims. We need to stick together. Listen, I'm working on a novel about two guys named Keith (art imitates life! ha ha), anyway, I need you to publish it because then it will be a fictional book about two Keiths created in the real world by two Keiths. Clever doesn't even begin to describe it. That's pretty much it. You on board?
Dear Keith,
Nah.
January 27, 2017
A couple we knew spawned a horrid child that my wife and I called Mordred, but the rest of the world called Roger. I'm talking to the father one day and I asked how Mordred was, only I didn't say Roger, I actually said Mordred. The father is a smart guy and immediately picked up on the reference. (This is what the French call a faux pas. There is no way back from a faux pas. You can't undo what you just said, how it was taken, or what it means for the other person to hear it. It is literally being caught red handed.) The father replied, "Roger is doing fine. He has yet to become a traitor and kill us. But thanks for the heads up." Didn't I feel appropriately sheepish.
January 28, 2017
If someone famous were to knock on your door (maybe their car broke down, maybe they grew up in the house you're now living in, maybe they were thrown out of a speeding car right in front of your place because they owed some bad people money), would you welcome them in because they're famous or because they're in need?
January 30, 2017
What's the point of being right? Why do we feel the need to assert our superiority over others by proving we were right? Why can't being proved right be a silent comfort and a nice reassurance to self, without the need to bring in the fact that the other person was wrong? Why is being right so competitive?
January 31, 2017
Someone said that they didn't care if they ever got what they wanted as long as they got what was needed. Why can't you get what you want and need at the same time? Are they mutually exclusive? Does one preclude the other? Hardly. I want that donut, I need that donut. Simple as that.
