Handbill Handout

About 60 but overcast and blustery. Better weather to eat those short ribs.

Mid 80s, muggy but also windy. Not quite the right weather to make braised short ribs (Tex-Mex nacho style) but fortunately we aren't eating them until tomorrow when it's supposed to be 20 degrees cooler.

Low 80s (!) and sunny.  It's too early in the year for this crap.  A year ago I was in New Orleans on this day and it wasn't quite that warm (though it was raining quite a bit). What would you say if I told you that a guy got put into rehab for huffing highlighters?  You know, those brightly colored magic-marker-type things that people used when they used to read stuff on paper and couldn't just do this on a screen.  Amusing premise for a story or pathetic real-life happening?  Huh, maybe that's a game I could start playing, writing down stuff that may or may not have happened and having people guess "Amusing story premise" or "Pathetic real-live happening".   What would the prize be though?  Highlighters?  Maybe.  But why would I have those?   Not everything written here is true.  Except the weather.

High 60s, cloudy early, then sunny, then a bit overcast again. Worked from home today, went to the corner to get some dumplings for lunch from the Chinese take out place.  A guy came in there, ordered one of the lunch specials and insisted that the chicken should be sliced but not shredded.  He emphasized this point numerous times.  Did he imagine himself to be the James Bond of ordering Chinese takeout?  Shaken but not stirred?  I didn't ask.   He got his food and sat down to eat before mine was ready and he seemed satisfied so mission accomplished, Chinese restaurant staff.

Almost 60 degrees again, cloudy, rain earlier.  Clearing now. Off to see a musical performance this evening. these folks with this band opening.  Standing venue.  I'm old, it's Wednesday, what's wrong with me?  Well there ain't much else I do for fun so might as well keep doing it while I can, even as it approaches the "I can't" due to my aging frame.  I guess there's always handicapped access, or should be.  Reminded of a bumper sticker I saw in a New Orleans bar:  Old punk rockers never die, they just stand in the back.

53 degrees, cloudy with on and off rain. A guy got on my bus this morning arguing with his female companion.  She looked somewhat younger than he but I couldn't decide if she was a wife or a sibling or a daughter or a lover or a friend or niece.  The only thing that would have surprised me is if she was his granddaughter because they didn't look far enough apart in age for that.  Near as I could tell they were arguing over whether or not this bus was the "right" bus, or rather was it the right time for the bus because apparently they had used the MTA app and decided to let the first bus on the same route pass seven minutes earlier figuring they had a better chance of sitting together (true) and that the seven minute delay wouldn't morning-traffic-multiply out into something greater (always unclear but risky).  I'm not terribly interested in the voices of my fellow morning commuters so I put headphones on and dozed. They got off the bus at the same stop I d...

High 50's, maybe a degree short of 60 and partly cloudy or partly sunny depending on your point of view. I heard a story (unverified) that the term always used to be "partly cloudy" until 50 years ago when the New York World's Fair committee asked local news outlets to start using the term "partly sunny" because they felt it encouraged more people to come out to the fair.  To them "partly cloudy" sounded like "oh no, it might rain" while "partly sunny" abolished any precipitation from one's thoughts.  It's a story too good for me to want to debunk so I'll just retell it because it makes the world more interesting. In completely unrelated news I think Doritos has either changed the formula for the powder that they put on cool ranch Doritos or that my palate has changed and I no longer like it.  Either way I'll have to start taking a different bag of complimentary chips when the guys at the ferry offer me one ...

Mid 60s and sunny today Washington and Toronto just went to overtime setting a record for the NHL with 18 first round games going to OT.  That's entertainment.

Mid 50s, drizzle on and off. First local asparagus at the market today.  Some pea shoots too.  It's coming.

Cloudy and low 50s. Making summer plans .  Let's see how much of them actually become real.  Been a while since we batted a thousand.

Mid 60s and sunny after a cool and rainy morning. So today is sort of like St. Patrick's Day for people who like marijuana it seems. It's also the anniversary of the Bay of Pigs incident, the Columbine massacre, the Deepwater Horizon explosion and Adolf Hitler's birthday. That's a lot of baggage for one day.  No wonder people want to get high.

Cool today, low 50s.  Partly cloudy. One of our cab drivers in Nashville asked us about what New York was like.  Nashville is a town with pretty limited public transit and despite the fact that everyone drives or uses cabs or car services traffic is pretty light.  When I told him that in over a quarter century of working in Manhattan I had never driven myself to work he was incredulous.  He said "So what, ya'll ride the bus?  Everyone ride the bus?  I don't even know HOW to ride the bus!".  I said no, a lot of people take the subway which I'm sure induced some Death Wish/Warriors horrible fantasy.

Sunny and low 60s today. One of the many good things about travel is that it breaks you out of your daily routine.  I can only speak for myself but in a typical week one gets into a series of habits and gets through each day executing one behavior after the other without much thought or being fully present.  Get in a car or on a train or on a plane and get yourself somewhere else and all those supporting habits are pulled away and you're forced to mentally show up each day and do things differently. It's so much harder to do if you never go anywhere.   So keep moving while you still can.

Low 80s today.  Might rain. The central time zone is my favorite time zone.  It's good for sports; the games are over by 11pm or earlier generally speaking.   Gives one extra breathing room between the end of an event and bedtime.   Likewise prime time TV.  Chicago,  New Orleans and Nashville are all Central time cities and all fun places . And that's what passes for a hot take around here.

High 80s,  hot but not humid.   Bit of a breeze. Had hot chicken and played with dogs.  Life is good today.

Mid 80s and mostly sunny here today.

Cooler today, mid 60s . Hitting the road for a few days.  Much needed break.  Hopefully all my teeth (original and replacement) stay in my head through the trip and for another month before further work is done on a replacement. Updates, cryptic or otherwise may follow.

Low 70's and sunny in the late afternoon.  Rained earlier but that seems to have passed. Quiet commutes due to the semi-holiday week, unremarkable workdays.  The bulk of life is made up of so-what? and that's not a bad thing.  Take everything you remember and sort it into the good and the bad.  See which list is longer.  Memorable is overrated.  So-what? drifts into the ether and is forgotten and that's just fine by me.

Warmest day of the year so far.  High 70s.  Hope I don't have to turn on the AC to sleep. Got good family medical news today which with so many of us getting older makes it a good day.  Long holiday weekend coming up which is a cherry on the sundae. Kurt Vonnegut said to make sure you notice when things go well, so I am.  Well exactly what he said was ""I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."  So here's a written murmur.

It was a cool morning.  Mid 70's and sunny right now. A lot of us are watching the Yankees home opener in our offices.  Was exciting for a while, Pineda had a no hitter into the 7th.  I could hear people in other offices cheering with every pitch, middle aged men getting as excited as children.  I envy them a little bit.  After all the years of watching sports as a fan and also working in the industry I can't work up that level of excitement any more.  The thing about sports is that in the end you wind up disappointed  an overwhelming amount of the time.  While that makes the few times you aren't all the more memorable to me that's like saying you should keep beating your head against the wall because it feels so good when you stop. Seems to work for millions of people though,

Warmer and sunny,  mid 60s. I got nuthin else ,  gonna watch Match Game.

42 years ago yesterday I got hit by a car.  No big deal, got a concussion and a torn thigh muscle and spent a weekend in the hospital.   I celebrated the date by getting a root canal today,  good times. Sunny and mid 50s today, warmer tomorrow they say.  We'll see.

Chilly and grey this morning, so warmer than gray but certainly not spring like yet.  That's supposed to happen next week. I saw an item that someone is making a movie about Hugh Hefner and I thought, wow, Hugh Hefner is still alive right?  Googled it and he is, assuming the Wikipedia and my math are right he's 91. Man, who woulda thought he'd outlive Prince?

Chilly today, though interestingly the day also features summer-style thunderstorms with high winds and lightning. Don Rickles died today.  We all have an expiration date.   So long Don. Lincoln in the Bardo.  George Saunders is a clever writer, technically proficient and yet I just don't connect emotionally with what he puts out.  He writes nice stories that are quick reads and pass the time enjoyably but there's no emotional connection or "I want to read it again" reaction like I get from the reading I enjoy the most. So there's today's Invisible Book Review.   Maybe that's the next title for this thing, the Invisible Review of Books.  If you review a book and nobody reads it did you really review it?  Better go on Goodreads otherwise it's Schrodinger's Book Review.

Low 60s and sunny today.  The morning was foggy. The room was spinning today, a hive of activity and yet none of it changed the shape or the content of the room, it was at the end the same as it had been . I was about to type the word "maybe" but uncertainty doesn't really have a place in the room, it's the one place where you know two things:  the weather outside the room and the utter implacable existence of everything in the room. Tomorrow could be different.  

It rained a lot last night but now the sun's fighting to get through. It's not too cold.  Fiftyish. Angry birds really aren't that angry.  It's all marketing. Turn off notifications for this post, it ain't gonna get any better.  The room is blank today, the number of exits remains the same but the stuff on the walls has been taken out and I'm not sure who did it.  Maybe the mystery will resolve itself tomorrow.

It's supposed to rain.  That happens in April from what I remember. This is supposed to be the part where I note that some professional baseball teams started their regular season yesterday and a bunch more are doing it today and gee whiz isn't it great when it's all ahead of you and hope and blah blah whatever that's been done a hundred thousand times and mostly badly.  It's entertainment, not a metaphor for life.  It is enough to sit outside on warm days and watch men mostly fail and be entertained by it. Gonna rain tonight though.  Rain staves off the failing for a while.

Windy yesterday.   Warmer and sunny today.  Mid 50s.  Might have even hit 60, I'm not going to look it up. Yesterday was April Fool's Day which was a lot funnier before businesses felt compelled to put out zany press releases.  Everything becomes a money making scam sooner or later in America. Filed my taxes today.  Had to pay some on a net basis between Federal and State.  Living where I live I know I'm supposed to be outraged at somebody or other but instead I thought hey thanks for the roads and stuff,  I'm lucky to be in this club called the First World and I'll pay my share.   This makes me  a Bad American in the eyes of many.  Oh well. It's comfortable in the room today which is good, there are fewer exits then there used to be.