Dear Fellow Meat Bag:

It began innocently enough. A hand unconsciously brushes against a cheek. A joke is shared in the corridor. A project requires working late into the night.

Then it’s a weekend "business" trip. Next thing you know, I've slapped myself with a lawsuit. This litigious culture has gotten way out of hand.

And, as if that weren't enough, I've noticed a pattern the last few months. Coming in late to work. Longer lunches, early departures. The “personal days” have become more than occasional. Clearly something was awry. So I took myself to lunch and laid it all out on the table. Of course, I denied there was any problem. Promised to make a renewed effort and all that. Feeling guilty the whole time, knowing that it was already a done deal. I’d decided to move on, and there was nothing I could say that would change my mind. Of course, it wasn't long before I found out. So now I've begun the painful search for a replacement. If you know of anyone, please let me know.
I’ve been noticing how popular this sponsorship marketing thing has gotten. So I thought I’d create an opportunity exclusively for you. For $50, you can sponsor a quote I made up about myself to promote my prowess in the specialized area of tagline writing. Here’s the quote: “Arguably the best tagline writer in the annals of advertising. Or at least in Evanston.” Wouldn’t your name look great appended to that gem as sole sponsor? You could take full credit for having said that, even though you didn’t. I’ve enclosed a sampler of taglines I’ve written, so you’ll know just how big a lie you’re staking your reputation on by becoming its sponsor.

If “Practice safe sex” is what we say to teens because they’re going to do it anyway, shouldn’t we also be on their case to “practice safe drugs”?

Have you noticed that Muzak has come a long way recently? The musical arrangements are still pablumesque, but the songs they are choosing to blandify are, dare I say, “hipper”? I was disoriented a few weeks ago by a Muzak take on Like a Rolling Stone. But when I heard the pureed strains of Beck’s I’m a Loser Baby So Why Don’t You Kill Me cascading down from ceiling speakers recently while shopping for floor tile, I was, well, floored.

I hope you were not traumatized by the prospect of your name and address, customarily scrawled psychopathologically on this mailing’s outer envelope in black marker, now neatly printed. I finally decided to trade off the handwriting’s personalization for the readability which, it turns out, is necessary to enable the Post Office to deliver the letter. Rest assured, though, that it’s still me personally, painstakingly printing out each and every envelope by hand.

Apropos of nothing I care to explain, it struck me the other day that most plants beginning with the letter “C” sound like horrible illnesses or growths. Cumin, calendula, cineraria, colic root, corydalis, cowslip ( an early sign of mad cow disease?), crocus (usually fatal). Some even sound like sexually transmitted diseases: convolvulus, cyclamen, camass, clematis, clethra, cockscomb (ouch), curled dock (double ouch), cocklebur and corn spurry. Actually, that last one sounds more like some fetid concoction that got served at the first Thanksgiving.

By the way, the answer to the quiz in the last newsletter is “nursing”. Too bad you didn’t save it so you could look up what the question was.

Stoically,

 

"The difference between a violin and a viola is that a viola burns longer." - Victor Borge

”There’s no such thing as a mass relationship.” - Jon Steel

The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that the average life expectancy of animal activists (and the rest of us) has been extended by 20.8 years through the use of animals in medical experiments.

"Progress was all right. Only it went on too long." - James Thurber

"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." - John Cage

"Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin

"Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious." - Brendan Gill