"Huh."

As I stepped out of the shower today and regarded myself in the full-length mirror, I noticed that my hair was perfectly parted down the middle. I reached up to feel it – barely damp. I didn't forget to wash it, though. More likely is that I have a reached a new stage in human evolution, in which our bodies begin to dry and coif themselves, to save us time and energy before our important morning business meetings and video conference calls.

Awesome quiz.

Hey, here, take this quiz that I just came up with. There IS a correct answer for each one...

Best astronaut: Neil Armstrong

Best Mormon playwright: Neil Labute

Best former child star who has had a reasonably successful career as an adult, even since coming out: Neil Patrick Harris

Best pop songwriter to have a top ten hit in two different decades with the same song (albeit different recordings): Neil Sedaka

Best married pop duo whose first hit single was written by aforementioned pop songwriter: Captain and Tenille

Best solo host of SNL's Weekend Update: Kevin Nealon

Best enormous windbag athlete (enormous in size as well as windbaggery*): Shaquille O'Neal

Best red dye: cochineal


* "Windbaggery" is a real word, I swear. Trust me.

Civic pride.

I wish that I could have been in the wonderful city of Portland, Oregon, yesterday to experience this: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/obama-draws-record-crowd-in-oregon/

Portland, I love you. I think you are swell.

Snapshots from Arizona.

We drop down into the next valley, on the road from Los Angeles to Flagstaff, Arizona. The mountains are red around us. Scattered throughout the valley floor are the roofs of houses and trailers, still tiny in the distance like whitecaps on a mottled brick-red sea. In a few hours we will be staring into the Grand Canyon, a gash in the earth so inconceivably immense that it must be a Hollywood set, an enormous painted backdrop. Look, the other side of the canyon is hazy, blurry. Even the high-def presentation of actual real life can't handle this scene.

Three days later we drive away from Phoenix, on an immaculately paved two-lane road laid like a carpet over the rolling land. This is the high desert, with grass and brush instead of dirt and cactus; the elevation is 6000 feet, and everything is short. Anything of notice is lying below the horizon. No, there is a strange factory there in the distance, like a run-down Emerald City, but we are not getting any closer to it. We don't seem to be getting any closer to anything. Occasionally the road rolls enough that we can't see over the next hump, but inevitably it is the same.

As we grow nearer to New Mexico, the ground lifts up and exposes jagged rocks and dirt, a world of red and gray replacing the yellow and green of dried grass and scattered bushes and trees. Rain begins to fall, as if to fill the cracks in the earth and the crack in our
windshield.

The sun has set. In the dark the world here is both more and less lonely. We now know there are other people out there, because the lights from their houses can be seen in the distance; in the daylight they would be invisible. But that's all that can be seen beyond our headlights. Looking off to the starboard side, I count ten specks of light in a sea of black. Oh, there's an eleventh. But, no, the first has disappeared. We haven't done almost any night driving on the tour so far, and it is a completely different feeling. It's harder to sleep, for me. At night I'm supposed to sleep in a bed.

A great innovation.

Dear readers,

Today my life changed. For the better. And I owe it all to McSweeneys.net, which has a wonderful page of recommendations for all aspects of life, whether it be music, movies, food, or lifestyle choices. This particular recommendation was to shave, after a shower, with no shaving cream of any kind. It was amazing. My face was soft and warm, and the razor slid over my skin as effortlessly as a squeegee on glass. My face still feels great, and as close shaven as it has ever been. Am I just late to the game? Do you all know about this? I don't know, but I imagine it would also work for the legs and armpits of old-fashioned ladies and forward-thinking men.

Again, the wonderful page of recommendations: mcsweeneys.net/links/recommends/

Oh, and please note that one of the bands I play in is recommended, too.

---

Other great innovations: the ratchet, the greeting card with recorded sound, the Fosbury Flop, the wheel, the fake chicken nugget.

Asceticism.

For a long time I've harbored fantasies of spending an extended period of time (a day or longer) without speaking - a speech fast, if you will. Sometimes I imagine foregoing all communication completely; other times I imagine allowing myself at the least a sign to hang around my neck that reads "I'm sorry, but I cannot speak today." I've shared this idea with a few of my friends. Some of them have been receptive, even excited about the prospect, while others don't understand why I would do this. When I told my friend Will, he was a little skeptical, I think. He asked me why; I don't remember what my answer was.

"Can I make an observation?" Will asked.

"Shoot."

"This seems to be tied in to an underlying proclivity of yours for asceticism. Would this be fair to say?"

"That's exactly right," I laughed, and as I did I realized that it was.

In light of this, I'd like to share two articles I've read in the past few years, about two fascinating (to me) men, Zell Kravinsky and Wayne Gerdes. Both have extreme proclivities, the former for philanthropy, the latter for gas conservation. Their views wildly diverge from the mainstream, but when I read these articles, I thought, "Of course!" Still, I haven't figured out exactly how or whether to incorporate their ideas into my life.

The Gift (profile of Zell Kravinsky) - by Ian Parker, published August 2nd, 2004 in the New Yorker

King of the Hypermilers - by Dennis Gaffney, published Jan/Feb 2007 in Mother Jones