4 : 28 A.M.
ya ya ya ya ya

The road to hell is paved with "trying to catch a bad guy". My mind is racing, trying to remember if I've bought any hummus using my QFC privacy invasion club card. What if it turns out terrorists happen to buy a lot of waffle mix and contact lens stuff? See you at the tribunal, I guess. I'll use my Safeway privacy invasion club card, since the cashier who gave it to me was clearly impaired in some fashion:

"Here, put aaaany information you want on the application... just remember the phone number you use."
[hands me an application as I enter my debit card]

"Okay."
[I start looking for a pen as she hits the "make debit go now" button]

"Alright you have a nice night, okay?
[she takes away the application and hands me the safeway card. I haven't filled out anything.]

"Sure."
[eyebrows]

Well, it still works, so I can only assume that she put in some random numbers as the card number. Or all zeroes, or the phone number of safeway or something. Either way, it's not going to get me on America's most wanted if I start buying a lot of pizza with my credit card.

GEe.. whad I do today? I think I started out with waffles. And... bacon. Yup. Bacon cooked until black and crumbly. A'a bacon. Butter goes on the waffles, then maple syrup goes on that. I love buttered waffle. One of the reasons I have a waffle iron is so I can eat butter. After that, TV. Good old TV. It's good for making you laugh, when it's not being migraine-inducingly insulting. Then! Laundry! Wowwww. And then a bike ride to alki beach and back, 20 miles of "on your left. On your left, sir. Sir, I'm approaching on your left. Hi. I'm on a bike and I'm thinking that since I mostly go faster than guys in shorts and black socks, I'd just go around you on your left. Oh wait, here comes a stroller coming the other way, can't. Okay, I'm passing now. By the way, the pedestrian path is the one with the little walking guy on it. That icon is supposed to be a bicycle, not a man with beach ball sized nuts swinging to and fro." After I get into the heavily trafficked parts, I go in the road. The road is where you throw your beer bottles if you're a rebel. I imagine the shoulder lanes would look like crystalline alligator skin if the street cleaner didn't come every day.

Then I was off to Victrola to watch people read out loud. Victrola is a hip espresso joint on Capitol Hill, they're into vintage bicycles and open mics and lots of guys with laptops. I was actually there to see one of Helen's friends read. Maureen is very striking, and it was fun to watch head after head go out of alignment as they passed the window she stood behind. Most of the people I heard read seemed to talk about the process of writing, in their writing. A P part of me says, "this is what they think about all day - it is an honest musing." A J part of me says, "this is pandering to an audience of people who write - an easy common denominator." Neither voice is very certain.

I get that cynicism from the decline of the dysfunctional family circus. The DFC was a photo captioning contest, but instead of a photograph, the circular image of a weekday family circus comic was used. The captions were judged by a panel of folks chosen by mr. spinn. It started out reasonably funny. People weren't exactly sure what was funny, and soon several premises became cliched and forbidden. There followed a period of very funny, very original captioning. Then captions that referred to the process of captioning, the DFC, or the judges themselves started creeping into the "green" list. Soon it seemed the majority of accepted captions referred to earlier captions, judges, or the captioning process. People ran out of originality, I guess.

Of course judges relate to judging, writers relate to writing. Would movie critics think a comedy about movie critics was funny? Hmmmm. Screenplay idea. Oh wait - it'd have to be about the movie making process. Aw, that was "Bowfinger". Boy, that movie stimulated a resounding "enh." When you start writing about writing, maybe it's time for someone to push you outside. Then you can start complaining about something else!