It has been a weird week. I have felt out of my skin each and every day, and that disoriented feeling was only compounded by a two-day prison sentence in a corporate park in White Plains, an awkward family-reunion-via-family-death, and a dramatic shift in weather that should be classified as a Hate Crime.

So, in an effort to right myself, I'm cataloguing things I love very much right now. I think this is one of the many documented steps in the grieving process, but I cannot be sure because I have not read that pamphlet. Whether it is or not, rest assured that I love:

• Ketchup
  Because, really, what's not to love about Ketchup? Specifically, I like the deep redness of Heinz ketchup, because it is less sweet than most brands of Ketchup and the resultant taste is good enough to chug directly from the bottle and the texture is thick enough to cling assuredly to a French fry suspended in space or to enjoy on its own with a large slotted spoon. I had a turkey burger last night and I wanted to fill the space between its every molecule with ketchup. I didn't, but only because science won't let me. (p.s. i put ketchup on potato chips. please avoid passing judgment until you've tried it. thanks.)
• New albums by Kanye West, Califone, Joyzipper, and Destroyer
  The South by Southwest Music Festival is like the first sighting of a robin; a harbinger of something better just around the corner. The November - February music lull is officially over and good things are happening in record stores. The Kanye album, in particular, gets better with every listen. I cannot believe it was released on Jay-Z's label, Roc-A-Fella, when it contains lyrics like "a man can love a man and still be manly." Damn, Kanye! (it's also nice to see that kanye's traditional streetwear includes a wool blazer at a time when even ja rule, hip-hop's skinniest mc, is glowering on the cover of the source, shirtless, oiled, and super-flexing his baby muscles hard enough to rupture an o-ring.)
• How to Kick People
  I realize that sounds like an obvious plug, and it is, but I really do love this show. It's hard to explain, but for a very long time I've felt like as a performer I straddled this weird place between comedy and literature. I love to write, but I guess I haven't warmed myself up to many other writers. I'm not a huge supporter of literary readings, either, for various reasons I will only explain to you on a person-to-person basis, and only after being plied with bourbon. I tend to run in circles with stand-up comics and comedy writers, and I can't think of any single "group" of people I like more. As such, I've had some really great opportunities to perform in front of stand-up audiences, but I've never felt perfectly right reading my material in front of them. It's probably me projecting expectations on the audience, but I think for many stand-up audiences reading off a page lacks the immediacy of, say, cruising around the stage on rollerskates and then hitting a watermelon with a giant mallet. So I've always felt a little bit out of place in that scene, too. How to Kick People has provided this really excellent middle-space, and that's the chief reason I love it. I also love being able to ask people I respect and even admire to read with Bob and me, and having some of them say 'yes, ok.' And I love that audiences clearly get what we're doing and seem to like the show almost as much as I do. And I hope this continues. So there's your plug. Sorry for queering up the list.
• Blog Bragging
  this should be the it online activity right now. It's no secret that bloggers love to hear about themselves, online or off. And, fortunately, people are talking and this creates a wonderfully fertile ground for subtle bragging. It's harmless, and it's delicious. One of my favorite examples is posting a head count - or even photos! - for a previous evening's party, down to exact numbers, as if guests were clicked in through the door. It's a perfect brag for the medium because it reflects the great vice of online journals, which is measuring oneself by page views / visitors / comments / trackbacks / referers / links in and out / allegiance to a more successful (?) web site. It's really good shit.
• This photograph
  It was taken by a friend during her recent visit to Paris and I dare you to not care.
• The Office 2-Part Holiday Reunion Special
  The mere mention of this probably falls into another category of blog bragging – hinting at one's attendance of a private or secret event, or detailing access to some type of media that is not readily accessible – but I don't really count it since anyone with access to file-sharing software can see this same bit of television I've seen. That said, it's perhaps the most moving 90 minutes of television I've ever seen. One advantage of making a show that is naturalistic to the point of discomfort is that when it creates a genuinely touching moment you are right there in its crosshairs, feeling something very close to the joy or pain of the show's characters. This episode had me in hysterics, both kinds. I haven't cried so much since Kathy Ireland kicked the winning field goal in Necessary Roughness. (wait. never mind. there was that other time i bumped my testicles on a turnstile. i cried a lot that day.)
• Vaginal Sex
  Even after all these years, I still think hands-down this is the best kind of sex available. It's the only kind of sex I enjoy almost equally as an audience, participant, or production assistant.

And I think the most beautiful thing I'll ever see in my whole life is a disembodied female hand with long, elegant fingers, dangling a cigarette out of the backseat window of a passing taxi cab on a late weekend night. I mean it. I guess that's while I'm still stuck in this tough titty city.