Vince brought home a set of Marx Brothers movies, and subsequently, the books Harpo Speaks and Groucho And Me. 

As a result, a particular speech pattern has burnt itself into my brain. 

Last night while Vince and I were making dinner, I applied the formula of the first 4 Marx Brothers movies (they're all pretty much the same plot), applied it to the HBO version of Westworld, and came up with a pretty solid treatment for season 2 of Westworld, or, if I could condense it down into 45 minutes, a passable Fringe script. 

I'm not going to spend a ton of time and money on producing Marxworld. You're welcome. Maybe a podcast. I don't know. 

IN MY MIND, IT WAS BRILLIANT. Exposed to oxygen, I'm not so sure. It was one of my Ehrlich Bachman moments. 

HEY GUESS WHAT. I bought a wristwatch for the first time in this century. The photo was awful so I added a filter. 

My commute to the new job is going to suck, so I need to be able to check the time without pulling my phone out of my purse or keeping it in my pocket. Securely stow all your personal belongings, it's going to be a bumpy ride. 

Vince and I got to sit in the back yard and enjoy the fresh air this evening. It was great. Until the ATV Brigade started using the alley behind our house for practice. 

Ok. Goodnight. 

Thrym and Sassy, bold and brassy. 

Re-learning the zigzag stitch. From right to left, you can see my progress. That gum you like is gonna come back in style, Agent Cooper. 

My neighbor Madeline is the shizznit.

i came home today to find she'd gifted me a bottle of Rowhouse Spirits Nordic Aquavit, and a new Moleskine journal. It has watercolor paper. She said, "write more Jarnsaxa."

I tried half a shot of the Aquavit. It tastes like winter and revenge. And cardamom. 

Vince and I are watching The Marx Brothers' Cocoanuts. It's interesting how the dialogue is timed out for audience reaction. 

Went to the gym with Michelle (from work, not Shelle) . I might ache tomorrow. For right now, I feel like a baller. 

I have eyes again, and I can breathe through both nostrils. It's amazing. 

EDITED TO ADD: A friend asked a question and I answered. Here's the long version. 

So, I was hanging out in a dorm room in high school, when I was a freshman and still a day student (at Hogwarts. You know) with a couple of other girls. One was new and from Korea. The other was a friend I'd known for a few years. 

The Korean girl filled up her electric kettle and broke out a few packets of Korean ramen noodles. She said they'd been sent in a care package from family in New York. This would have been 1984 or so, so getting food from New York was exotic enough, in the Philadelphia suburbs, let alone Korea. 

I have no idea what was in these ramen noodle packets. The wrappers were printed in Korean. Could have been anything. She mixed up some cups of ramen and we sat down to enjoy this delicious tasty snack. 

Had I poured gasoline down my throat and scraped a match across my tongue, I could not have been hotter. The noodles were spicy enough to scare Guy Fieri. Additionally, I could feel my skin crawling into redness as hives burned up my neck and into my scalp and face. 

These two girls were chowing down like they were eating Cheerios. The Korean girl, obviously, was used to this stuff. My other friend is Latina, and said a couple of times how great it is to eat something that's actually spicy for once.  Meanwhile, here I am with a couple of girls who are actually cool, who have this wider cultural experience,  and I was too embarrassed to admit that my white-girl Quaker Oats tastebuds and metabolism couldn't handle Korean ramen. I couldn't even ask for a glass of water, without looking like an idiot, and her electric kettle was dry. She didn't have a kitchen, and I think her kettle's water may have come from a jug. 

And, of course, stopping eating would have been even more rude. I kept eating, so I could be in cool boarding student culturally broad girl land. 

I don't remember how I got out of this. Maybe I went to the bathroom and stuck my face under the faucet. 

I haven't heard from the Korean girl in nearly 30 years, but my Latina friend still talks about how delicious those noodles were and how she wishes she could find them again. 

What's the criteria for hipsterdom? 

Vince and I went to our favorite pho place for dinner tonight. Toward the end of our meal, a young couple came in with their toddler daughter. They told the waiter they'd never had pho before. The woman said she hoped it had noodles. They were sitting behind me, so I couldn't see them. Later Vince referred to them as "that hipster couple." I scoffed and said we were way more hipster than they are. 

He said, "I don't know, the guy had a beard, funky glasses and an old man sweater, and she had tattoo sleeves." 

I said, "You're a musician, I'm a playwright, we have a podcast, and our dog is named after someone who tried to kill a sitting President. We're way more hipster." 

But now I wonder, what construes being a hipster after age 40? 

PS., I don't really think we're hipsters. 

Sometimes the voices in my head surprise me. This morning I was trying to get my shit together to leave for work and I was running a checklist in my head. 

"Glasses house keys charger earbuds phone wallet knitting no not knitting you won't have time GOD DAMN IT I WANT MY KNITTING, WHICH SIDE OF HISTORY ARE YOU ON?" 

Today I started listening to this podcast. Listen from the beginning. I promise it is 100% worth your while. 

When I tried to copy and paste this URL, I accidentally pasted the last thing I cut and pasted, which was a line from the last scene I wrote in Jarnsaxa Rising: "And now I will destroy you, and send you back to your father in very small pieces." 

I have two new thing-I-wanna-write ideas battling in my head. GET OFF MY STOVE. On my drive to work in the morning, I think about both of them at the same time. I'm polygraphamous.

CAT SCAN. 

Mo Magee is the most determined cat. She is letting me tap this out with one finger in between petting her. 

Tomorrow I have a job interview with the Bureau of Vital Statistics, in Center City. I want this job because it would put me closer to things & people that are important to me. I'm cautious because I don't want to start over with learning processes and building credibility. But, that's life. I also made a few friends and leaving them would make me sad. 

This post had been brought to you by Alteril, the over the counter megadose of tryptophan that knocks you out cold. Which is good so I can sleep now, get up early, scribble in the paper journal, work a half day and then go to the interview. 

Apropos of nothing, am I the only person who has noticed this resemblance? 

With a thrill in my head, and a pill on my tongue, dissolve the nerves that have just begun, listen to Marvin (all night long), this is the sound, of my soul...

Yeah, I had no idea it was a Marvin Gaye reference. Unless the guys in Spandau Ballet knew this guy Marvin who WOULD. NOT. SHUT. UP. 

Ok, that's enough out of me for now. 

Right now is a reasonable time to have Fear of Missing Out. 

I'm in the city where the Democratic Party just appointed its first female presidential candidate. Today hundreds of people turned away representatives of the Westboro Baptist Church from an LGBT clinic with music and colors and love, and turned the protest into a block party.  There is a ton of dissent, and that's the magic of democracy.  

Last night I stayed up till midnight, glued to a screen, watching the DNC speeches.   Today I regretted not getting enough sleep. I spent the day shackled to a screen, watching training videos for work. I was shoving the pointy ends of paper clips into my fingers to keep from falling asleep. There are so many better, more beautiful things I could have done with my day. At least I'm (technically) helping people. 

Screens aren't helping me. 

When I got home, I decided that 92 degrees was as reasonable as the weather would get before dark, and took Squeaky for a short walk (about a mile).  We outran a door to door salesgirl who was working the block (I'm perfectly happy with my energy supplier, thanks!) and went once around the local park.  The playground has a baby elephant fountain, that blasts water into the air from its trunk on hot days. Squeaky and I went over to cool off. She didn't like the shower itself, but liked being cooler, and chased the droplets splashing in the puddles. 

An African-American toddler boy was playing in the shower. The evening sun silhouetted him and turned the droplets gold. I wanted to take a picture, but I don't think it's right to take pictures of people without their permission.  He loved Squeaky. She looked at him and sniffed, and he held out his hands to her and laughed. But, he was a little shy, and Squeaky was tired.  The boy's dad and I smiled at each other. It was hot and time to go home. 

So, maybe I'm not missing out, I just need to minimize screen time. 

This is a sculpture from Roosevelt Playground in Mayfair. It's about 7 or 8 feet up on a pedestal, and I just found out that it's called The Dove Of Peace.