Short and Stupid #4: Another Desultory List

1. This morning I saw two dildos — yes, dildos — that had been tied together and slung over a telephone wire on a busy section of SE 26th Ave. I’ve seen this done with shoes before. There has always been what I assume is an urban legend that such shoes indicated places to score drugs. One wonders what a pair of dildos indicates.

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I wasn't bullshitting you about those dildos.

2. Today I learned a new phrase: “establishment gays”. It was used to describe people who worked in increments to get gay marriage legalized in several states before taking it to the Supreme Court. I don’t know why this tickled me so much, but it did.

3. I think I’ve about read myself out of spy novels for a while. I was looking at my goodreads list, and I think I’ve read eleven of them in the last twelve months, most of them by modern master Alan Furst. If I read about one more handsome, stoical, faintly Latin guy who beds several women and gets in over his head with the British Secret Service, I’m going to spontaneously turn into one.

5. I suppose my kids will feel about Neutral Milk Hotel the way I feel about the Beatles.

6. I’m so over the Beatles, you guys.

7. The heat wave has broken. Right now it’s in the mid-70s and occasionally raining, at least in Bend. Did I mention that I’m in Bend? I’m in Bend. I’m trying, in a half-assed sort of way, to get some altitude training in before a half marathon up in the foothills of the Washington Cascades. What I’m really worried about is the marathon I’ve signed up for in December, which is in Tucson. It’s meant to be mostly downhill, but it also starts at 3000 feet — not Machu Picchu, sure, but not exactly sea level.

8. Podcasts listened to today: TBTL, Reply All, Slate Political Gabfest, Amicus, Fresh Air (two episodes), Planet Money, Back Story, On the Media.