It's so elegant / So intelligent

At work, three-year-old M, apropos of absolutely nothing, starts shaking her head: "We don't poke babies in the eyes. No."

Me: "Uh... no, that's probably not a good idea." (Inner voice: Holy shit! What the hell?)

***

The third weekly Hangout trivia night went just fine. Friar and I had a lot of fun and drank for free, and two people from last week came back. A newcomer won second place. It's catching on!

Afterwards, Friar mentioned a few one-day jobs his firm might have for me (monkey work, but hell, it's something to do, and fairly lucrative --- I'll do it, if indeed it ever pans out, as with Friar you never can tell). He also had some cold hard words of truth about my personal and social status which took me down off the happy crest I was riding after the game. I don't blame him; he does a lot to boost my spirits normally and to help me out. He's right. I'm too old and too educated to be in the middling stage of life I find myself; my career-minded peers are still in college. I'm doing what I can to ameliorate my life, but it's a slow and laborious process. Yes, I'm predisposed to plunge into periodic passages of pessimism.

It's not just an image used in fiction. It is really true that at my age, one day you sort of wake up and look back to see, to your surprise, that your life has more or less happened by itself, with less input from you than you'd have thought. In a lot of cases, I figure people look back and nod approvingly; I'm one of the losers who wonder what the hell happened and shrug apathetically.

***

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones: good for what ails you? Quite often.

Here are four bands that I greatly admire but own zero albums by: the Alarm, the Fall, the Jam, the Who.