showing up late to the potluck

Let me apologize in advance for the poor quality of this entry. I've been distracted, absent, incapable, inept, and varying combinations of each. The copy below is slightly out of date and aging rather ungracefully, but in the interest of posting something rather than nothing, I give it to you now. In creative circles there is an adage so often bandied about that it's edges are worn and polished. I think it's a Paul Rand quote but the internet can't seem to make up it's mind about that. It goes something like, "If you can’t make it good, make it big. And if you can’t make it big, make it red."

To the Humble Reader:
First, let me congratulate you on your obviously notable humility. You have really come a long way from that uppity brat for whom a glance upon the printed word could summon a shower of "pshhh" and "ffffbth," and other largely dismissive onomatopoeia-taphs. You know who you are. As for the rest of you sullen monkeys, you may go and fry ice.

I really ought to have contributed more, of late, but the sum total of my recent bad ideas have been wrapped up in the kind of emolationship hogwash to which I utterly refuse to subject anyone but my closest friends. You know who you are; you have been savagely battered and bruised by my incessant whining and rejustifications thereof. I thank you for the use of your faces and ears. You really ought to wash up.

So what now? I think it's about time that I set some goals. Not just for myself, but for all of us. If I can't whip this tenuous set of permissions into a bully pulpit of some sort, then surely I'm a sorry excuse for whatever it is I'm purporting to be these days. Listen all:

We've all really got to pull together and help me get my life in order. It's 4 am and I've just come home from my workshop. It's taken me three evenings to fail to complete a project that I guessed would take a few hours. Dinner consisted of goldfish crackers and soviet cognac. I shit you not. Obviously the first goal should be to have my late-night fiascoes elegantly catered. I know we can do this if we put our minds to it.

Second, I'm really at my wit's end over money. I've been living from paycheck to paycheck for as long as I can remember, and old debts are going unpaid. To make matters worse, there are quite a lot of things I'd like to buy. Now, if each of us sets aside two dollars every three hours, and recruits three friends every seventeen minutes, then surely I'll be solvent within a fortnight (recruiting around the clock, naturally). Now if we multiply the system's output by a factor of ten, a funny thing happens. The number stays pretty much the same, except that now there's an extra zero at the end of it. I am in favor of this.

Finally, we should all make a commitment to improvement in the area of my puncutality. Specifically, I'd like to see improvement made to the public perception of my notion of punctuality as it currently stands. I'm a habitually late riser, and further inclinations toward time-keeping, showing up for appointments, and making guesses as to how long transit might take from point to point are viewed to be "unacceptable" and "disappointing" by a wide and varied swathe of the citizenry. This must come to a stop. I'm counting on everyone to take a moment out of their day to express to their proximal compatriot a sense of adoration for my dilatory ways. Practice the phrase, "It's really smart the way he avoids the first fifteen to twenty minutes of any given appointment." As for the follow-up rationale, I wouldn't dream of feeding you lines there. The sincerity of your praise will be judged by the authenticity detectable in your scrambling logic.