I was going to write this as an email to Tom, but this message (seeing as this is a week's worth of hypergraphia exploding in a Saturday blast) is probably better living its life as a One Post Wonder post. So, if anything else amazing happens today, I'll add it at the end. 

Ever since the Dead Milkmen's album Beelzebubba came out, I have loved the (song?) piece of whimsy that is Stewart.  if you're not familiar with it, this is it.

I don't know why I love it. It's hilarious, contagious, and picturesque. Do I need another reason? It's a satirical exploration of narrowminded xenophobia, even more necessary today than it was when it was originally released in the era of George Bush I. 

When I went away to college, the Beelzebubba album made my homesickness for the Greater Philadelphia area easier to cope with. My friends and I used to sing "Punk Rock Girl" at the tops of our lungs, walking around the Frasier-Crane-esque Back Bay area, wrapping our lips and tongues around those South Street vowel roller coasters as a way of pushing off the stifling snobbery of cold, concrete Boston. 

Flash forward to a couple of years later when I worked at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire. One of our dialect exercises was to take something we already knew by heart and "translate" it to Renfaire language and dialect (I say Renfaire because I'm 100% positive there are huge differences between 16th century English language and what gets used at faires, no matter how historically acurate they may try to be, I just can't cite those differences right now). One of the characters in the summer of 1991 was named Stuart, and my friend Gina and I used to rant a translated version of "Stewart" to him. he would look at us like we were completely insane. We asked him, "Have you e'er heard of those bards of the Shire of Brotherly Love, who name themselves after the ghosts of dairy farmers?" He said in that in sooth and faith, no tale of such bards had ever been introduced to him.

To this day, 25 years later, when I don't feel well, and especially if I'm nauseous, if I need to soothe my brain, I occupy myself by trying to remember the Renfaire translated version of "Stewart," that Gina and I would tell to this poor guy when we had gate duty together on hot summer afternoons.  We never made it much further than the burrow owl business. I seem to recall it was something like this:

Know ye, Stuart, well I love thee. Thou are unlike all others in this shire. 

Misunderstand me not, sir, they are fine people, good English stock, but they are content to recline, enjoy a Punch and Judy entertainment, quaff a mug of ale. But they do not know, Stuart, what the Spaniards will do to this shire! 

Know you young John of Wurster? He delivereth messages throughout the Shire and rings the town crier's bell. This youth hails from another land, and some say he inhaleth the smoke of the poppy, but this I believe not. When the day came that he had ten years passed, he begged old Wurster for the gift of a burrow owl. "Father," he said, "nothing more could my heart desire, for all the years I might live." 

Some nights past, I ventured out at half ten, to find young John of Wurster staring into the moonlit branches of the birch. "What brings you hence? " I asked, "No youth should be out this late, hath some madness gripped you?" thinking of the tales of the poppy that dog this lad's heels. "My burrow owl," he cried, "I seek it in the night."  "God's hairy butt," I cried, "know you not that a burrow owl liveth in a hole in the ground? For what reason else, in heaven, on earth, or in the fires below, would it be so named?"

And so, good Stuart friend, do you think such a lad would know what the Spaniards wil do to this shire? 

And, yeah, that's about as far as we got. Mostly because the poor guy would find a reason to run away from us. 

A few years ago, during a particularly bad bout with a virus, I started trying to translate it into actual Shakespearean sonnet form.  Iambic pentameter is hard. I had gotten up early feeling lousy, showed up for work on time, tried to hang in there for an hour, and made it to the toilet just in time to vomit up my entire viscera. They sent me home, but I had to take the train. The gentle swaying of the car and blur of the outside did not help things, so concentrating on translating Stewart into iambic pentameter gave me something to hang onto so I wouldn't become another SEPTA vomit statistic. I don't think I made it past the first two lines.  

Since then, if I feel sick or crappy, this is my thing to concentrate on. That and translating this into Spanish:

This is really hard, because the word for "female dog" in spanish is perra, which has two syllables, and "mom" is mamá, also two syllables. 

HEY, I DON'T TELL YOU WHAT TO THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU'RE TRYING TO PASS OUT BECAUSE YOU FEEL LOUSY. 

When I'm tired and frustrated, Stewart pops up in my brain, as I'm sure Pavlov's dogs could hear phantom bells ringing when they were hungry.  It's not going away. When I have a long day of repeating the obvious to people who just don't get it, in the back of my mind, a voice is screaming, "THEY'RE GONNA BUILD LANDING STRIPS FOR GAY MARTIANS, I SWEAR TO GOD!!!" 

My point is, one of these days, I really want to sit down with Tom Boutell (for his experience with iambic pentameter), a copy of Charles' Onions' Shakespeare Glossary, 3rd Edition, and translate Stewart into the Shakespearean poetic saga that I've been craving since 1991. That is a bone my brain wants to chew on.

I wonder, if I wrote a really carefully-worded letter on letterhead in real ink to Rodney Anonymous, he'd read a proposal allowing me to adapt Stuart into a 45 minute Shakespearean play for Fringe production? 

Shit, he'd probably say yes if I tweeted it, but I don't tweet-propose.

(Why 45 minutes? Come on, there's no point in dragging that story out past 45 minutes.)

But it can't be Spaniards that the narrator is afraid of. It would have to be queers or whatever they would have been called in that time period. I think it has to be that the narrator is in love with Stewart, but can't deal with it because of his own internalized homophobia. 

OK, that's enough out of me for right now. 

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.