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ME: Have you been to the Hamptons?
DUSTIN: never, actually
ME: I have to go out there for a story on Saturday
and I’m trying to figure out the best way to get out there
DUSTIN: are there multiple ways?
ME: yeah. either LIRR, renting a car or taking the Jitney which for some reason I don’t want to take
DUSTIN: it’s not an inviting name
ALISON: no
it sounds like goiter
DUSTIN: it makes me think of a clattery train through India
ME: yeah
like The Rickshaw
DUSTIN: that would have no ac in 100-degree summers
and like, rail ties missing and stuff
ME: there would be stories of cannibalism
DUSTIN: The Cannibal On The Jitney
that’s an award-winning short story waiting to happen
it’s about upper middle class ennui

I'm in Queens. A black cat just crossed my path. It's a good thing I'm not superstitious. (Weird Freudian typing slip! Originally I wrote 'suspicious'! And the funny thing is that I AM totally suspicious! Mostly about opening umbrellas indoors though. And strangers.)
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Is anyone having trouble viewing my blog today? Do tell.

Also, is anyone else watching Date My Ex or Swingtown?

I spent all day wandering around Brooklyn looking at apartments. I just want Fred and Rita to have a nice home. Is that too much to ask?
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I sent you an email that said “Hi, I’m writing about an apartment I saw listed with the ID#…. Is the apartment a walk-up and if so, what floor is it on?”

You wrote back and said “Yes, it’s still available and it’s a top floor walk up. When are you able to see it?”

I wrote back and said “How many flights up is it?”

You said “It’s on the top floor of a walk-up.”

I wrote back and said “How many floors are in the building?”

You wrote back and told me, finally, which was disappointing because I was hoping we could exchange about sixteen million more emails where I ask the same question in slightly different ways.

Does anyone remember TV movie Camp Cucamonga? It was one of those TV movies that starred all the young actors on network shows at the time it was slapped together. I remember another one about a prom and another one about a driving school. Anyway, I was looking up License to Drive for legitimate work reasons and then I started thinking about Camp Cucamonga and then I stumbled on this clip which shows behind the scenes footage from the movie. It’s sort of interesting because it shows Aniston way before she was famous (I think she was on Molloy around this time) and also because someone is brushing out Brian Robbins fearsome mullet near the end. I think that’s my favorite part.

I have some very important news to share with you: I have hiccups. I’m realizing now that I haven’t had them in at least a year if not more which is weird but I guess you never really sit around thinking about your hiccup dry spell until you get a violent case of them, and that’s what I have now. Like the kind that make you lift out of your chair a little. The kind where you have to catch your breath in between. It’s like I’m in labor… with hiccups!

UPDATE! The hiccups went away and then came back. In fact I took a sip of coffee and then hiccuped and the coffee flew out of my mouth and splattered on my desk and shirt. It was kind of awesome.

And then I walked into a hanger. Truly. I could explain how this happened but I think I’d rather keep the mystery alive.

Now my brain is mush and I have another deadline but I think I’m done for tonight at least.

It’s always great to discover a new phobia. Apparently I’m kind of afraid of sharks! See, it all started when I was reading Bill Schulz’s shark cage-diving story and then I was wondering if you wear scuba gear or how exactly this works—I remember he mentioned shoving something in his “pie-hole” but couldn’t remember if it was a scuba mouthpiece or a snorkel because I was more distracted by his choice of “pie-hole” and then I started wondering if that term comes from “pie” and of all things, why isn’t it your something-besides-pie hole since it’s not like everyone in the world eats pie, you know? So I thought the easiest way to find this out would be to just search “shark cage-diving” and that led me to this site. Go there, or go there after you read this, and tell me if you also start to get the heebie jeebies if you stay on the page too long. It reminded me of a game I used to play with myself in hotel swimming pools when I was a kid where I’d be in the deep end and then I’d start to wonder what it would be like if there was a shark in the deep end and then before long I’d freak myself out and have to return to the shallow end. Actually, that doesn’t sound like a game at all now that I think about it. But that’s the kind of feeling I get when I look at this site. I’m surprised by my own physical reaction to it. If a shark suddenly popped up on screen I think I would actually jump.

Anyway, I’m baffled by this shark cage-diving thing but then I’m someone who couldn’t handle snorkeling because I didn’t like all the little fishies swimming around me.

By the way, this whole thought process has been an exercise in procrastination. I’m 119 words into a thousand word piece I have to write. It’s going… slowly.

This should be a term for craigslist-inspired wanderlust experienced when looking at craigslist and seeing an apartment that’s cheaper than what you’d planned to spend and has more bedrooms than you figured you’d get but is located in a town you’ve never heard of which is likely far from everything and may be across state lines. This sets off pleasant reverie involving thoughts of saying “what the hell” and picking up and moving to a three bedroom cottage in Setaucket or Weekawken or Mamaroneck because it would be an adventure. Perhaps you could work in a gift shop!

Hi blog readers. I'm writing this from the gym. I basically have to work all weekend and I was planning to work as long as I could today

Whoa, I have to interrupt my own post to say that a man just walked by me, actually I can't even be sure it was a man, it could have been an elk, and now I'm encased in a stench bubble the likes of which I haven't smelled since I was in Europe in a heat wave. Wow. It was kind of unreal. I may pass out.

Anyway, I was saying that I have to work but I decided to come to the gym because I'm all emotionally pent up and I figured coming here and choking on elk fumes would help.

I found out today that I didn't get a job I was hoping for that would have meant I'd be relocating for awhile. The funny thing is at first I saw relocating as a negative but the closer I got the more I began to think it might be nice to live in a lighthouse. It's unusual, for one, and once you get past the constant smell of seagulls and all the Pete's Dragon jokes I imagine it would be a fairly serene way to pass the time.

You're probably surprised that I even consider myself the lighthouse type, but I guess I surprise even myself when it comes to lighthouses. (Only when it comes to lighthouses. Otherwise I'm predictable.)

So it wasn't really a job in a lighthouse. But the good news is that now if any opportunities in lighthouses pop up, I'm free to pursue them.

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