2. However, I'm feeling burnt out.
3. I have no idea why I number these lists, because numbering gives the impression that there's an order and there's no order to these - not even the order they are written in. I think it's just to keep things tidy.
4. For #2 (maybe this is why I number it), part of the burn out is coming from this project on baseball lineup optimization (I read 3 different papers on this and then comes a long story that takes place mostly in my head). A lot of programming is going into this and it's taking up too much of my time. Time that would be better spent... sending off even more resumes that won't ever be read? Watching Dawson's? Sleeping? And the truth is that this project is making me realize that I think (thought) I am (was) a lot smarter than I really am. It's sort of like waking yourself up by tripping a mechanism that drops rocks on your head. It hurts.
5. There are actually places in America with more than 35,000 people and zero Slurpee machines. In the Indian caste system of American locales, these kinds of places are the untouchables.
6. I had an epiphany in the shower on Saturday. A personal one - not some grand universal truism. But it was still an epiphany.
7. For months I've had this horrible time making decisions. Very, very simple things - where to eat, what to eat.
8. I don't want an actual house when I grow up - one with a yard - because I know that I'd let the plants die and I don't want to bother taking care of a lawn.
9. Reading The Times is the new thing that I do, but where Americans would use the word "program" (as in a plan, like a graduate school program - not a software app), they typically use "scheme," which has no positive connotation in American English.
10. If someone told me, "I used to not be gay, but after I had read/heard David Sedaris and/or David rakoff - I decided I owed it to myself to try it out and I just liked it" I would completely understand.
11. My brother and I ate 23 cent chocolate pies while we walked around a grocery store pointing out other inexpensive things to each other. Midnight is the best time to go grocery shopping.
12. I am genuinely interested in your responses, so get to the email (kidtetris at diaryland.com):
a.) Choose a friend to pick your spouse. Why them? Why not me?
b.) Favorite kind of pie.
c.) Get married in a strip club (during operating hours, ceremony performed by the DJ) or a Star Trek theme wedding (ceremony performed by a Klingon, in Klingon).
d.) Pick one: crazy environmentalist or crazy religious fundamentalist
e.) Pick a half-hour to an hour of your life to relive.
f.) You're a superhero by night. What is your daytime occupation?
g.) Force me to drink beet juice or drink sauerkraut juice.
h.) I'd rather be a: duck (fly + swim) or mongoose (eat snakes).
i.) Choose a band to be your boy/girlfriend (you are dating the entire band).
j.) Same as #i, except the band has to have had a Behind the Music.
k.) My legs are cut off while I'm fighting pirates. You bring me a cake in the hospital. What does the cake have written on it?
l.) Favorite prom/homecoming/high school dance scene from a movie or TV show.
