The home of If I Could Sing This Would Be A Record Label Publishing.
Usually unedited thoughts and ramblings. Often fancy, often deep, perhaps occasionally inspirational.
When I was 12,
I thought I was 35,
And when I was 21,
I thought I had an old soul,
Now, I’m nearly 30,
And I think I’m barely 12,
Age and maturity
Are irregular wave functions.
Of time and nostalgia.
So screw this. If you want an introduction, go back a couple dozen of these wussy haiku posts and unfinished fiction, otherwise, enjoy my offering, or don't.
While reading, please listen to this:
Occupy Your Own Fucking Street
by Stanley Mathews
This is a poem for the real world,
A big motherfucking dream you might say.
Motherfucking utopia in an Easter basket
With those little fucking tootsie rolls that
Aren’t chocolate and no one knows
Where the shit they come from…
That’s kind of what this is like,
A wish on a star through pipe smoke
On a rainy night, midwinter,
While standing in a pile of shit,
Moist junk mail and hopeless beer vomit.
That’s all the good wishes are, but still.
Fuck you.
I want a world where everybody takes their couches,
And moves them out to the curb,
And then, facing said curb couches,
So as to make a conversation place to fucking
Talk, put their lazy boys in the street parking area.
Fuck your living room, sit on the floor.
I want a world where all up and down the street,
I can hear radios blaring songs about important shit,
Like politics, and fucking, and fucking the man,
And growing up, and drinking beers, and breaking up,
And getting back together, and breaking your tv,
And covers of awful pop songs to be funny, since everyone knows
I don’t really like those fucking songs.
But we all really do, somewhere deep in our regurgitated,
Already been chewed bubble gum hearts.
I don’t want to have to go to a bar to talk accidently meet some guy,
Totally fucking belly up,
Start a fumbling conversation, then realize,
Oh shit, you’ve been my neighbor for 3 years.
I want to make it so no matter how bad our modern
Peripheral vision is, we can’t just walk straight ahead
Ignoring each other.
Oh, I’m guilty too.
I have the softest piece of shit white vinyl chair in my
Living room.
I sit in it, all by myself,
Sometimes not wearing pants,
And watch Star Trek reruns on my only friend,
Netflix…and even she keeps getting more expensive.
Raising her fucking hourly rates,
Till it may not be worth me watching,
Even for the journeys of the USS Enterprise.
So today, I give you a fucking commitment,
I am bringing my ancient chair that I stole from my parents
To the curb.
Not as garbage, or in some hope that a random stranger,
Will take that shit off of my hands,
But as neighborhood furniture.
I’m sitting on it. I’m going to read a book out there,
Or watch movies on my old MacBook thanks to zombie Steve fucking Jobs.
Maybe I’ll inspire you to pull that red flowered couch I’ve seen you
Masturbating in in front of your picture window,
While your wife’s away and your kids are at school,
in front of your house.
Then the tweekers across the street will bring beers,
And people will stop fucking driving, abandoning their cars
In the wasteland of the middle of the road,
And we’ll have a traffic jam of empty vehicles,
Not like that wussy REM video,
Like the goddamn zombie apocalypse.
But with a fucking block party,
And fiesta lights,
Piñatas,
Big ass speakers.
Operation Ivy,
Bad Religion,
The Misfits,
The Beastie Boys,
Run DMC,
Billy Bragg,
Neil Young,
The Gin Blossoms,
Hootie and the Blowfish,
Lady Gaga.
Cardboard open spaces,
For those coordinated douche bags to break dance,
As an excuse to listen to those
Bad
Pop
Songs.
Fuck occupying Wall Street.
Get out and Occupy Your Own Street.
Bring your neighbor a beer,
Invite the local bartender over for a drink,
Hand out coffee
And nachos
In your sweatpants.
Everybody pitches in and nobody’s out a dime,
And 3 days later,
It’s raining, washing the sweat
Off our euphoric bodies,
Soaking our rock and roll or
College athletics hoodies,
We’ll smile.
Cause we just changed the mother fucking world.
“Stomp”
I wake up in a dark room.
All I can remember is the blotted out sun,
Terror,
And wondering if the crowd would even react,
I know I’m awake usually due to
The pain.
I am even more acutely aware of my waking state,
Because I feel nothing.
It’s not hot.
It’s not cold,
There’s no pain at all.
Nothing.
No feeling of a bed,
Steel table under my back.
Too dark to know if I’m moving my.
Proprioception is shit.
I hear a click.
Nothing.
Part 2
I should have stayed still.
Damn fight or flight reflex.
The second I break into the open
The bird of paradise swoops over the crowd.
It catches me quickly, as flying creatures usually can do.
It’s beautiful tail feathers flowing behind.
It makes it to my ear and whispers
In the voice of my father,
“you know you can’t run,
you know you can’t hide,
She’ll find you.
We can guess where you go,
And watch you from the sky,
From the roots,
From the eyes of marching elephants.”
With an odd cackle it returns skyward.
I never stop running,
And slam directly into the parade route
Through a break in the crowd.
Directly in front of me towers a cyborg
Elephant, marching in loose ranks with the parade,
“Stomp,” I hear him whisper.
The giant head swung towards me,
As I attempted to change directions,
But lose my footing.
Staring skyward,
A foot the size of my chest
Seems to hover above me.
Gravity.
“stomp”
There’s a chase going on,
down the busy streets of an old world city.
I’m sweating bullets in a secondhand,
but well-fitted suit.
My hair is flowing behind me,
in a windblown/disheveled state.
I turn down alleyways that house their
own centuries-old microcultures,
running underneath multicolored clothes lines,
dodging cats and vagrants sharing space on the
narrow slit of pavement.
In my dash, I almost miss the alluring smell of a
slum cooked meal.
There’s pain shooting up through both my legs,
if I stop I’ll double over, heaving and gasping for air…
but they’re after me.
They’re coming.
At the end of the alley, I run through the back of a smoke-filled
business, selling sin like bread in a bakery.
Perfume, sex, and anticipated violence linger in the air,
but I plow through the patrons’ heckles and protests and
break out onto a busy street.
It’s a parade day.
I’m blinded by the colors of the costumes on the street
after the shadows of the alley and the absolute darkness
of the brothel.
I stop to catch my breath because no matter how hard I push,
the crowd doesn’t part.
Maybe there is safety in numbers.
The look on my face, rapid breath, and clenched fists
are the only things that separate me from the crowd.
I am, or at least could’ve been one of them.
Should I blame curiosity?
Should I blame stupidity?
Or jealousy?
Or, as most end up doing, my mother?
I slowly take in my surroundings.
No sign of my pursuers, but they have
a habit of disappearing for moment,
only to reappear around the next bend.
The parade passes.
For the first time I notice the sound
of thousands of drums and horns
being played in a rhythmless orgy
by those marching and those watching.
Unicorns prance by,
followed by robots,
and a chained but menacing dragon,
all surrounded by tumbling musicians,
and music playing tumblers.
This madness, this new rainbow
of weapons of war, festival,
triumph, the modern, and the magical,
has mesmerized the populace.
Over the crowd I notice a bird of paradise
with purpose in its eyes.
I push back out of the masses,
knocking over a woman and child,
I’ll never be one of them again.
They’re still after me,
as I run in no particular direction
but away.
I will add to this in future posts. Maybe I'll escape. Please check my other semi-professional blog on Health and my studies to become a Naturopathic Doctor.
Haven't put my thoughts down
since the sun came out,
Summer's nine month gestation
in light Oregon rain inspire
far more introspection.
Today I embrace outrospection
in the 85 degree perfection and sunshine.
The four unique draw bridges,
I can see with a simple turn of the head
from my park bench,
impressed at how good hot coffee is
even in this heat.
at Tugboats
at everyone's headphones (and what they're listening to)
at dedicated lunchtime joggers,
at the sleeping vagrant's beard and happy mutt
at the train blowing it's whistle.
All impressive, all magic,
All without moving anything but my head.
not even straining my neck.
I wonder what I'll find deeper into the city,
I strap on my helmet, travel three blocks and...
A Eulogy to a Weezer T-shirt:
Oh Weezer Shirt, My Weezer Shirt (thanks to Walt Whitman and Robin Williams)
Oh Weezer Shirt, My Weezer shirt
We are gathered here today, to give thanks to the shelter,
the branding, the false sense of being cool and part of something,
imparted by this black graphic tee, that was somehow more,
somehow a representation of everything good in the 1990s.
It didn’t make me look like Buddy Holly,
or more attractive to half Japanese girls, but it traveled
from state to state, early high school, to college, through marriage,
to post-bac work, and almost made it to medical school.
It made its final stand floating down a river
in a cheap inner tube with good friends and a bag of pork rinds
before it was actually warm enough for said activity.
Oh Weezer shirt, My Weezer Shirt
You weren’t given to goodwill to decorate a new
high school freshman or an ironic hipster,
you faded and deteriorated as I was towed upstream after having failed
to make a successful landing at the boat put out.
One last protection, for one last failure.
Oh Weezer shirt, my Weezer shirt,
How many bad religious and philosophical discussions did you witness?
You were there for me at church camp…and after that went down in
a blazing campfire of revelation.
And one too many viewings of Dead Poet’s Society.
You were there through cases of diet coke,
an attempt at straight edge, cases of beer,
bottles of wine, pizza, suicide attempts, and awful hair choices.
And now you’ve gone away to retro tee-shirt museum in the sky,
And we salute you.
You had little to do with the band that sold you,
and more with a representation of geek chic before it was
the in thing.
Oh Weezer shirt, My Weezer shirt,
You were cool and then uncool, until becoming cool again.
You made it ok for me to read comic books, and worship the
X-Men more than the Bible,
Secure that I’d never lose my insecurities.
Oh Weezer shirt, My Weezer shirt,
Fallen apart at the seams,
Left at peace on the riverbank.
Here’s to one last unironic Kiss song,
and taking my bike to work,
You made it all ok,
Oh Weezer shirt, My Weezer Shirt.
There’s a record playing.
My dad’s from 1972…
He was only 16 when he bought it,
If you asked him, he mowed a hundred lawns,
And took a loan out from his dad to buy it.
Now it’s mine,
Spinning.
Singing,
Same voice,
Same words, from almost 40 years ago,
The sound crackles in the same place,
And I like to think,
That despite out differences over the year,
When I turn this on,
I feel the same as he did,
That day,
So long ago,
When he walked into a record store,
Braving the hippies and disco dancers
He bemoans, to buy a plastic disc,
That he could never imagine,
His son spinning in his own living room
With his own wife,
And his own beat up speakers,
Feeling a little too old himself
A million years later,
And thousands of miles away.
Right at home.
I just had the best day I've had in years for my birthday. It involved my toilet breaking, a man's hand dyed blue, and seventeen people eating sausages in our parking spot...I have not written many words for a while, but sometimes I think that's ok.
Petina
My fingers have grown rusty.
True, there have been words hammered out,
But not in a celebratory way,
Not excited,
Just pouring bullshit on a page.
My creativity has oxidized.
But with patience,
It’s a patina one can grow to love.
Because time,
And friends,
And drinks,
And sunsets,
And pets,
And lovers,
And adventures,
And taboos,
And work,
And school,
And bicycles,
And coffee,
And laundry,
And groceries,
And recipes,
All take up time,
That may or may not have been better spent,
Exploring the caverns of my keyboard,
Exchanging pleasantries with my pen.
I could’ve avoided the wear and tear,
And present my first library,
But souvenirs have no soul,
I always prefer an antique.
So instead of being productive this morning, I felt like I needed to unburden my brain a little. I needed to throw up my past. Instead of deeply analyzing my life, I looked through my old poetry. All the way back to middle school. Sadly I'm not much better now and in many ways I'm worse. I can't seem to tap into the beauty , faith (even if it was misplaced then), or hope the same way. But as I've said here before, I don't think that's what my poetry is for anymore. It's more to get through the day. It's better than any antidepressant I've been given. I woke up in funk and cured myself with coffee and an hour of writing. So cheers, and if you read this, remember being 12 or 13 and do it fondly with life's ever present rose colored filter.
(note this poem is unedited in total because I have to return paint to JoAnn Fabrics: oh the exciting life)
King Arthur's DNA (or a history of things I've written)
My first attempts at poetry were heroic
Rebellion.
Against my inability to meet girls,
my few friends,
my somewhat isolating view on the world,
My optimism that one day,
I could be a superhero,
Like Spiderman,
or Luke Skywalker.
The refrains of those poems
often still ring in my head,
like Hootie and the Blowfish songs
or English class darling Robert Frost.
Poetry that justified my inability
to crack the starting line up in football,
and used my love of Jesus as shield
for my fear to try new things,
G-rated poetry as
middle school
high school rebellion.
Then it changed,
I grew up,
Read Chaucer,
Le Morte De Arthur,
Shakespeare.
Clearly my mature tastes
led to better words,
a wider vocabulary,
less AABB rhyme schemes,
and more grand ideas
and chivalrous descriptions,
that gave me slightly more luck
with women,
and sounded slightly less
like I ripped off a Matchbox 20 song.
Then the knights in shining armor,
magic, and castles fell to ruin.
A renaissance of rebellion.
as I embraced punk rock,
threw of romanticism and religion in one go.
Rhyme schemes and beauty were gone.
Questions came in.
Why government?
Why God?
Why sex?
Why no sex?
Why love?
What’s love?
What the hell am I doing here?
So many questions that I failed to answer
with the darker imagery
minimal rhyming and anger.
This questions were finally answered:
cynicism.
I embraced politics and profanity
sprang from my pen and keyboard.
If I couldn’t tell what was going,
and I couldn’t make it pretty,
it would be pointed.
Sarcastic.
Current,
and (in my mind) funny,
poetry written for the slam,
to bring down the man.
Throughout all this was one constant.
I believed in love (like a bad movie)
and I found it, and got married.
My love became the new target of bad poetry,
as I wrote toasts to mundane things,
a habit I thought I’d broken in middle school,
after I spent days writing about Diet Dr. Pepper.
Here I am not, probably fifteen years or more,
since I first tried to write.
My words soaked in nostalgia for the heroic knighthood,
or the innocence on asking questions and expecting to find answers.
I tend to put more science in now,
with the historic images.
King Arthur’s DNA runs through the bloodstream
of my poetic lineage.
Now peppered with an image of myself that is much
older and beaten than I really am,
an old soul who’s listened to too much Tom Waits,
and read some Bukowski.
and I’ll keep going,
with my current view,
that bicycles and coffee are cool,
that these words only purpose is to keep me going.
and to get the girl (which I did)
and to change the world (which I still say I will)
and to somehow make it past thirty.
(Depends on the Mayans but I’m going to count on it)
This was written with a glass of Scotch, after a bottle of wine, while listening to the Gin Blossoms, trying to quiet my brain so I could tuck Morgan in and go to sleep. Turn this video on while you read this. It'll at least put you in the right frame of mind. Also, look up the band Yuck. They're new and younger than you probably but drip exquisite 90s nostalgia. It really wasn't thought out. Just how I felt.
Some days,
Stretch beyond one, beyond two,
and are a life time.
It’s 1 am, and my wife sleeps soundly on the couch.
I can’t say when it was I woke up.
I just know the day opened with big decisions,
and is ending with the need for patience,
and an uncomfortable quiet.
Is there a hidden glory to fading out for the night
to staying up,
till you can’t anymore,
like a high schooler finishing their
summer reading list,
the last day of August.
Oh of Mice and Men,
for that simplicity.
Now life hangs on other’s decisions,
and I can’t recall if I really put forth my all.
I must have.
You sleep so soundly.
As our cats run circles and races,
waiting for a midnight snack,
and I stare at this screen,
finding peace in puzzles and flash games,
and nostalgic torrents.
Tomorrow will be an adventure,
as the future fires up its welder,
binding my anxiety
to my inner analog clock,
two to four weeks is forever to hear,
if the days have today's reach.
Apr 24, 2011
remnants of an old life on an expired student ID that I still use to get into the movies.
So sitting here sipping on scotch while Morgan prepares some eggs at near midnight, I decided to try a sort of a Madlib poem with her. I wrote stream of consciousness and yelled questions that she answered and her answers went straight in. I continued writing non-stop. The results:
It’s twelve-o-clock and I’m tired, my feet are sore, The airport is far away, My bottle of red has one sip left. On a scale of one to ten I am a nine, And God is stupid. Don’t judge me, I told the judge I was pregnant, And they dropped all charges. I want to go swimming at the pool, Diving in the shallow end like risk, But I’d prefer scrabble like my brains, Not scrambled but hard-boiled, Accompanied by 3 cats, Flanking me like battle hardened Alligators, ready to conquer The bayou of your souls, I will make you swivel your pelvis Like Elvis, You’ll climb to the top Of Big Pink buildings, And purple mountains, To ask me how the hell I got here. What? How? This doesn’t make sense? Zitty Booger Head. Doesn’t have to.
Prose. Like Poe, Sappy like Fabio On the cover of a book, You want a second look, But you’ve been blinded, By science, My brain evolved for this.
I'm going to post some short things I've written lately now, and possibly later edit and post some longer pieces. Enjoy or not, it's all groovy.
On Jobs-
I am underpaid overqualified but I have a job.
On Japan,
Earthquakes and leaky reactors, Toxic radiation, but it's ok, as long as there's a seaward breeze. Dolphin's mutate.
On Anderson Cooper or Records
I thought it was Anderson Cooper outside the record store in a light rain, clutching Huey Lewis.
I want to rule a sunny day empire, all roaring 20s, pax romana, and the sun never sets. Just ignore the b-side.
On failure and being emo...
Failure forces you as far forward as success. Time's unrelenting wheel.
1. I have bad teeth my eyes are going as I squint to write this in the dark. 2. I'm cold and you're snoring but I won't move you and I can't sleep wearing a shirt. 3. I want to be a poet a gypsy, a blues man, Lost teeth are personality and we'd never need to sleep.
Isolate yourself in a room full of happy people to find yourself
On Hockey and memories...
The hockey playoffs and memories of triple overtime heartache at three am before school.
On our health care system...
Revenge comes in many forms like bad songs on the radio while you take a shit at the grocery store.
I greatly appreciate the artfully designed smoke rings you blew up my ass.
On coffee...
Some days I'm convinced the meaning of life is baked in the awkward smallish pastry that the cafe throws away at closing time.
I want a service Animal Badge for my cat, so he can sip coffee here with me.
On tour guides....
"and these are two of our hallways," said the tour guide. Thanks.
On Spring...
In this first sun of Spring the empty trees long for the caress of leaves.
Northwest, Early Spring, Hippies and Punks bloom, pasty white into the still chilly sun.
One long slightly serious piece written while listening to gypsy tuba and fiddle music and two quick one.
The Lights in the Castle (Perspective)
The lights are lit in the tower castle turret again, as the clear moonlight turns to clouds, then to an ominous still, before wind falls and rain blows and the walls and mountainside are only visible in terrible flashes.
In the village below men swallow harsh whiskey, and feverishly smoke seasoned pipes. They argue politics to hide their inner child’s fear of the storm and the meaning of those lonely lights.
Children are far less worried about appearing brave than their fathers, especially at night, in their homes, away from the war games and dares of their peers. They first crawl into bed with their siblings, then, all together with their mothers, who welcome the company as the night transforms into the setting of most nightmares. Terror. and through it all, the constant lights in the castles highest tower, accent the dark.
An hour into the storm and nearly every villager has found an excuse to light their lanterns and heat up fire places and stoves. The village’s elderly priest opens the heavy wooden church doors for stranded travelers, husbands who swallowed too much spirit, and the homeless alike on a night the likes of which the building was built to fend off. The tattered hand copied Bible is fittingly open to Revalations, as the pages are blown by wind coming through the open doors. While the priest tries to joke about how he knew he should’ve built an arc, the castle lights are still visible, through the beautifully violent stained glass depiction of the crucifixion.
….
In the highest tower of the castle, every candle is burning and the fire is roaring a lone man, possibly a king, sips his wine, and nervously watches each light lit in the village below, before he turns to witness his young twins, their teacher, the cook, and his aging mother all come through the door, to wait out the collapsing heaven, and get the best view of a new sunrise.
And something completely different
Haiku:
My smile gets bigger the harder the rain hits my face, as I peddle to you.
Crass:
I Have A Screwdriver For Every Type of Screw Except You
Now that I’ve got the equipment and I’ve collected enough heart, I’m going back to the start. and you’re coming with me because I can’t make it alone, on this journey I need you, to make this road a home. We’ll meet a lot of people, some we’ll call friends, some will come and go others till the end, but when we reach that last stop, and we’ve given it all we’ve got, life is a big circle, and we’ve collected enough heart, we’re back to the start.
I gave you a wet sleeve arm when I went straight from the shower, to laying on your shoulder. Your pajamas are imprinted with wet curly hair, a wet sleeve arm stamp, that says somebody loves you, so please, don’t change shirts, it’ll dry eventually, and I’m comfortable.
I saw so many people today, on a rare warm winter afternoon, collecting vitamin D and lifelong memories. It made my lazy Sunday bike ride a bit of a downer, so I retreated into a hole in the wall, pizza place who’s kitchen door opened to the street. I ordered a huge slice of pepperoni, grabbed a bar-stool and an IPA in a red plastic cup, and read a digital version of the New York Times. The pizza chef’s boom box blasted an album of Beastie Boys B-sides. As I wallowed in my regrets, of not having a day worth a spot in my lifetime memory banks, a tiny 70 year old woman in a long dress coat pulled up the stool next to me, She ordered a slice with everything and an IPA. These choices clashed with her Church clothes and size. We ate next to each other in silence. I was still stewing over my days lack of cosmic importance. She finished first, paid her tab, grabbed my shoulder and said, “Enjoy it.” Enjoy it. Everyday.
Haiku
Decommissioned subs, now museums for wide eyed kids on Sunday afternoon.
Musicians peak at 20. Poets peak years later and storytellers never peak.
Let's all Just Hum for a Moment in Honor of Hummus and it's Powers
I had never eaten hummus until I met you, and to this day, I know we’re meant for each other because you get angry when I eat an entire package in one sitting. but it’s really just your fault cause I do it out of love. I can’t love you more and I can’t eat too much hummus, cause I love you like multigrain crackers and garbanzo beans.
Robots and Coffee Mugs
Robots and coffee cups, empty juice cups and beer bottles, a half eaten tub of hummus, and my night’s still not done. It’s a wild one, A real rager, Movie material, texting back and forth drunkenly to a friend, to make a computer game work, while I let a beautiful woman pass out in the other room unattended to. The coffee is gone, there is no robot. Yet.
And the day's haiku. ( I think that Haiku are short 3 linish poems expressing a thought or moment. I try to do the syllables, but would rather express the moment, hence they are flexihaikue.
My cat just said hi! Jumped up onto my stomach. For love or supper?
Can or bottle? the eternal question that I never remember.
I spent the day bundled because of a bungled weather report, tomorrow: the window.
Turn off the TV, I’m coming to bed to talk and put you to sleep with the New York Times.
The punk rock blasting at 1 am is lulling me to sleep with you.
Is it weird that part of me doesn’t want to sell my old bike that I’ll never ride again?
I am the underutilized horn section in life’s ska band. Clearly I’m the one that blows.
I can’t write long form because it’d just sound like high school, so I just use witty poem names to pretend to be deep and say very little of substance. There’s so much to say, and so many people have said it. So I will speak in bursts of monologues and all anyone will remember is the name.
Haiku
Ke$ha tickets sell out for hundreds of dollars STD test Free
Giant stack of blanks, ready to be loaded and spun and make you mixtapes.
The sliver of blue through the northwest cloud cover helps me leave on time.
I have learned I can't blog. I can use Facebook to write a random note or two about some awesome album. Instead, I am just going to use this to post things I write. Some will be good, some will be unfinished, some will be my nightly 27 seconds of writing exercise. Most will be unedited and malleable.
Oh the indulgence.
Two poems, and some stream of consciousness.
Run or Your Upstairs Neighbor
Run, Never been a runner, not away, not too, not around the block. I tried for a while. The constant plodding bored me. Hurt me. Ruined my rhythm. I am not smooth. Stampede. Always been a stampede. No direction, no aim, but destroying the underbrush, to get somewhere. A mobile performance of stomp, no plot, but a kicked over garbage can, and a standing ovation.
Goofy Wet Smile
I rejoice in my inner 12 year old, as I ride my bike with no hands, In a downpour, at dusk, daring to reach my arm, deeper, deeper, into my coat pocket, to pull out the perfect handful of gummy bears.
Chuckle, Umbrella, Jackass.
I laugh at you and your umbrella. It’s sad you’re scared of a little rain. People dry, it’s one of our innate talents. Close it. Feel your hair matting to your head. Wipe your eyes like you’re in a shower. You are. A big, cleansing, public shower. I know it’s not an original, but sing in the rain. Use your umbrella as a dancing prop. If it gets too hard or cold, go inside and huddle up. If you’re clothes can’t get wet, buy new clothes. We need a new society, where being dirty doesn’t mean you’re not appropriate for work, and being wet is business appropriate. If I can’t get you to get rid of the umbrella, can you at least get a fun one. Black umbrellas are only allowed at funerals. One of life’s great thrills is crossing a bridge in the rain on foot or on a bike. Water beneath you, above you, around you, but you’re sheltered and feel bad because I’m wet. Let’s go have some coffee.
