Monday, January 26, 2009

Bees, Blogs, And Mobile Commodes

The wheels are off the bus in my marriage, folks.

While battling a scratchy throat I gulped down two delicious tablespoons of Billy Bee honey, drizzled from the lobotomized hole in poor Billy’s head. My wife, tending oatmeal with the concentration of Einstein, refused an incentive to lick the nectar from my lips leaving me in emasculated denial. Refused after multiple desperate invitations, mind you. It’s not like every vagabond I pass gets that offer either.


But apparently oatmeal requires a compulsive stir, the perfect foil against flakes burning to the pot bottom. And since we don’t keep a trained monkey to help with the banalities of food prep, honey stays glued to my lips and my wife stays glued to the cereal cauldron. And around and around we go. Yes friends, the wheels are off the bus.
 
* * * * *

Since I began this assault on the oxidized underbelly of my mind, similar queries recur time and again. Namely, the generic: “Oh, so you’re blogging about finance?” the customary blue-collar dismissal: “So you write about bonds and that kind of shit?” and the always well intentioned: “I can put you in touch with a few hedge fund bloggers,” occasionally followed by “some of those guys are edgy.”

Um, no sweetheart, I’m not blogging about finance. As most sane cops won’t transcribe the finer points of pistol whippings, racial profiling, or donut shop holdups, I’m loath to expound on, say, Pound Sterling in freefall, the stinking detritus of our banking system, or John Thain’s decorating sensibilities. And look, I respect a mobile commode as much as the next guy, but it doesn’t mean I should categorically focus on it like a raging Asperger’s
patient. I prefer to decompress on evenings and weekends, to gratifyingly step away from the hustle of ticker tapes and CNBC pundits. A complete power-down of my Blackberry at 6pm was more rule than exception (well, before it was “surrendered” to the firing squad along with my dignity), for better or for worse. And unlike the throngs of my MBA brethren, suffering in the windowless classrooms of the Henry Kaufman Management Center on West Fourth and preparing for, what, windowless careers in diminutive cubicles, I’m miles from gleefully jacking off to The Economist on Saturday afternoons. In fact, life is just as comfortable, thank you, unwinding with the latest issue of Rolling Stone, or The New Yorker, or Juggs if we’re going down that route.

So yes, Virginia, there are finance blogs, and occasionally The Bastard itself may dip its bloodied toe into issues of economic interest (read “
Biff Destroys The Economy” from Jan 20); but if you see greek letters in your alphabet soup and can’t stop fantasizing about volatility regressions at your kid’s softball game, please stay the hell away from me. And stay away from my family too. It’s exhausting and there are other things on my mind, especially today. Today is my birthday, dear reader, and I’m currently donning one of those dunce-shaped party hats with elastic chin strap (and nothing else) as I plug away at this keyboard, especially for you. Truth be told, I’m also ten deep into a Meister Brau 30-pack, it’s only 2:30 in the afternoon, and there’s a stack of Juggs back issues just dying to be cracked open.

I’m so busy being unemployed that it’s easy to fall behind on those … behind on the articles, but you knew what I meant.

0 comments:

YOUR VOICE COUNTS: