So, my advice is, remember how fragile and precious life is, think about how it can all be cut short too quickly, take good care of the people you love, and do it all on some other day that has nothing to do with a mass murder. Attaching meaning to this day gives terrorists past and future more power than they deserve. Terrorism only works if it succeeds in making you afraid. Don’t be afraid.

Now this narcissism has been democratized and barely-literate celebrities tweet occasionally interesting things in a place where they can be asymmetrically followed, and barely-literate people I slogged it out with from K-12 post occasionally interesting things on Facebook. I’m being mean. They’re not barely literate, it’s just that 20 years ago if you would have told me any of those people would have been writing for fun, I would not have believed it.

I can’t say that on the whole my life hasn’t been enriched by this turn of events. Turns out that people I had written off in my youth have something to say.

But something has been lost. Many things have been lost. The paragraph, for one. The art of the essay, for two. Thoughts that lead to other thoughts that lead to other thoughts and then spiral back and modify the original thought. Also, I increasingly am not getting the same narcissistic buzz from “sharing” using other peoples’ tools. I don’t see anything resembling me in the person I see when I click on my profile in Facebook, I don’t see the whole me when I look at my Twitter feed. And god help me if I want to remember back farther than 2 months in either platform.

When I started blogging, I feared that the platform was too lo-fi, that it was a format someone else had invented, even in those early days codified into conventions set by others, and that if I started pouring myself into it, I would lose sight of the reality that not only was I not the person who was described in the words in the blog, but I was not even really the person writing the blog. I only managed to start blogging after I wrote my first blog post, a long stemwinder— which is still waiting in my drafts folder, maybe I’ll post it someday— which could have been more succinctly summed up by its first sentence: “the tao that can be blogged is not the eternal tao.”

And yes, I’m well aware of the irony that that’s less than 140 characters.

This phrase still pops into my mind uninvited all the time.

It’s not that you were a better person. It’s not that you’re a bad person now that you’re comfortable-to-well-off. It’s not that the person you were then didn’t show a hint of the person you became, would fatalistically make the same series of choices that ended up turning you into the person that you became.

It’s that I just liked you more.

When I woke up, I checked my iPhone to see the pictures and was surprised they weren’t there. And then I remembered it was spring, not November.

It’s a re-boot of “Raging Bull”, except Jake LaMotta isn’t a wife-beating boxer, he’s a family man union electrician. A climactic scene shows him at the computer, attempting to referee an unexpectedly heated political argument between two mutual friends who don’t know each other in real life conducted in the facebook comments of a wall post he made linking to pictures of Japanese cats with costumes made out of perfectly cubical watermelons. It’s shot all in black and white and slow motion, the only sounds heard are classical music and amplified typing.

It’s like “Simon and Simon” except they’re not brothers.

It’s like “The Commitments” except it’s set in the suburbs of Minneapolis instead of North Dublin, and the kids play Tejano instead of 60’s R&B.

It’s like Presbyterianism except its adherents believe in salvation by deeds rather than salvation by grace, and Mad Dog 40/40 is used for communion wine and crumbled up taco shells are used for communion wafers. The vestibules of all the churches have paisley wallpaper.

Howlin’ Smurf did actual time.

Howlin’ Smurf knows what it’s like to count the days until you get out.

The other Smurfs didn’t understand Howlin’ Smurf’s pain. Right when he got out and came home, it was the worst. It hurt at first, how the other Smurfs were overly polite and seemed relieved when their forced small talk was over and they made up an excuse to go away. But truth be told, he was relieved, too, because he could go back to his solitary howling. When he howled it hurt less. So howl he did. The older he got, the more he had to howl.

He was only three apples high, and each of those apples was rotten.

Look, I love Christmas as much as the next guy, maybe more. But it’s only meaningful because it’s special and the more of the year it takes up the less special it is. Thanksgiving is a fantastic and unique holiday. It’s maybe even more American than the 4th of July: lots of countries celebrate their independence or founding, but we have an almost universally adopted (and totally made up!) holiday that almost all Americans have a warm place in their heart for, that works with any religion or lack thereof, and has extremely achievable expectations (eat a lot? check. watch some football? check. spend time with people you love? check.).

So please, whatever you do, don’t shop on Thanksgiving Day. Leave the stores empty so that the Wal-Mart and K-Mart employees get to spend the day with their families next year. We can do this. Thank you.

Shortly after I got home [decided to take the bus and ran into our condo-neighbor and had a very pleasant conversation; walked to the corner liquor store and bought a growler of Opa Opa IPA for me and a 2L bottle of Diet Coke for T] I got a phone call from a very helpful co-worker who let me know that (without boring you with the details) things might actually turn out OK in the aforementioned room in New York (which is my co’s new office location), plywood and internet-wise. Which was a huge relief.

And once I got home, another unexpected treat awaited: a lovely little thing in the mail from the Sun Hill Press. You may know them indirectly; they are the folks who do the letterpress print work for Brookfield Stationery (whose stuff is found in many East Coast fine stationery and office supply stores). Darrell does the press work; his wife (whose name I am struggling to remember) does the design, and the Brookfield folks do the distribution/marketing/etc. Terri and I went to their shop (with the wee 5-month-old Rainer) last year on a Letterpress Guild of New England outing, and it was quite an inspirational creative space. From Elizabeth’s (yes! that’s her name!) lovely attic studio to Darrell’s massive Heidelberg press in the basement to the delicious lunch they fed the Guild members on a misty cold October Saturday in Western Massachusetts, it was a highly memorable visit.

Here’s my favorite page:

(They don’t really have a website, and there’s no way to buy it on Amazon. If you want a copy, though, they’re US$3, just comment and I’ll send you the contact info).

Anyway, I felt a whole lot better about the universe by the end of tonight.

Terri and I were just commenting on how this was such a momentous week. And then it gets more momentous!

Saturday. (Oct. 31). Terri’s parents drove up to Boston for a visit. Rainer’s first Halloween. I get up the gumption to talk to our across-the-street neighbors and bring their kids trick-or-treat candy. They turn out to be very nice.

Sunday. Thanks to Nana and Grandpa’s visit, the morning features our first outing without Rainey, pretty much since he was born: the Boston Vegetarian foodfest. We met up with Lisa and Sierra, and Sierra is disappointed that Baby Rainer isn’t with us. The afternoon, also sans the kid, features me and Terri test driving cars. I’m 35 and have never really shopped for, bought, or even really owned a car. We’re sort of thinking of a pre-2007 Toyota Matrix or a 2009+ Honda Fit. Someday we may laugh at ourselves for this, but at 10pm, we sent Terri’s parents out to entertain themselves in the kitchen while we watched the penultimate Mad Men of season 3. Terri’s parents totally understand: we got them hooked, but (at the time) they’re only up to halfway through season 2.

Monday. I get up at 5am, quickly shower, and board a red line train at 5:56. I’m at South Station by 6:17, and in the bus terminal by 6:22. The $13 Bolt Bus leaves at 6:30. I sleep for an hour or so, and then work pretty much the rest of the way, thanks to the wi-fi. Because of traffic on the cross-bronx expressway, we don’t get in until about 11:05. The office is in Chelsea, 2 subway stations south of the spot near MSG/Penn Station where the Bolt Bus stops. I have lunch with the two new members of my team, enjoy the letterpress exhibit in the mall part of Chelsea Market, chat with various other colleagues, do some more work, and then at 6:10, pack it up, buy some ginger snaps in one of the bakeries in the mall, and head back to Penn Station, take the Acela home. Because of some bridge work in CT (thanks stimulus package!), I don’t get home until almost midnight.

Tuesday. Maybe the least momentous day of the week. Terri and her folks and Rainey go to a nearby farm (that we’ve never been to before) and get gourds and misc. food. We have enchiladas for dinner. We watch some season 2 Mad Men.

Wednesday. I leave work early and meet Terri at the Kenmore Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates to find out the results of her MRI. The good news is it’s not a brain tumor. This has been hanging over us for weeks. The bad news is the symptoms (vision weirdness, headaches) are unexplained. But since the worst case scenario is over, all the other explanations are pretty harmless so the doctor recommends holding tight for a few months. We are hugely relived.

Thursday. Happy birthday, Terri! Especially happy celebration given that we feel like we just got a huge reprieve. Our first official *date* without Rainey. We meet at Noir in the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square for a drink, and I have an expertly mixed Sazerac, possibly the best mixed drink I’ve had in my life. Dinner at Rialto. It’s insanely good. We walk the three miles home arm in arm in the cold. There is a carrot cake and a beautiful baby waiting for us at home. They’re at the season 2 Mad Men finale, “Meditations on an Emergency”.

Friday. Rainey learns to suck his thumb. Through Facebook, we learn that our friends John and Sonya’s daughter Lydia has learned to walk. We decide that this has been a hugely momentous week. And then we notice another item on Facebook: our friends Amy and Doug appear to be engaged (we are still dying for details, call us, damnit!).