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daily snapple fact #27
A ball of glass will bounce higher then a ball of rubber.

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doug at freewayslowdance.com

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"Dancing The Freeway Slowdance"

I don't really remember where this phrase came from, but I like it. The freeway slowdance is what you do in heavy traffic. Marinate in that excess processing power you now have because, while your neurons are still firing at their usual rate, the task-at-hand is currently in limbo. Sometimes you fuss with the various knobs and dials in your car and try to sing that song you only know the chorus of. I take these steps in the shower a lot; the flexes and pivots, shuffles, shimmies and slides all without a partner, all without moving much.

I used to think that these were the only times when thought actually occurs without the clear-cut direction of academia. But, I'd hate to consider one of the best parts of life-in-general limited to happenstance and rare-occasions.

When I was a kid, every other week I'd go to my grandmother's house, an hour-plus drive. When you're a kid in the backseat, this is an excruciatingly long time to be staring out a window. If it was raining, I loved to watch the raindrops race across the side windows, in a fantastic defiance of gravity. Raindrops only ever run sideways in a car. But if the weather was clear, I'd spend this time meandering over kid-sized politics, religion, philosophy with my now estranged dad. I think this is where I learned to dance this dance.

posted by Doug 10:24 AM

Top Valentines Day Comments, from the CBTL:

Me: Would you like a big, pink, heart-shaped "Be Mine" Valentines Day cookie with that for your wife?
Customer: Nah, she's been a bitch all day.

Girl: And then, because my driver's license says "Male" the girl behind the counter said "I'll need to see another form of ID," and I was, like
Guy: Wait. Your driver's license says "Male"?
Girl: Yeah. Haven't I told you that? They screwed up at the DMV or something. Anyway, so I was like "Do I look like I have a penis?"
Guy: Do you? Because if you do, this shit ends now and I'm going home.

Customer: Man, you must get a lot of lonely motherfuckers today trying to make small talk and pretending they actually have friends.
Me: Definitely.

posted by Doug 10:50 PM

Adoring a book and trying to convince other people of its merits can make you feel like a Jehovah's Witness. If we're honest about it, most of us do not welcome book recommendations. Sometimes it seems that there is no more annoying pair of sentences than "You should read this book. You'd really like it." The more passionate the endorsement, the more suspect it becomes. The truth is that "You'd really like it" rarely means the speaker has taken into careful consideration your tastes and interests and is suggesting this book accordingly. Instead, it means "I love this book and can't bear the fact that I have no one to share it with, that the thoughts and emotions it stirred in me are swirling around the confines of my skull like hallucinations. Read it, please, and make me feel less alone." - Laura Miller.

I think this is true of a lot of media: Blogs, Movies, Theatre. I think this is my main beef with blogs. It's such a personal, personal experience. It's essentially a rant by you, for you and you alone, moreso than books and movies. Which is why I haven't told you about this blog. I'd hate to live under the misguided impression that I served the purpose of entertaining you. Which is odd for a theatre major, because, hey. That's what I do.

I wrote a solo piece for O Solo which goes up Thursday, the 20th. And I feel self-concious telling people to come see me, because how self-centered is that? "Come see me." Man. And I also know that several of the other pieces suck and that honestly, I'd hate to waste my time watching their shit. And hell, you might feel the same way about me.

Even though my piece kicks ass.

posted by Doug 4:51 PM

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