Word.

My Screamy Headache Man T-Shirt and I are back in the gym for my first time in exactly two weeks

(I didn’t say “the” first time because he may have been here without me in that time. I have more important things to keep track of than the comings and goings of my leisure apparel. Besides, trying to talk to him is a frustrating exercise in unproductivity; as you might surmise from his rather unambiguous name, it’s hard to get anything out of him but blood-curdling screams about his damn headache. Over and over. All over the Internet. And nobody should have to put up with that.)

Anyway, I’d hoped that my energy-chemical-explosion pre-workout shake might have an effect on my headache pain—which is significantly lessened today—but all it’s done is made me have to pee more. I worked out doing things that kept me relatively vertical—mostly back and shoulder stuff—so I’m at least hoping to have crippling workout pain—which is the pain I like—in those areas when I wake up tomorrow. After getting up to pee six times in the night, of course.

On this holy and widely celebrated National Grammar Day,

let us pause—using the punctuation of our choice—to give thanks that the holiday’s name has been shortened from the National Violent, Racist Grammar Day that was established in the bygone era of this venerable childhood grammar primer that up with which my mom grew.

LITANY OF COMPLAINTS:

• My supposed-to-be-awesome new T-shirt has an owl saying WHOM on the chest, but the printing and the shirt are almost the same color so you can’t even see the graphics and I’m too lazy to mail it back so I’m now the proud owner of a $20 new gray T-shirt with a hidden pronornithology pun on it.
• It has an owl! Whom says WHOM!
• Oops.
• WHO says WHOM.
• Stupid owl.
• Our tech-week/opening-weekend marathon is over, and I’m already missing the show and the people and the mysterious drafty feeling I have during the bows.
• But I accidentally called my wife the wrong name today on stage.
• So maybe it’s time for a little break.
• We also had a catcaller in the audience today who yelled something about our “winkies.”
• It was probably one of those stupid owls.
• We have only six more times to bring this wonderful show to life.
• That’s 12 if you count in buttcheeks though.
• When I got home just now, Dad was listening to country gospel music on Alexa.
• Where did I go wrong when I raised him?
• The music was probably sung by owls.
• I unceremoniously and no doubt rudely told Alexa to play classical music instead.
• BECAUSE I’M A HEARTLESS TYRANT.
• WITH GOOD TASTE.
• Not like those damn owls.
• And their damn pronouns.
• CAN I GET A WHOM YEAH!

subornation of perjury (n):

the crime of persuading a person to commit perjury, defined as the swearing of a false oath to tell the truth in a legal proceeding, whether spoken or written. See illustration.

1-Day #ChristmasCountdown: Morning

I am squatting rather indecorously in my driveway as I type this in preparation for my second three-mile run in three weeks

That’s why the curvy venty thingie behind me seems so far above my head. Or I’m just not wearing my 4 1/4" Balenciaga stilettos. WHICH IS IT?

Fun fact: The muscles on the insides of your legs—the very ones I’m stretching as I awkwardly type this—that pull your legs toward your body are collectively called adductors. The muscles on the outsides of your legs that pull them away from your body are collectively called abductors. ADDuctors ADD your legs to your body; ABductors ABDUCT your legs from your body.

There. Now that’s something you know. You can also infer—though I’m really not in any way implying this—that my running posse isn’t able to join me today so I have nobody holding me accountable to start my three-mile run, which technically started 54 minutes ago.

Let me tell you about that time I sat and watched paint dry ...

It's National Punctuation Day!

Since I have no punctuation platters, I'm celebrating by posting a picture of our grammar plate in the hopes that it will be a catalyst for launching a National Grammar Plate Day. In the mean time, here's a friendly Punctuation Day reminder from me to you: You are issued a mere 25 exclamation points each diacritical year. That's two per month plus a birthday wildcard. Use your exclamation points judiciously. Once they're gone, you are rendered exclamation-pointless until the beginning of the next diacritical year. If you get convicted of exclamation abuse in that time, you'll serve a very long sentence.

Ahem.

It’s my first run ...

1. since my knee blowout at the NewBo half marathon almost three weeks ago
2. without wearing sunglasses
3. in a shirt off of which I haven’t cut the sleeves
4. pretending to care if I end sentences with prepositions
5. sporting my new haircut
6. at

Today be Talk Like a Pirate Day! For realz, Matey.

A pirate walks into a bar. The bartender says "Do you know you have a steering wheel coming out of your crotch?" The pirate says "Aaaarrrrrgh! It's drivin’ me nuts!"

Don't say that ... it's "whom."

There is a moment near the end of The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?—Edward Albee's 2002 play exploring the outer limits of love, fidelity, morality and tolerance—where the emotional crisis at the center of the narrative boils over into such catastrophic levels of heartache and rage and such Greek-tragedy levels of destruction and retribution that the first time I saw it—and the second time and the third time and the fourth time—the audience collectively gasped to the point of almost screaming and then sat rigidly and almost palpably silent until well after the final stage light had extinguished and the last emotionally drained actor had silently moved into position for the company bow.

It's one of my two favorite—if there even exists a favorite-not favorite continuum of cataclysmic emotional destruction—moments in modern theater ... the other being the last three seconds of David Mamet's Oleanna before the stage becomes abruptly, dreadfully dark.

Though he's largely a genre unto himself, it's difficult to pigeonhole Edward Albee as a playwright. He wrote or adapted about 30 works that epitomized movements like Theatre of the Absurd and brought popular works of fiction like The Ballad of the Sad Café and Breakfast at Tiffany's to the stage and screen.

My favorite Albee works—Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (embodied in this photo by the incomparable Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor playing the American-experiment patriarch and matriarch George and Martha), The Play About the Baby and The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?—all share the format of four characters on stage and one character who may or may not exist offstage. It's an intriguing conceit, and one that keeps bringing me back to these three plays for my own contemplation. In an odd double standard, though, I can't stand reading them; the characters for me seem to have no depth on the page but they grant a glorious latitude for actors to make fascinating choices as they flesh them out.

I'm a day late in this tribute, but yesterday was the second anniversary of Edward Albee's death. I'm not one to be sad when famous people I've never met pass away—and having seen only six of his works (that I can remember) I'm certainly no slavish Albee devotee—but I'm profoundly thankful for the emotional roller coasters he's put me on over the years ... and for the body of work he's left that I can continue to explore in my own way and on my own time. I have a couple favorite quotes I'd love to mention here, but they're all potential spoilers. So I'll just lift a glass of bergen to his memory.

#antecedents

#WeirdCouchesUponWhichIHaveSat

I may be blackout dizzy, but I haven’t lost my capacity to be grammar bitchy

Cake I like

1. I just left the 150th anniversary celebration/reunion of alumni of the University of Iowa’s Daily Iowan newspaper

2. Which has been and continues to be one of the country’s foremost influential and innovation-vanguard college newspapers
3. With AP accreditation and everything
4. As you might have inferred from my use of the word alumni in point 1, I worked there when I attended the University of Iowa
5. First as a copy editor
6. Which means proofreading and fact-checking nerd
7. Then as copy desk editor
8. Which means head proofreading and fact-checking nerd
9. I got paid to correct people’s grammar
10. And brutally curtail their garish use of excessive, showy punctuation
11. Grammar. Nerd. Power. Trip.
12. Though this probably explains why I’m single and living in my parents’ basement at the age of 50
13. And destined to die alone
14. I also wrote a weekly grammar column for the Daily Iowan
15. Seriously
16. It was called "That Grammar Guy"
17. The name was inspired by the TV show That Girl
18. I am not making this up
19. It used bizarre humor, recurring characters—including a cat named Xanthippe—and my own—hopefully funny—mnemonic devices to explain English grammar
20. Xanthippe was Socrates’ wife
21. But I used the name because I thought it was funny and not for its ties to any concept of learning
22. Mnemonic means "memory-aiding"
23. The m is silent
24. The first one, I mean
25. You’re welcome
26. Anyway ...
27. "That Grammar Guy" ran in the Daily Iowan every Monday for two years
28. I got fan mail
29. Mostly from foreign students who were struggling to learn our crazy-ass melting-pot language
30. I also reviewed theater, music and dance for the Daily Iowan
31. So my work there was both nerdy and gay
32. In my capacity as copy desk editor, I hired my brilliant and delightful friend Annette
33. I got to sit next to her at tonight’s dinner
34. Where it occurred to me that everyone in the room—and every career path we represented—was there based on an intricate genealogy of hiring decisions
35. Mind. Blown.
36. I also sat by my friend Tad, who is at least four years younger than I am
37. We didn’t work together at the DI, so I have no proof that he wasn’t at tonight’s dinner just for the pork and the really delicious ranch dressing
38. Speaking of, I didn’t notice until after I sat at our table that each seat had been pre-assigned a random dessert selection
39. I’m glad I accidentally sat in front of the chocolate cake, because it was insanely delicious
40. I noticed early on that Annette probably wasn’t going to finish hers, and I will go to my grave regretting that I did not ask her if I could have it if she was done ignoring its insane deliciousness
41. My running buddy Rob was also at our table but he left before the evening’s program was over so I barred him from being in our post-program group selfie
42. Long-lost friend Jamie wasn’t at our table but he came over to say hi after the program so he’s my new selfie buddy in place of Leavin’ Rob
43. The keynote speaker for the program was a man who hadn’t given me a job right after I’d graduated from college
44. EVEN THOUGH WE WERE BOTH IN THE ETERNAL BROTHERHOOD OF THE IOWAN THAT IS DAILY
45. But he told a story about marketing tampons to young Russian women tonight, so I guess it’s time I forgave and forgot
46. Tampons
47. Russian women
48. Yes, THAT old cliché
49. So there was this one guy who wrote editorials at the DI when I was there
50. Dark hair, lean, handsome, smart, old-money patrician air
51. Did I mention handsome?
52. This might surprise you given the dearth of hints I’ve provided leading up to this bombshell, but I had a huge crush on him
53. Especially on the days when he wore shorts
54. The crush was so eternal and all-consuming that I’ve completely forgotten his name by now
55. But obviously not his legs
56. This did not stop me, however, from hoping he’d be there tonight
57. And that we’d flirt awkwardly
58. Which is the only way I know how to
59. And then we’d totally make out
60. Oops. Did I just say that?
61. And then instead of sitting here typing this endless post, I’d be marrying him in the DI newsroom
62. With everyone at the reunion cheering for us
63. And fighting each other for exclusive coverage of our wedding
64. (We are all newspaper people, of course)
65. And, of course, in this scenario I’d also get Annette’s leftover cake
66. Plus everyone else’s
67. Because I’m one of the grooms and DON’T RUIN MY BIG DAY BY EATING ALL MY CAKE, PEOPLE
68. Sheesh
69. Journalism people, amirite?
70. Anyway, I didn’t see anyone there tonight who looked like him
71. But none of the guys had any legs out for inspection
72. So here I sit, writing this long-ass post instead
73. Which I’d kinda hoped would stretch to 150 points
74. Because it’s the 150th anniversary of the paper
75. But no

I made some memes ...

This shirt may be the best part of my day

When your damn hip injury seems to be creeping up into your lower back so you still can't run and it's a cool overcast day which is your favorite running weather but it's still your favorite weather for anything and your candidate won the Democratic gubernatorial primary last night and you found a totally cool stretch-cotton batik-print paisley polo this morning that you'd forgotten you had and your car is so totally clean and free of clutter that you can actually take a wide-view selfie to show off the back seat and even though you're a little bit bipolar-foggy today you're still functional enough to write a staggeringly long run-on sentence that technically has neither a subject nor a predicate but you're a writer and you can get away with such brazen linguistic abominationness plus you make up words with shameless abandon plus you end blog posts with needless prepositions at.

Four serious allegations

OK. I’ll cop to the charges of wearing cargo shorts and owning Abercrombie & Fitch over the age of 22—and I will totally Javert you for turning me in, whoever you are—and I assume the other two charges are pre-emptive for grammar-shaming the robocall for saying “four serious allegations pressed on your name” and “so that we can discuss about this case” and for awkwardly flirting with any of the local police who might be cute, but I refuse to lower my standards to the point of calling an an upstate New York area code because I’m a Manhattan-or-nothing kind of wannabe New Yorker. 

So come and take me under custody—especially if we get to sing “Cell Block Tango”—cute local coppers!

Flashback Friday: Milestone Birthdays Edition

I’m not sure what’s most disturbing about this picture: the bar mitzvah clown smile, the Disney villain eyes, the dinner-plate glasses, the scarecrow neck, the weird-ass way I wore my watch on the inside of my wrist or the pink-on-white shirt that hung on me with all the sex appeal of a Mayan burial gown on an immolated corpse. The girls on my floor (Loser alert! I was living in the Foreign Language House, a co-ed dorm filled with language dorks who stayed in on Friday nights studying verb declensions!) had decorated my door with pink 21s. Probably to match the shirt. Or the homosexuality. I’m not sure where I got the wine, but I am sure I had only a sip of it to celebrate reaching such a milestone age. Because actually drinking a whole glass of alcohol on my 21st birthday would have been something the cool kids would do.

Cake I like

When your 50 and your a writer and you’re mom was an English teacher, she of course orders you a chalkboard birthday cake framed in homonyms and conjugations:

When your April birthday is in the middle of winter, your mom of course makes both tulip cookies and snowman cookies:

My mom—along with the rest of my family—totally gets me.

#HowToTurn50