Girl and Boy are sitting together in their classroom, working on some math. Boy looks up from his paper.

B: Knock knock!
G: Who's there?
B: Ash.
G: Ash who?
B: Kazoontite!
[No reaction from Girl.]
B: Get it? The ash is hot like pepper and makes her sneeze!
[Still no reaction.]
B: Is that funny?
G: Yes.

Thank you Giuls!

When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to capture whole, for they break and tatter under the touch. You must let them ooze and crawl of their own will onto a knife blade and then lift them gently into your bottle of sea water. And perhaps that might be the way to write this book - to open the page and to let the stories crawl in by themselves.

John Steinbeck wrote that, two blank pages before chapter 1 of Cannery Row begins.

Been almost a year since I tagged a metaphor on this blog. Clearly I'm not paying enough attention.

Thank you Giuls.

Might as well keep the vid posting streak going...

That thing's the reason I didn't sleep this past Christmas Eve.

The musicians are Tweed. They headlined our second music festival. And they played that song because they know how much my cousins and sister and I love Ween.

But Giuls missed it. She was peeing.

So, four months later, we borrowed a producer and recording studio from The Spinto Band and recreated the best we could.

On Christmas morning, I put an envelope under the tree. Inside was a strip of paper with a handwritten YouTube URL.

Giuls and I are trying to go see our friends at MCIJ on Christmas Eve.

Makes me think of this song.

Which makes me think of Axel.

And wandering through Beijing on Christmas Eve 2005. Bundled up. Fascinated by everything. And dancing to this song.

In my headphones. In the snow.

New Song (For the Morning) is track 9 on Hot Tuna. And Lost Train (Jim) is track 2 on Give It To Me Rusty, though apparently that album doesn't want me to find it on the internets.

What impressed Giuls most about last night's show was Ween's ability to wear an audience down.

I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be a compliment to any other band.

Transdermal Celebration is track 3 on Quebec.

Married to the Sea. Again. Thank you, Lauren, for sending me this one too.

I can't think of anything for myself at the moment, but if that grizzly bear was my sister, I'd play Isis (track 2 on Desire). Something about the rhymes she just can't handle...

She said, where ya been?
I said, no place special.
She said, you look different.
I said, well, I guess.
She said, you gonna stay?
I said, if you want me to, yes.

Typed to my sister on The Chats of G yesterday:

Giuliana: how are you offline and typing to me?
me: i'm invisible
 it's an option
 a sneaky one
Giuliana: really?
 isn't that a bit untransparent?

It is untransparent.  And I'm sorry. 

But I'm going to keep on doing it.  Because I like it.  And because now that I've admitted to it, it's no longer untransparent.

Right?

I think we were walking north on 18th St. 

We'd walked all the way from the ceremony grounds at The Capitol and cut through the grass halfway between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.  We passed swarming jumbotrons.  We jumped a barrier.  We high-fived a giant raccoon.  We did not buy a totally awesome but totally outrageously priced peace sign Obama button from an Asian hippie with dreadlocks.  We walked uphill against a trotting sea of latecomers.

And we kept our eyes out for the perfect street to take us back east to Union Station.

Giuliana: G might be our street.
Jake: G for Giuliana.
Giuliana: G for Good.
Jake: G for Gangsta.
Giuliana: G for God.

Neither of us have any idea what we were talking about.  But we laughed.  And took H instead.

Giuls asks:

How can you say the future is at your command?

I answer:

You can't. You just do the best you can.

She answers:

Piece of cake: You can't - It's not.

She gets points for the reference back to the music.  I get points for rhyming, even though it was an accident.

After spending the past two weeks surrounded by our cousins and overflowing with the goofiness we inspire in each other, my sister and I decided last night that we need to keep heavy doses of uncontrollable laughter in our lives forever. 

No adult seriousness.  Never.

There is tragedy everywhere.  Tragedy in the mundane.  Tragedy in comedy.  And we should feel it and acknowledge it.  That's compassion. 

But there is comedy everywhere too.  Comedy in tragedy.  Comedy in pain and fear and death and anger.  And feeling that and acknowledging it is not taking things too seriously, remembering that, whether or not you take it as deep as Bill Hicks did, it really is just a ride.

We figure all we need are the right people around to help us find the funny.  And the occasional return to Step Brothers for inspiration.