"You won't get any dessert!"

How many times did how many of us hear that growing up? Trying to slip green beans to the dog, who mysteriously didn't care for legumes either. I thought he'd eat anything. Unlike Mikey. It is Payday Dear Reader. This month's Payday Cheesecake is Neapolitan. If cheesecakes were like pizzas...Sicilian deep-dish. Chicago-style. The layers, chocolate, white chocolate, and strawberry, are sorta distinguishable. Aren't they? Eating this will be like a biology project. Dissecting the layers of the flavors to enjoy each individually. What's the point of even forming layers if one is just going to wolf it all down? There is the aesthetic value. Fleeting as it is. And then I'll have a second piece. And you, Dearest of the Dear Readers, will only get a second post today.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

You're in the Army now. Agile. Bloated. Whaaa? Bear with me Dear Reader. Just bear with me. I am going somewhere with this. I think I am. I think I can. Note if it pleases you that I have changed the embedded slide show. And, note same even if it doesn't please you. I'm just wasting space. Spacing waste. Equidistantly. Abby Mallard was beginning to bother me. Nothing against Joan Cusack. And I really do like chicken. En fait, je l'adore. I hope I am not missing a circumflex. The horror. Pretty flower pictures have replaced Pez dispensers. I just couldn't bear those buggly eyes and terribly bucked teeth any longer. Not that I spent much time watching slide shows of that collection. Mmmm. Chicken. Do you like chicken Dear Reader? Did I mention that I sure do. Inside joke. Inside joke. Though not really all that funny. Except to the three initiates. Eleusian mystery. Ginger encourages Chopper's personality, not disorders, but, quirks. Eccentricities. Better? Better. Don't pick at it. You'll only make it worse. Possible? Possibly. Dutifully (read: obsessively) cataloged. Cataloger-(hey, that's me!)-supplied names. No brackets. Square, or otherwise. Too messy for me. (Would brackets screw up FileMaker indexing?) Local decision. It was thirty years ago. Almost Dear Reader. Almost.

L-R: G.I. Elvis, Young Elvis, Fat Elvis

Local 590

Not AFSCME. Look it up Dear Reader. Look it up. Google it. If I begin with a digression, is it really a digression? Maybe just an off-speed pitch. Down and away. To lefties. As both of you may have guessed, the title of this alleged post refers to local notes in catalog records. Fleetingly. Elliptically even. Perhaps incidentally. I just finished creating a record for a manuscript map, blah, blah, blah. Really, it was quite a joy to produce. I offer but a toe-hold from which you may choose to try to follow. Or not. Must...not...sink into existential quagmire. Arcs still to join. There was a note waiting for me this morning. Patiently biding time. Playing the little time-biding games notes are prone to perform.

"3:559 Library's copy lacks stand. Library's copy imperfect: Small dent in northern hemisphere."

How very nice. Meteor impact? Comet? Elliptical orbits interrupted abruptly by celestial orbs. Say that a couple times fast. Oops. Stop that. Stop that. Abdullah Tarzaban made tenth-grade math fun. Really. Not comparatively. For me at least. Looking back. Did you know Dearest of Dear Readers that the word ellipse is from the Spanish? Think about it. One final clue: SWAK.

Oil up for the bonus round

For my lunch break I strolled to the House of Records. I was on a mission. Most of my trips to the House of Records begin as missions, turn into digressions, and then conclude. Abruptly. As suddenly as their inceptive notion. Whim even. I was looking for one thing, which was not there, found another, which I pulled from rack. While waiting at the counter to pay, and to order the thing for which my quest had begun, another customer approached me and asked "Do you have anything by [the name of the artist did not register in my memory]." I politely told him that I did not work there. 13th Floor Elevators. (I just remembered.) That's the name of the band he sought. Was it my Conflict concert shirt, black with "The Ungovernable Force" on the front and "A History of Insurgency" on the back? Maybe apathy, nihilism and ennui seeped from me in just the right way. I haven't shaved in a few days. I should feel good about myself that someone might look at me and think I work in a record store. That I look cool enough. That I am not seen as just another slack-jawed bipedal dirt clod. And I do Dear Reader. I do. I purchased Devo/Q:Are We Not Men? A:We Are Devo! Because it needed to be done. I ordered the album Kurr by Amiina. Because Yoko said so. And you Dear Reader get a second post today, at no additional cost.

No. Peace. In.

I'm back. Figuratively (after neglecting Subjunctives for so long, again) and literally, from the 2007 Special Olympics Team USA training camp that was held in Nashville. Tennessee (for the geographically impaired.) It was wonderful. I shall not go into great detail. Too much material. Too little time. I offer but a simple anecdote, and a photo. Schelly (correct spelling Dear Reader, really) is a bowler from Texas. She had some Special Olympics Texas bandanas to trade. I was looking for something orange for that someone special. Alas, Schelly didn't have an orange one. She offered a hot pink one to me for a Special Olympics Oregon pin. She wanted that pin. I relented, and threw in a magnet as well. I told Schelly that I had a friend at work who is an expert on the color pink. She told me that I should give it to her. I asked how she knew my friend was female. Quite matter-of-factly : "Because it's pink."

Duh.

Now a picture. The four guys I'll be coaching in Shanghai, at the Gaodian Bowling Center. I think I got the spelling right. Too lazy to look it up right now, though it would be but a few left clicks of the rodent.


Left to right: Tony form Oregon, Chuck from Florida, Bobby from Pennsylvania, and Danny from the District of Columbia. The shirts were a gift from me. Everybody grooves to that which is tie-dyed. Don't they? Peace, Dear Reader. Out.