I'm coming off three hours of sleep last night. I spent the evening alternately writing/editing a story I needed to send off before sunrise; pacing my apartment; touching the dry, hairless nosetips of my sleeping cats (my only Tourrettic tic, as far as I know); desperately checking email (why?); stealing glances at fleshbot.com's "best of babelogs"; and munching on baby carrots to keep myself from munching on a fudge log or something. All of this came to an abrupt end around 4:50 this morning and, as a result, today my eyeballs are burning like damp Altoids. I don't have the energy for much, so I've found solace in the words of others...

My co-worker
I have a co-worker whose speaking voice sounds so much like a teenaged Keanu Reeves or a "slacker" character in a commercial on FM radio that I suspect it might be a cultivated affect. (Once, at a friend's party, I met a guy whose speaking voice so closely mimicked the unusual cadence of singer Jonathan Richman that I actually said out loud to someone, "I think that guy stole his voice from Jonathan Richman." Later that night, the guy entertained all of the party guests by performing some songs with his Fender guitar. The second song he performed was a cover of Jonathan Richman. It made me dislike him so much, for consciously appropriating the persona of the least conscious performer in all the world.) Today, I overheard my Slackerish™ co-worker say the following: "Um, that's a negatory."

My friend, T.
In lamenting her recent break-up over instant-messaging, a friend claimed her ex-boyfriend felt insecure because he never really embraced the culture of New York City. Her supporting evidence: "he doesn't even know what a panini is."