The tag doth protest too much, methinks

Marshall's now sells bow ties. This is both great (cheap purveyor!) and slightly distressing (they're that popular now?). Also, this diminishes the chances that I will not, in fact, turn all my liquid assets into haberdashery. I mean, it's bad enough that I just had to buy yet another tie rack to accommodate my bow ties. Surely I do not need a discount enabler. So far, I've only bought two, which I think shows remarkable restraint. I should treat myself. With something other than yet another bow tie.

At any rate, I got the first tie home and then noticed the tag on it. It claims three things about the accessory I just bought, to wit:


That's right: Relaxed. Colorful. Cool. I'm pretty sure that only the middle adjective there is objectively true. Though, I suppose it is more relaxed than, say, black tie. Yet, most people do not, I think, associate bow ties with the free-and-easy set. 

But, what do y'all think, does the tie I'm wearing there actually count as Relaxed. Colorful. Cool.?

Dear Wegmans

So, I'm a fan of your grocery. No, really. You've got class, as they say. Plus, your prices are generally lower than Price Chopper, which is nice but also delightfully ironic. I mean, sure I could without the brick floors. You do realize that people are pushing shopping carts over that, right? You do know the sound that shopping carts make on bricks, don't you? It feel sometimes like I'm not so much pushing a cart as standing along side a rocket launch.

But, I'm getting off-topic. Here's the thing: chewy brownies are, for lack of a better term, a thing. Thanks to the world of box brownie mixes, there's a standard for what "chewy" brownies are like. They are dense. Moist. Fudgy. They taste almost, though not exactly, undercooked. If you'd like, I'll make you a pan and let you try them. Why do I bring this to your attention and offer you, a corporate supermarket, a basket of home-baked goodies? Because, clearly, you are misinformed.

You see these "Fudgy & Chewy Mini Brownie" you sell? They are neither fudgy nor chewy. The crumb is all wrong. They're also quite dry. In fact, I'm going so far as to claim they're actually not brownies at all. They are topless mini cupcakes. And I say that as a lover of both the fudgy and the cakey brownie. But you're not dealing with cakey brownies here. No, these are straight up chocolate cake.

I'm rather disappointed in you. Not least because chocolate cake doesn't really go well with the ice cream I bought. I mean, yeah, cake and ice cream is a classic, I get that. But if I what I really want to do is create a sort of fudgy-orangey composite in my off brand creamsicle ice cream, cake just isn't going to cut it.

So, please, from here on out, please rename this product so that others do not fall prey to the lie. Because, this time, it's cake. The brownie is a lie.

sic semper procrastinantibus

A couple of Sundays ago, I turned the corner onto my street to see that, almost overnight, the leaves had turned. One tree in particular sported leaves that I'd never seen before. The green didn't turn that bright Crayola five-crayon red. Nor did they fade into that washed out yellow that reminds me that everything, everywhere ends while also hinting that, at least this time, it's all temporary. No, instead, there was an entire tree full of white peaches.


Do you know this fruit? Its skin is almost, but not quite bright white, but not mixed enough to be called cream. The top, though, is a rich, vibrant red and, right where the two meet there's a faint halo of yellow. That is what the leaves looked like. An entire 30-foot tree full of them. I thought, I should grab a picture of that, but I was coming home from Church and was snacky.

I had the same thought the next couple of days as I turned home again after my jaunts to school or out shopping. But I couldn't get my act together to snap a photo. Then, last Sunday, they were...gone. As in, Saturday night there were some on the ground, but it was still mostly full but the next afternoon, not a single leaf on the tree. I missed my shot, it seems.

But, this post isn't entirely about Autumn foliage, though I could go on and on about it. This missed photo op reminded me of that situation where you think, "I should talk to so-and-so, it's been a long time." And then you don't, and then it becomes a longer time and then that makes it awkward. So you put it off, which means a longer time and even more awkward. And then, eventually, it gets to the point where it's just too much to try and connect without bringing up the weird gap, which there really was no reason for. And then, if you're me, you remember that you don't even really have a good excuse for taking so long. In fact, even if you did touch base, you'd have so little to say that it'd make you wonder about what, precisely, you ARE doing with all that time of yours.

Which is kinda what I'm feeling like about my blog here. I've never been a super prolific poster, but then I dropped off and I tried feebly a couple of times to get back in the game, but never really seemed to be able to. But, I'm going to try and keep going. After all, Petra really wants to save endangered blogs. And I have a hard time saying no to her. Well, no to anybody, but especially to people who I still, after years, am eagerly trying to impress.

So, I'm going to be posting stuff, I reckon. I warn you, though, it'll be pretty mundane, as my days are almost indistinguishable and go like this: Sleep in later than I would like. Go to class. Come home. Read something that I understand only about 40% of. Question my decision to do grad school. Burn dinner. Watch five hours of Netflix. Stay up too late.

It's not a wild and crazy ride around these parts, that's for sure. But I'll make it look snappier. And funnier. And much less tv-riddled. Or, at least, that's my Thanksgiving resolution.

Happy Armistice!



So, it's a homemade (tatted) poppy. And it doesn't really look much like a poppy at all, other than the red and the vaguely flower-like quality to it. But there you have it.


Oh, and I know I've kinda fallen off on here. But I'm coming back. Promises.