The Mystical Meaning of Cat Excrement

Today is Ash Wednesday, the day when, each year, I wade out unprepared into the shocking obligatory waters of tradition. This year is no different: I have given no thought to Lent, despite my act of foresight of last year, viz. having put a warning of the imminence of this year's Ash Wednesday on the calendar. I do want to do more this year than the bare minimum of barely fasting on the required days. But I also want to do out of some motive more pious than a spiritual agonism.

So what makes sense is for me to pray to be made pious this Lent.

In other news, today is going to be the day when I finally change the cat litter. Now I know that changing the cat litter is something you are supposed to do everyday (unless you don't have a cat), but for me it is not that easy. Changing the litter is a symbol of rising above the everyday squalor of life and taking charge of things for once, and maybe for good. Every time I change the cat litter, I think, maybe, Amos, maybe this is only the first in a long series of days in which I ply the clumpy gravel. Maybe I am pulling myself together this time.

Haste Makes Waste:The First in a Series of Political Allegories

I always think I can do a bunch of things at once because I've always been able to do it in video games. But the truth is that one thing at a time is hard enough for me and two things at once is just out of the question. Last night while clearing the table after a delicious dinner, I found myself standing in the kitchen with two Tupperware containers of chickpea salad stacked one on top of the other, all afire to seal the top
Tupperware and refrigerate both. Friday, who had her hands full with garbage, asked me to open the trash for her. I obliged without a thought for the precarious balance keeping the salad safely stacked. The consequence you have no doubt divined: I scored a clumsy but solid shot in the good old game of throwing Tupperware into the trash.

I think my wife might have been angry that I wasted her good cooking had I not explained to her that throwing away perfectly good leftovers is real good for the economy.

Deja DMVu

This morning, for the second time this year, I packed up all the necessary documents to get a driver's license into my briefcase, loaded Buggle into the car, and headed for the DMV. Actually, depending on how you count, this was both the second and third time; the first time, I had to go twice, because when I got there I found I had forgotten the briefcase. When I got back again with the briefcase, I discovered that my social security card was missing.

Today, I very deliberately packed my brand new replacement social security card in with the other documents, and was feeling pretty competent all the way to the DMV, where I bought the same cup of crappy coffee from 6th Street Donuts as last time, having forgotten that food and drink are not permitted in the DMV. Well, Daniel and I would sit outside while I finished the coffee, just like last time...wait, no, last time I was drinking the coffee on the way home to get the briefcase, which of course this time is in the back seat of the...wait, where, under that blanket? Behind the car seat? Hmmm.

Maybe I will never get a Texas Driver's License. When the Iowa license expires I will just start biking everywhere. It sounds easier than getting a few pieces of paper from point A to point B, of which I am evidently incapable.

My Aspiration

Watch (almost) every episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Flight of the Conchords (possibly also The Office (either version) should be on this list), and you, too, may come to believe as I have that there is an inestimable beauty in a life of bungling simplicity. You might even have a dream like this:

I took a trip to Rome and found when I got there that although I had brought all my suitcases I had forgotten to put anything in them. I figured I needed to make a living now so I spent the next day in a cafe discussing job options with Bret and Jemaine. I think "cafe guy" (i.e. someone who sits in a cafe) topped the list, just edging out "living statue."

I believe that this dream is an expression of my desire to live more simply and fecklessly.