Happy birthday Duke Ellington.

and, while you're at it, this demands your attention. really.

Like a fish.

Swam with an Olympian today. It didn't much matter that he was 50 years old, either. I'm not sure how many laps I finished before I got dizzy, but it was maybe half the amount he did. He turned to my co-worker at one point and complimented him on his stroke, saying, "I can tell you're a swimmer!" Then he looked at me.

With about the same amount of enthusiasm, he said: "We're gonna MAKE you a swimmer."

I guess we'll see about that, right? I just need to be sure I pick the slow lane next time. I am absolutely spent.

In way of career advice.

In way of a little career advice, it's probably not the best idea in the world to send a poem as a writing sample to a potential employer that talks up penetrating someone's heart with your machete of love.

Then again, what do I know?

Are you a Happy Boy, too?

I'll keep this brief, but I created this over the weekend and people seem torn between thinking it is funny and admitting that it makes them uncomfortable. In other words? A pretty perfect balance.

Hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba.

Chew on this.

Great people talk about great ideas; average people talk about average ideas; small people talk about other people. — Anonymous

New Band of Annuals song.

Actually, it's a new Jay Henderson song, who fronts the band ... but who's splitting hairs, right? I can't believe how good this sounds. Even better than when I heard it on the radio. I didn't even believe it possible but, well, there it is. Listen, love, repeat, love more.

Jay Henderson Live @ KRCL Studios from CaptNineToe on Vimeo.

I lived for an hour.

I suppose you’ll tire of my happiness.

That words heaped atop words will mean less

as they’re read, expressed and said. At some point

that deaf ear gets exposed

that penchant for sadness dusted off.

And you stop.

It’ll be of no worth

to you as the reader, then,

to let on

this awkward semblance of a career

is coming together just fine,

that this loft in the city

has big enough windows to capture

a silent lightning storm and frame it,

that Johnny Hartman is all the noise

I need to sleep

this bed swallowing,

this mind wanting to soak up

this long feeling until dawn

when the rays come back again

when this day is kind enough

to rewind, play back, reinvent

this life that only has the sense

to stop making sense

good morphing to great

shoes traded for feet.

— 4/20/10

Reach out.

Way to make me smile #807.

Be an old, gray-haired woman, on a plane with a couple other friends.
Be already seated as I attempt to make it to my seat, slowly.
Say something to your friend that I can't quite make out.
As I stop right near where you are, reach out and tug on the leg of my jeans, then look up at me and say, "I like your jeans!" before you and your friends politely smile and laugh like only a group of older women can.
You've done it. You've surprised me. And I won't be able to help myself.
That smile will be immediate.
Today, you win, for all kinds of reasons ... and I thank you.

I'm on my way.

My birthday is in about 3 months.

And if somebody got me this T-shirt, I wouldn't be disappointed. I'm just saying.

Thoughts in my nighttime.

I may have picked the one loft that’s just a little too close to the Black Eyed Peas lovin’ club downstairs. Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe. Ask me again in 13 months or so, when my lease runs out.

On that same note, it’s a pretty good thing I’m not a light sleeper.

The DJs are a lot less loud on Mondays than they are on Sundays. I wonder who I send the Thank You card to?

I haven’t had the Internet or TV in my home in the six days I’ve lived here. On the plus side, I sure get an ample amount of sleep at night. I cook things in the kitchen and pick up books a whole lot more than I used to. Sometimes I even read them! On the not so plus side of things, re-learning how to live life without either has proven to be absolutely exhausting. Did I say exhausting? I meant either terrifying or boring. One of the three.

The movie theater three minutes from my place has huge reclining, rocking chairs in it, each custom built for people with butts so much bigger than my own. You can even eat real food there, along with your gallon of diet cola and head-sized bucket filled with the popped corn. Thanks, overweight America! I’d send out Thank You cards to you all, but I just can’t afford that kind of postage.

And, oh, while I don’t recommend The Runaways as a movie, it sure is nice to remember how good “Cherry Bomb” is. For a good time, turn that one right up.

It’s pretty unfortunate my neighbor listens to Dave Matthews and Ben Harper as loudly as he does but, then again, maybe that’s just the way he was raised. If so, he’s forgiven. Me, I listen to Glade’s album three times on a Sunday. Maybe That Guy heard a song or two. Baby steps, friends.

I never have to wear socks again. Ever. I remember this about once a week and smile.

It’s nice that my complex makes free brunch for its people on Sunday mornings. Waffles, omelets, you name it. It’s even nicer to opt out of the crowd and find a pretty lake nearby to walk around, digging on that sunshine.

Tangled up in blue.

Sometimes, when I'm wearing the skinniest jeans I own, when it's really, really quiet and nobody is around, I can actually hear my thighs crying.

Wordless Wednesday: Tree-Hugger Edition.

Favorite Key West quote.

Spoken in my direction over the weekend, when parking:

"Park wherever you want ... but within reason. It's really hard to get your car out of the tree."

Gratitude in solitude.

One of the best parts about moving to a new city where you know absolutely no one—aside from some crusty old married guys—has to do with that whole ritual that accompanies buying concert tickets. Before, I'd buy two tickets and make the mad scramble to find someone to come with me in the weeks, days and hours leading up to a show. Now I buy just one because, why? Oh, yeah ... there are no other options. Less stressful, that's for sure. So, if you see me at the House of Blues or Hard Rock Cafe or The Social this month and I'm taking in some Black Keys, Band of Horses or White Rabbits, I'll more than likely be alone, but I will not be unhappy. I'll be one of those wide smilers.

Dexter daydream.

We learn by experience, sure enough. I now know that next time I go to Miami, I can visit all of these places. In the meantime, can anybody send me Season 4? I still haven't seen it. I'm testing you, Internet. Please don't let me down.

Hot dog.

The polka music is so loud in a popular German restaurant on a warm Thursday night. There are so many bald heads and gray hairs and wrinkled smiles gathered here, the owners to each raising their beer mugs and smiling and opting to move when the accordion commands them to their creaky feet. It’s the infamous Chicken Dance, after all. There are some who can’t stand how loud it is on that open patio and openly say so and others so completely happy with their fat brats and warm sauerkraut and “happy, snappy music," oft-times regarded as that oompa oompa sound.

I am proudly part of that latter variety. Remember the accordion lessons for a year? Remember believing I'd marry a German miss, no thanks that fated Epcot experience?

Tonight, though, has everything to do with the blonde (authentic) German waitress, the one who keeps dropping words on us that we don’t come close to understanding. Sounds nice, but meanings get lost. She’s so completely oblivious to my long glances, but that’s all right, too. Beauty is still beauty when admired in silence. There was a barely recognizable accent and a Cameron Diaz-like quality and a small peace sign tattooed on the inside of a wrist. Those are the things that keep getting remembered.

It helps to have wing men when you’re single and admiring and suddenly so alarmingly shy. Why stop at one wing man when you can have two? When they’re married and you’re not, they practically do the looking for you. They’ll be the ones who try to set you up to the point that you can pass her your business card (even though you don’t have one and fail) and they’ll try and steer a conversation back towards including you if it falls off the tracks (you being of few chewed-on words) and things almost work out all right (but don't). And it makes for a good night. One of those comfortable ones. One riddled with at least one more possibility than there was.

It doesn’t make a whole world of sense to think that this snapshot from an evening had anything to do with hearing someone speak my name so clearly and audibly in my ear around 3 in the morning; it woke me right up, though there was nobody there. Part of me thinks it was this German waitress stepping out of my dreams for a second to prove she’d remembered my name. The other part believes my heartburn had been given a cooing voice, if only for a second.

Who understands these dreams? Who tries to? All possible explanations comes out disguised as haphazard guesses.

You should prolly dance now.

That's a lot of talent smashed inside one dancing, singing body ... but she's doing it. I remember Paste raving about this missy, what, a year or more ago? Didn't get it then, but do now. Put some Prince and Sharon Jones and James Brown and more into one wee person and she'll do good things. Very good things.