So, right now, a couple things are happening. It's the winter solstice. There's a full moon, and there's a complete lunar eclipse going on outside. The moon is right out there, on a clear night I can see it from my back porch.

But there is also, tonight, for the first night in a week, an impenetrable barrier of clouds between my porch and that eclipse.

I feel like this does a good job acting as representative of my entire life.

98

My great-grandmother just died. My dad’s grandma. She was 98 years old, so it wasn’t a huge surprise. She couldn’t remember much anymore, she had all the aches and pains of old age. But I know my grandpa is heartbroken. Both his parents are dead. My dad seems fine, he says she’s better off now. I don’t know if he’s serious or not. He’s not a sharer.

I remember we’d go over to their house every Saturday for like the first decade of my life. Every time we did, the pair of them would foist upon us oatmeal pies, Pepsi, sandwiches, any food they had on hand. Did everybody get enough to eat? they’d ask as we started to leave, hours later. It started to be a joke in our family (we weren’t blessed with a lot of comedians).

The two of them were born almost the same time. They saw World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, JFK, Nixon, the Civil Rights Movement, the moon landing, the awesome 1970’s, the horrifying 1980’s. If you’ve seen that much, you shouldn’t die, you should just sort of live on forever as a wise old hermit or something. You shouldn’t slowly break down, your mind and your eyesight and your hearing and your bones going one by one till you can’t barely breathe on your own. It isn’t right.

I didn’t find out why my great-grandparents insisted on pushing candy, cookies, cans of soda on every unsuspecting person who entered their home until my great-grandma died. Her husband, who was always Papa Moody to the great-grandchildren, didn’t have anything growing up. Poor family, war on, stock market crash. Once he had a family he swore that none of them would ever be hungry. Not as long as he drew breath.

So there it is. Maybe it’s sappy but I needed to write it. We’ll miss her.

Horoscope, abridged

Today my horoscope warns that, since the past few days have been going so smoothly, I'm due for a fall.

Thinking about what my horoscope apparently considers "smooth", I can only imagine I'll be set on fire, dropped in a dumpster, and shipped to Alaska.

Molesting English.

Okay. Listen. People who edit WikiPedia. The phrase "quintessential urban zeitgeist" is nonsense. From top to bottom, floor to ceiling, it's a meaningless trio of words. If I see something like that again, I will find you.

Paid For By

Sometimes there are days when what you really need to do is find some ridiculous bubble gum music, get a snack, and do anything you can to drown out the voice in your head constantly screaming you've made all the wrong decisions in life.

And for days like that, I recommend Pepsi.

Dear My Horoscope

I give up, horoscope. I really wanted to stick it out. See what happened. But I am not that strong. I give up.

I am not "mild mannered." I am angry and sad and lonely and frustrated and manic and irritated and a whole host of other shadowy emotions but I am certainly not mild-mannered.

Gah.

What the Hell

I don't want this to become the blog where I complain about cookies, but I just opened another pack of Nutter Butters and found another one put together wrong.

What the Hell! This kind of shit never happened when Bush was President.

A True Event!

Today I bought a bag of Nutter Butters.

This was an event. It was not the titular event. That would be a pretty shitty event.

But then I opened the bag of Nutter Butters. And as I was eating them, the delicious peanut butter thingies, I discovered something. Someone stacked the cookies wrong around the delicious filling. Now. I'm not a picky man (this is called a lie, but it is necessary for narrative convention and the natural flow of the paragraph). One or two incorrect Nutters, I can understand. But every single goddamn one of these quarter-shaped things was effed up the ay.

Either the robotic arms that have replaced Traditional Old-Fashioned Cookie Assembling in our National Snack Factories need serious recalibrating, or the tiny little fingers of the child slaves who put these things together in a peanut-filled shack in Tijuana need someone to wipe their eyes, because they can't see through the tears of broken dreams and cookie dust and either way it's fucking up my snack.

And that's not what America means to me.

Explanation; also the rapture

I wrote the first, what, paragraph of a post, but it wasn't funny so I deleted it. Today's mood =/= funny.

To make up for it, here's the web page the post was going to be about. Keep a close eye on it -- apparently we've reached "fasten your seat belt" status

Daily Horoscope

"You seem to be a specialist at relationships, and you're very sensitive to the ups and downs in your own. But today you may wonder if people love you less than they did before. This is rather an odd question, but another one may be hiding underneath. Do you really have to make such a big effort in order to be loved? Only you can answer that question."

Right where I live, horoscope.

You didn't sign up for this, feel free to leave.

Did you ever wake up in the morning and wonder if you've made all the wrong decisions? You realize that nothing actually happens the way you want it to, and things you're sure will happen don't, and nothing really makes sense, and all of a sudden it hits you, you haven't been happy in a while and you're pretty sure it's gonna be a while before you are again.


I don't know. Just a thought.

Daily Horoscope

"You're the secret jewel, Libra. You're apt to be extremely loving and devoted to those who recognize this in you. There is no reason to shrink back and hide. Put on your royal air and flaunt your stuff. Your peaceful, charming nature shines through, and you radiate the god-like qualities you have within. Whoever shares your company tonight is extremely lucky. Make sure this person is worthy of you."

Oh, horoscope.

You have no idea what you've just done.

Daily Horoscope

"You will feel as though your back is against the wall, Libra. And this particular wall is impeding your progress. Others will ask you questions and ask for your opinion. You may want to tell them the "truth" as you understand it, and you could be tempted to do so humorously. Humor isn't your forte right now. You can always try, but for now a sensible approach is the best one."

Even my horoscope doesn't think I'm funny.

Action Comics #1

"Are you Superman?" asked the old ladies in Health Services as I put on my coat. I looked down at my t-shirt, the faded Superman logo.

"No," I wanted to say, "I'm Batman and this is my disguise."

Daily Horoscope

"The way you act when you first meet people is typical of Libra. What is it that you do? You try to teach them something. It seems that you always have a lesson to impart, making you prone to giving advice when it isn't always wanted. Make an effort to accept the points of view of others for a change."

Have I ever tried to teach any of you a lesson? Except that I hate you?

I guess that's like a lesson. It's the most important lesson, really.

Genesis

A long time ago, God realized all this empty space was making his dinner guests uncomfortable. So he said some magic words and made the universe. But everything was too plain for God, who likes a little bit of flair, so he popped some bones under the ground and made ‘em look real old by soaking ‘em in tea for a couple hours.

Everything was truckin’ along pretty well, but then God ran out of DVD’s to watch and he realized the elephants and the spiders weren’t gonna get on the ball and make any movies, so he decided to whip up some humans. He made them naked at first -- which got a big laugh from the boys up in heaven -- and they trucked around farming dirt and which things were food and which things were rocks for like a thousand years. Then one of the bastards figured out what boats were.


The humans spread everywhere, going all over the place, because God had forgotten to put the sea monsters in to keep ‘em in place. God also realized that he’d forgotten to take out Australia, which is what he’d used to test all the animals, and that is where we get the kangaroo.
Everything went okay for a while, until it turned out that humans were basically melting the planet like it was a five year old’s dropped ice cream cone, but not too many of them cared, and God realized probably he shouldn’t have made the top and the bottom of the planet out of ice, and he probably shouldn’t have flooded the world way back when because he got sick of the scenery and wanted to see what happened, because that kind of shit only works once.

Daily Horoscope

"People and situations that you were counting on may suddenly run into opposition today, Libra. Don't be surprised if the seat you're sitting on is suddenly pulled out from under you. Make sure you have some extra padding, since it could be a rather hard fall. More than likely, however, you will be able to take it in stride."

 One wonders how I'll manage to take it all in stride if I'm sitting in a chair that's just been pulled out from under me.

Reasons I Suck

I would be the worst Green Lantern ever. I have no willpower. "Start a blog, Tyler, I mean, I know you'll forget it exists in three days or so because it took you fifteen tries to remember my name, but but but!"

So I do, naming it the most passive-agressive thing I can because I am too lazy to be active-aggressive, even though I have more than enough to do without typing a disappointing 100-word letdown and pressing "publish."

This is what sex is going to be like, I can tell.

And I went and found a picture of the Green Lanterns to illustrate my point. God.

Shut Up Meredith #1

Kesha, Drake, Rihanna, Katy Perry. Why is everyone in pop music so horny?