Goodbye, 1-08

It's coming up on the end of January and I realized I hadn't updated any news about myself recently. What a pity. Here to rectify that is a short and hopefully poignant numbered list:

1) Brandi and I still live in our condo at the upper north end of Chicago. We love the unit, although occasionally a) the ceilings rain water (last week, 2:30 AM, our neighbor's clogged dishwasher drain) b) the door to our garage closes only if you ask it really, really nicely (someone struck and bent the track that closes it and the landlord who owns it won't fix it until one of us fesses up; not it!), c) it takes me an hour to get to and from work (by Red Line or by Metra, I either have forty minutes of walking or forty minutes of sitting plus transfer plus more sitting; today, I used the time to take a nap), d) it's colder than crazy here.

2) I am still employed by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and working in Chicago. Explaining my complicated and rich work history to a cab driver yesterday, I was struck by how unique my resume must look to the uninitiated. How to explain that I got into network administration from graphic design, and that I didn't go to school for graphic design but for creative writing? I used to be proud of this, but now I'm just a little confused, like looking back from Mt. Kilimanjaro to see a crooked path in neon leading back to your bedroom by way of the Louvre. I think. Clearly, there are people with more unique resumes than me, and I'd like to meet them.

3) I just signed up to my fourth marathon, the Flying Pig in Cincinnati, in May. Cold weather has me training indoors, which I don't mind, and I'm trying to bump up my speed. Last week, I ran five miles at about eight minutes a mile. Truthfully, like Ben Folds sings in "The Luckiest" I don't get many things right the first time, but I'd really like to be faster than my first marathon, at 4 hours 46 minutes. Anything under would be fine, and way under would be extra credit, although I don't think it's realistic to expect an 8 minute per mile pace for all 26.2. Guess we'll see.

4) Monday Pictures continues to make movies, albeit at a drastically reduced pace due to winter, the holidays and the fact that attrition has dwindled the ranks of our group. Nevertheless, we are gearing up for another short, "Myopic Cowboy," and starting to add members again. The prospects are exciting. Check us out on YouTube.

5) Our Sprint contract ended in mid-December, and less than a week later Brandi and I found ourselves the proud owners of iPhones. The learning curve was a little overwhelming at first, but they quickly wormed their way into the space in our chest cavity where our hearts are supposed to be. I especially like the calendar function, which allows me to keep a super-secret journal filled with the minutiae of my day, in a manner not unlike a blog, but about topics that I consider too boring or mundane to post to a blog. Honestly, do you CARE that I'm wearing long underwear, pajama bottoms and a pair of pants to keep my skinny legs cold? Yes? Internet pervert.

6) Brandi and I have no babies yet besides the two furry ones with fangs who lick themselves to stay clean. We will let you know. On the other hand, our friends the Wilson-Clairmonts are expecting shortly and we look forward to babysitting, which for the uninitiated is like parenting except you can give the urchins back. We have adorable photos from helping out with Daphne, thanks very much to Heather and Judy.

7) I am continuing to perform with the brilliant Playground team International Stinger. Last Saturday, with only four of us to do the show, we varied from the form the team usually performs (called "The After Party") to do a post-Apocalyptic form set in one room. The suggestion was "Paraguay," and the form of this particular horseman was an ape. That's right: an Ape-pocalypse. Monkeys running rampant, throwing feces and generally wrecking up the place turned our earth into a living hell. What's more, getting bitten by a monkey would turn you into a monkey. Chris Biddle said, "Well, now monkeys rule the Earth." I replied, "Well, technically, they ruled it before, but they were, you know, us." Also amusing: with nothing to eat, Chris and Edison Girard shared an Altoid that Chris was already eating at the top of the show. Erin Pallesen then showed up as a guy who had eaten his fill at a Whole Foods and returned with nothing and, in a sort of third-act twist, had gotten a tattoo of an avocado because he just loved avocados. Once again, I am faced with the fact that I am performing with my fourth amazing improv team, the first three including Lindbergh Babies, Mourning in Denver, and Space Mountain. The support and brilliance the people who have played and do play on those teams helps fuel my creative drive and I am eternally grateful for the opportunities I have had to perform that art.

8) I just finished a conference in Mobile, Alabama for Southern LINC, where for two days I made up graphics and pushed a button every time a light turned on. It was surprisingly exhausting, but lucrative, and a nice chance to get out of the winter doldrums in Chicago. I also flew in last night through part of a howling snowstorm, so today I am especially grateful to be alive, on the ground, and blessed with weather reports that tell me when to wear three layers of pants. (Perverts.)

That's all for now.

Matt

Proof that you're never fatal enough

I stumbled across this picture by way of the site www.littlegun.be and all I can say is that you just can't be fatal enough. I mean, somebody had the presence of mind to build a pistol into a fish hook.

Consider, for a moment, how you might put this sophisticated piece of steampunk to use:

- You're a horror movie slasher. Finally, you're within striking distance of your victim, but she dances away with the litheness of a gazelle. So you shoot her.
- You've caught the ultimate sockeye salmon, but the fish struggles as you load it into the boat. So you shoot it.
- The bond villain you've relentlessly pursued has captured you and forced you to work behind the bar on his enormous luxury yacht. Luckily, you've convinced him that an ego outsized enough to plan world domination requires a gin and tonic to scale, which in turn requires enormous blocks of ice. Also, very luckily, Q outfitted you with this tool, so that, when the villain takes his first sip, you shoot him. In the back. Because he made you lift all that ice.

As Brian Brown in "F/X" said, about SuperGlue, "A hundred and one uses. Now, a hundred and two."