Can you tell me how to get...

Sesame Street has always been awesome. I credit Sesame Street for telling me it was ok to be different, but that it might be difficult so get your shit in order. Not in those words, specifically, but the subtext is there. I haven't watched it in years, but I might have to start, especially with all the hilarity ensuing with pop artists singing versions of their songs with muppets. I. Love. It.

Feist is All Clever with Her Counting:



1-2-3-4 Chickens just back from the shore! Wearing sunglasses! Oh my god I almost peed my pants.

REM Kicking With Some Monsters:



FURRY HAPPY MONSTERS! If this wasn't awesome I would hate it. But it is awesome. My favorite part is when they are all sad, and then all the sudden the decide to be happy again. Michael Stipe sagely consels “Come on monsters! You don't have to cry! We can be happy!” And then they all start doing that muppet dance which consists of waving their heads from side to side violently. Oh Michael Stipe, if only that worked in real life.

That Tease, The Letter Y:



Here Norah Jones was getting it on with the letter Y. And I'll tell you, wearing those tight clothes, I can see why that Y was so damn attractive. But can't she see he is clearly gay?

Sometimes I wish I had kids just so I could force them to like the things that I think are hilarious.

Shout out to two hilarious dudes who don't know who I am: Josh and Josh, from the fantastic blog Josh & Josh are Rich and Famous. They alerted me to feist counting chickens, and I am eternally grateful.

Motion For the Sake of Motion

I get sort of pent up sometimes, writing wise. There's a lot to say but the words are colluding to evade deployment, battening down the hatches and drawing the blinds, so to speak. And then I can't figure out how to put it all down. I do this fairly often. I need a respite, a break, a change in scenery before anything will come out. To be honest, I need the change in scenery just to want to get anything to come out.

So now I am writing this from a quiet, air-conditioned commuter train that is slicing it's way though the Maryland summer to Baltimore. I never realized how soothing it was to just sit here and look out the window while the country side slides past. It makes me jealous of people who have a commute that includes this quiet train ride. I know that people who actually commute are probably raising their collective voices as they read this, ready to beat me with suitcases and rolled up copies of the Washington Post or the Express, but I maintain that this quiet slice of heaven is not a bad way to spend your evening hour after work. Plus, I like trains.

We are sliding into Baltimore now, skirting past the industrial suburbs by the airport, and into neighborhoods that used to be outlying country towns before the Baltimore/Washington corridor ate them up. Wide porches and bungalow fronts used to house industrial workers, and now house the people who I am riding this train with. Apparently most of their careers involve dressing poorly and reading trashy novels. Postal Inspectors? Assistant Archivist III at the State Department? Secretary to a nameless guy at the Internal Revenue Service? I assume the worst, but most likely they are people like me who are going home to barbecue and read a book and maybe have a shower. But I like to assume that they are nameless drones that get no satisfaction out of life. It makes my wry observations more wry. And that's how I like my observations.

West Baltimore looks like life has been rough; ridden hard and put away wet. At one time I thought we might like to move to Baltimore, to live in a house I could actually afford and have a yard and a dog and be super bohemian in a city that wavers between dark depression and exuberant assumption. I thought maybe I would ride my bike to this very train station to ride this very train south to earn a good salary in DC, returning each night to sit in the backyard and drink beer and roast meat on a grill. I still maintain that this is not the craziest of ideas, however the expression on J's face every time I bring it up conveys a different story. But it does seem like a quaint and distant notion now.

We slip into a tunnel and spend a few rumbling minutes in the dark, flashing past florescent lights that line the wall. And then we are in the sunshine again, in Baltimore.

I'll buy a drink at the train station bar, if there is one, and spend twenty minutes wandering around before getting back on the southbound 4:55, returning me from my pointless trip, back to where I need to be.