Sorry about the delay. Had a little kerfuffle with the webhost in uploading files.

This week, The Chair is bucking current food fashion trends and declaring itself 100% protein free, instead going all in on carbohydrates, mostly donuts and pasta.
Why? Just 'cuz we can.

Models for living life.

Designer Marc Jacobs, reacting to a documentary about himself: And the first time I saw the film, I said to her [Sofia Coppola], 'I didn't hate myself.' I really liked the person that I saw in that movie and that was surprising to me. Add another restatement of To A Louse to the list. Our brain selves are rarely as good as our public selves as perceiving our true worth. we see the flaws, what we didn't do, not what is. (he said, projecting).

Price Love: Your dream can be reality... believe that you can fly.

Astronauts reply, 'Can do!'

as BBC tells us Astronauts on International Space Station told to shelter as repairs under way to fix air leaks.

'Houston, is there anything else we can do, like chewing gum to stuff in cracks? We'd like to be a little more proactive with fixing this. Also, do you have any suggestions for reducing blood pressure?'

The art of the almost imperceptible bodyslam.

The WSJ has an 'events of the week' quiz. Last Saturday's quiz included this question: Though seemingly without expertise, Trump ally Bill Pulte was named to which new job?

The correct answer was 'Director of National Intelligence.' Now, the obvious bodyslam would have been 'without qualifications,' but expertise does a fine job, too.

Warning to writers.

One of the documents included in The American Yawp Reader was Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Why I wrote 'The Yellow Wall Paper.' In it, she tells of her own near breakdown and how, as part of the cure, her doctor told her never to write again, which made her crazier. Just goes to show.

I wonder how many literary classics and other works of art have been lost to 'doctor's orders.'

A new model for endorsements?

Yahoo! reports Trump Endorses Missing N.J. Congressman Who Hasn't Been Seen in 3 Months.

Step 1: Find out who's been MIA the longest. Step 2: Endorse them.

In theory,

Every school should be doing what The Royal Drawing School in London is doing. The BBC takes us Inside the school teaching students to slow down and observe.

Also students should be reminded about asking 'why' and 'how.' I was going to say 'taught to ask,' but then I remembered discussions I have had with three-year-olds, and it seems like why and how are the only two words they know, so it's just a matter of re-engaging the curiosity center of their brain again.

Local infrastructure.

Local roads come in two flavors, those:

needing repair

being repaired

repairs come in two flavors: one-two weeks, or one-two years

So much to unpack.

USA Today (and BBC) tell us about a Quadruple amputee and cornhole champion accused of fatally shooting passenger while driving.

You know what? I'm going to let you have the joy of discovery and figuring out just what is happening here, but it sounds like engineers are making great strides in multitasking assistive technology.

Discuss among yourselves.

I mentioned last week that I started reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, and stopped to contemplate a particularly toothsome passage. I gave it the thought it required, and resumed reading.

But here I am stopping again to write to you. I came upon this phrase: Music had stirred him like that. Music had troubled him many times. But music was not articulate. It was not a new world, but rather a new chaos.

I haven't given myself enough time to process this for myself, but it raises an interesting question: how do you process/manage/deal with chaos? Do you hide it? Ignore it? Analyze it? Or invite it in and embrace it?

Anyway, I really hope Wilde stops dropping these 'some thought required' nuggets on me. At the rate, I'll never finish the book.

R.I.P.

Actress Valerie Perrine was 82 when she passed away. I can't say I was a big fan, but I remember her from what was possibly the worst train wreck of a movie in cinematic history (at least that I paid money to see), Can't Stop The Music. If Max Bialystok made a movie instead of a play, 'Can't Stop' would be the result.

Valerie was not to blame. She tried, remained professional, but the train was moving too fast for her to get out of the way.

Damn! Another opportunity missed!

According to People magazine, This Popular Food Was Found to Remove Microplastics from the Human Body in a New Study.

Outside the study, all bets are off.

3 very short careers.

American Songwriter tells us about 3 Famous Musicians Who Were Born and Died on the Same Exact Day.

Now that's real talent, being able to compose and perform and achieve celebrity all in twenty-four hours.

Write your own headline.

It's been a while since we've done 'write your own,' but BBC News lends a helping hand with the stub (or stem) Food prices likely to rise due to _________.

In this case BBC filled in with 'Iran War,' but any of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will do nicely, although 'famine' might be too cheap and easy an answer. Of course, anything could be fun, say 'TayTrav Wedding,' 'Aurora Borealis,' or 'NASCAR/PGA Mashup.'

How to tell if you're old.

Ada Limon, in her poem Calling things what they are, drops the line with so much future ahead of me.

On creating and using too-long sentences.

I've noticed that I have a growing tendency to create long, complicated sentences, elaborate, frothy constructions that twist and turn often with the only punctuation parentheses and the occasional comma, to say nothing of a glaring lack of conjunction and subordination.