Don't worry, be sleepy.

J can't sleep lately. She says it's a combination of new pressures and old worries that will never go away. The girl is a worrier. It doesn't bother me really, but at 5 this morning she was tapping away on her computer in bed doing god knows what, worrying about something, keeping me awake worrying about her.

What causes people to worry? I've always thought it's a waste of time. In order to prevent myself from worrying, I'll think about something, then put it away to think about in detail later if I absolutely have to. I find that the solutions to many of my problems only arise when I've stopped worrying about them. I liken it to trying to remember something. You stop trying to remember it for awhile, and as soon as you forget what you're trying to remember, you remember what it was you'd forgotten.

Does this mean that nothing's ever worth worrying about? Probably not, but life is too short and my memory has massive holes in it anyway. Much of the time, these solutions come to mind in a semi-lucid dream state at 5 in the morning.

Actually, maybe that's why J was up this morning...maybe she wasn't worrying at all. It could be that she was remembering something out of the blue that would solve her problem, whatever it was.

I'm getting the feeling this blog entry is suffering from a lack of sleep. G'night.

Buy those Girl Scout cookies while you can.

The lesson I've learned this past week is that the big life decisions you worry a hell of a lot about beforehand usually beget a peaceful aftermath. There's something pacifying about making a decision and letting that be that.

I've also learned that Girl Scout cookies are only available for a limited time and you have to grab the opportunity while it's still around. This theory can be applied to life, but I'm too tired to make an analogy.

I did make one earlier: someone asked me how I felt today, and I could only say that it's like getting through a bunch of rapids in a solo canoe and finally being able to float with the current as it turns into a long, placid river. He didn't know what I meant. But that's what it's like.

You're liable to figure me out.

Back from the D.R., and here are two pics from last week:





Thanks to Sara and Dave for the delectable sushi dinner last night. And special thanks to Sara for providing us with 24 hours with which to out ourselves before she did the honors. We're all gonna be Allens!

Seeya!

Taking a short hiatus. It'll be about ten days long, and it'll coincide with our tropical vacation on the east coast of the Dominican Republic.

As much as I'd love to fiddle with the BlackBerry and update the blog from my beach chair, it's about as likely as me getting a tattoo of a naked, corndog-humping native american priestess on my leg:



Not very likely.

Everything makes me sick.

I'm not saying I'm sick of everything. I'm saying everything I eat makes me sick.

Actually, let me revise that; I'm being dramatic. Everything that should be good for me makes me sick. Burgers, pizza, chocolate, and other nutritional neutron bombs always make me feel fantastic. Chips, dip, soda, candy, and fried chicken? Tip top. Broccoli, melon, milk, tomatoes, and fish? Gastrointestinal Tilt-a-Whirl.

Why does this happen? Aren't you supposed to trust your body when it reacts adversely to something you put into it? Is it any wonder my diet is shameful? You could theorize that I've eaten so badly for so long that my body has simply gotten used to it. You could also theorize that what's good for one person isn't good for another. But my doctor would most likely theorize that my cholesterol level indicates that I should pipe down, grow up, and eat my goddam broccoli.

I'd say it speaks volumes that my favorite food item in the world is something known as a Garbage Plate. It was concocted in Rochester, NY, by a greek gourmand named Nick Tahou, and he's something of a legend in my hometown. It consists of a bed of either baked beans or macaroni salad on one half of the plate, homefries on the other, and either two cheeseburger patties or two hot dogs (no buns) piled on it. As the coup de grace, they slop on some Texas-style hot sauce, onions, ketchup, and mustard. And if you're feeling especially masochistic, you can sop up the grease with your complimentary slab of stale bread. Fantastic. Not good for you by a long shot, but it's ambrosia.

Witness the beauty:



Just look at that. Holy Hell.

Our Way to Fall

There was this summer a bunch of years ago when I was off from school, my parents were away, I'd just turned 21, my job was flexible (I was the ice cream man), and I first met certain people who would be in my life forever.

The year was 1995, and we spent many nights awake, smoking Camel Lights, laying in fields and golf courses, watching fireflies and listening to trains until the sky brightened and the sun rose. It was glorious. And the soundtrack to that summer was an integral part of it -- listening to that music takes me right back to that time. We'd sit up in my room and watch the light outside change until it was the same shade as the walls, listening endlessly to Sonic Youth, Pavement, Neil Young, Jeff Buckley, Jane's Addiction, Grant Lee Buffalo, Morphine, Luna, Sebadoh, Leonard Cohen, Smashing Pumpkins, Phish, Weezer, and Nick Drake. For my money, it doesn't get any better than Nick Drake.

But the music that's accompanied more ups and downs in my life than any other is by a dorky band of Jews from New Jersey called Yo La Tengo. Wherever I am, wherever I go, Yo La Tengo will always remind me of people and places and crazy, sad, euphoric, and truly remarkable times.

So last week I got an email from a friend who I'd met for the first time that summer, telling me she's interviewing Yo La Tengo for the music paper she writes for. We share the same feelings for YLT, so she asked me what kinds of questions she could possibly ask them without sounding like a sycophant. When you've made that much of an emotional connection with the music of people you've never met, it's virtually impossible to prevent yourself from coming across as a sycophant, as she truthfully pointed out.

I thought the best question might be to turn it around and ask them what kind of emotional connection they've made to music over the years. Who's made music that keeps coming back to them, what can't they stay away from, what songs meant the most to them in dire times and times of ecstatic liberation? It's a question I think most people can answer, so whoever's reading this, leave a comment. It's interactive time!

And Amanda, let me know what they say.

The orthopedic PowerPoint code.

After the total bummer that was yesterday's blog, I wondered how I might keep people tuned in.

Then I thought of this weird thing that happens among orthopedic surgeons. Whenever they present a PowerPoint lecture to other orthopedic surgeons with graphs and x-rays and things like that, they usually include a ridiculous picture with a strange caption that has nothing to do with their lecture, just to break people up and keep them interested. They're a jokey bunch and they like to have fun -- picture suburban tiki parties in the 50s, and you're close. The joke slides look something like this:



There could be a few different captions for this one. If it's your average orthopedic surgeon, the caption might read "After baking cookies on his first day of retirement, Dr. Smig rewards himself with a cigarette on the porch." If it's a politically inclined orthopedic surgeon, the caption would say something like "Dr. Smig demonstrates our current foreign policy." Those guys give it their best shot.

Anyway, it felt weird to write something unrelentingly serious yesterday, like I wasn't following the orthopedic PowerPoint code by slipping in a wacky photo somewhere along the way.