5 ways to freak yourself out in the comfort of your own home

1. late on a hot summer nite when you're having trouble getting comfortable, hang your foot over the side of the bed and remember that you have a stephen king novel on your night stand. stay in that position for 5 minutes.

2. late on a hot summer nite when you're getting ready to go to bed, let the dog out. stand in the door and look at the dimly-lit back fence. think about zombies and then walk to the edge of the porch. for bonus points, step into the yard.

3. watch signs. even in the daytime.

4. shortly after a hot summer nite becomes a hot summer morning, dream that a maniac with a french knife is chasing you, and he has just broken down the door to the room you're hiding in. wake up and immediately mistake the pile of clothes on your dresser paired with a jewelry box as someone standing at the foot of your bed. then close your eyes again.

5. oh, yeah. there's definitely someone in the kitchen. didn't you hear that?

there it is again.

tag! i'm it!

i don't know what it means, but chris called it "a blog meme! yay!"

how many books i own

the law of averages states that that if some of a number of independent equally likely events have already occurred, then the probability that the remaining ones shall occur increases. that said, if a bookshelf is approximately two feet long, i own approximately 250 books ... and i've read approximately 210 of them, whether i remember or not.

the last book i purchased

holy hell. let's see ... i'm pretty sure it was zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. i gave away my last copy, and will most likely give away this one as well. as soon as i'm done with it. again.

the last book i read

for some reason, i've been obsessed with serials this year. i finished the bourne ultimatum not too long ago. it was good, but the supremacy was hands-down the best of the three. there comes a point where, as an author, you have to trust that your audience has read at least one of the previous books ... and that should be enough to get them thru the next one. not that i know anything about it.

books that mean a lot to me

i am the cheese by robert cormier: this was the first high-school-required book that i ever actually read. i was a freshman so it set my expectations for required reading unattainably high. don't look for a heavy, intellectually rigorous read here. this is not-so-simply a touching story about a boy.

to kill a mockingbird by harper lee: this was the second high-school-required book that i ever actually read. the expectations set by i am the cheese crashed and burned the following year with a separate peace and the pearl. [turns out "fagitude" isn't really a word, and you should never, ever plagiarize.] i go back to this every summer because summer is the best time to daydream about what it was like to be a carefree, inquisitive, rebellious kid. i'm in love with this novel because it has more heart than anything i've ever read.

east of eden by john steinbeck: no, aaron, it's not about lettuce. the movie might be, but the book is way less vegetable-centric. trust me. a picture of an ugly landscape can be breathtaking.

dirk gently's holistic detective agency by douglas adams: you think i'm putting this in to be funny, but that is so not the case. when you're me, you don't believe that it has to be tragic or forcefully insightful to be good literature. in the last five years or so, the majority of books [at least the ones i've either been subjected or have subjected myself to] have (with a few shining exceptions) been either self-indulgent or wholly depressing. not that there's anything wrong with that. rarely, if ever, do you find adams' type of escapism anymore ... and it scares me to think that it may now be extinct.

jude the obscure by thomas hardy: remember how i said that depressing tragedies don't necessarily make great literature? well, this one does. when you're in one of those moods where you feel like there's no possible way your life could get any worse so you might as well curl up and die under a filing cabinet, this is what you should read. it'll help you realize that, really, you're perfectly fine ... so stop complaining.

the moonstone by wilkie collins: mystery and intrigue with Romantic brits ... what could be better? if you're in to that kind of thing, that is.

you people are no fun anymore, so i'll just entertain myself

that said, here's a little bit about why i love sam's club:

a case of bottled water
5 pounds of peanuts
2 bottles of wine
buy one get one free listerine

$27

funny ... you practically have to drag me into wal-mart.

that can't be right

i've been hearing this U2 song on XM channel 22 lately, and i've really been liking it. that is, i've really been liking it until today when i realized that i've been misunderstanding the lyrics.

it's not, "sometimes you can make it on your own" ... it's "sometimes you can't make it on your own" to which, my response is: "whatever ... what's on channel 7?" [10cc; "the things we do for love"]

ok, let's get that pulse checked ... it's time for a little audience participation! i've started things off ... let's hear some of the non-lyrics you've been singing all these days, weeks, months, or years ...

why? because it's fun ... like baby shower games, but without all the taste-testing.

and, yes, everyone is well aware that CCR isn't singing about the bathroom on the right.

i think it's in the shed

this weekend i had a facial and a near death experience. wait ... that's like saying i talked to aaron and my brother on friday.

i also had a manicure, which, frankly, is lost on me because the polish is already chipped. i should never do that unless someone else is paying for it.

sure dodged a bullet there.

anyway! the facial. not a big fan. the music's nice, and i'm happy to lay there for an hour with a hot towel on my face if you'll indulge me ... even so, in the midst of any relaxing treatment, i don't care what it is, no one, i don't care who you are, wants to be at the business end of this conversation:

"the next exfoliant is 5% acid. you may feel a slight itchy burn, but if it really starts to hurt, tell me and i'll wash it off immediately."

"does that happen a lot?"

"well, not a lot. but it does happen."

seriously, when did flesh-eating acid become soothing? after that you're subjected to the steam that makes it hard to breathe and then the extraction process ... not only is this another "let me know if i'm hurting you" step, but it also causes a massive breakout by the next morning.

relax! it's good for you.

with all of that out of the way, you get another hot towel, some kind of cooling mask that makes up for the trauma of the preceding 25 minutes, and about 15 minutes to yourself without someone looking at you through a 100x magnifying glass. this is the best part. a quiet room, a warm bed, and white noise ... but not like the the movie, which hardly deserves a mention.

people say they sometimes fall asleep at this part (i could still be talking about the movie, but i'm not). did i fall asleep? of course not! i was worried about who might come through the door next ... and what kind of sharp object they might have in their coat. instead, i did some serious thinking. i went to one of those places in my brain that has of late been carrying on unsupervised, and i wondered ... how different would the world be if we all shed our skin like snakes?

[don't worry. this is normal.]

ok, suppose every 6 weeks or so your eyes glazed over and you spent a couple days peeling in a very complete, very methodical way. how itchy would that be? and! would your employer’s benefits package include standard time off for those days? would people who make more money or have more seniority than you also get more "shedding time off" privileges?

"if you’ve worked here for three or fewer years, you get two weeks of vacation and 18 shedding days. after that, you get one more shedding day per year."

like most things, it’s gotta be harder to do as you get older and less flexible. naturally, you'll need more time.

the last time i had a pedicure, the nail technician asked me how often i exfoliate my legs. not that it was any of her business, but my routine was apparently not up to standard, so she tried to sell me something that would "help."

that's fine, but if my skin sloughed off at predictable intervals, she’d be out of a job (or at least a commission) and the skin care aisle in Ukrop’s would be reduced to a small stand near the paper products that carried aloe and some other kind of universal balm. ‘nuff said. Bert's Bees would so be out of business, and the poor bees would have to go back to making boring honey. ho-hum.

what about all the Johnson and Johnson employees and dermatologists of the world? they'd be sleeping on park benches and loitering around emergency rooms.

got acne? give it a few weeks … it’ll go away. there. now i’m a dermatologist. it’s gone from being a highly-skilled profession to something that someone with an 18-month degree (or even i) could do with little or no training.

just had surgery? i guarantee you'll forget you even had a scar within 2 months. there goes neosporin's marketing campaign.

you'll want to have stock in beverage companies and jell-o ... they'll be hot industries.

i can't decide if day spas will still exist or not. will anyone need a face treatment if they're going to have all new skin in a matter of weeks? or will oprah insist that we subject more than just our faces to the acid test because it will help us discover our true inner selves? damn her.

there's so much to consider! would i still need to wear 30 spf sunscreen? how would i plan my vacations? what about tanning salons? where will those former employees loiter?

it's a good thing that the facial lady came back when she did ... i was finally able to relax.

a letter to john f. street

dear mr. mayor,

i took this class at work a few months ago that was all about how to write efficient email and run efficient meetings. in the closing moments, we learned how to offer feedback to people who hadn't taken the class on the efficiency of their email and meetings.

when someone sends you a message that's a big block of impossible-to-read text, you're supposed to write back using this formula: open with something nice, offer your "constructive criticism," close with another nice thing. it'll leave them feeling warm and fuzzy about you, which i guess is good since you probably don't want people you have to work with every day thinking you're some kind of judgmental bitch. the technique is called "sandwiching," and i'm going to use it now ...

i recently had the pleasure of visiting the city of brotherly love, which is a name your distinguished metropolis unquestionably lives up to. i've never been in an environment so rank with friendliness ... from the guy power-washing the sidewalk who stopped waving the hose around to let you walk by to the guy who ended up firing the other guy because the stromboli took too long ... the love was practically palpable.

however (that's how you can tell this is the "criticism" part, but i'll still say some nice things in it so's you don't really notice the negativity), upon arrival at the museum of art, instead of being greeted by a triumphant rocky balboa, i was greeted only by shock and horror. and i know for a fact that i wasn't the only one. where there should have been a statue, there was only a pair of shoe prints.

the nothing-if-not-pleasant museum desk attendant inside said that the statue had been moved because "the hoity-toity art enthusiasts thought it was tacky." apparently we've found the sect of the city that isn't on board with the whole "brotherly" thing. i think you should work on that. i'm just glad the statue wasn't destroyed. but let me ask you ... which is tackier? all of rocky on the steps or just his shoes? or is it the creepy statue of the guy strangling a bird?

seriously, which is it? i've been thinking about it all day and can't decide.

thank you, tho, for leaving the button and the clothes pin intact and exactly where the internet said they'd be. they were more than worth the trip. liberty hall was ok, too. i don't really have anything to say about the liberty bell, because it was closed (how can that even be?), so that sucked. but! i've already transitioned back to the nice part of the sandwich and will refrain from saying more ugly things.

speaking of sandwiches and ugliness, i can hardly wait to return to philly to try cheese steak from the famous restaurant that birthed it ... whatever that establishment might be called. i hear it's a mediocre at best meal, and that's good enough for me.

keep up the stellar mayoring work, and please let me know when rocky has been restored to his rightful perch.

thanks for the hospitality!