Wonderama

I'm currently reading "The Mezzanine" by Nicholson Baker. It's a book about a guy who goes out on his lunch hour to buy shoelaces and then goes on to relate his theories on why shoelaces break and how that's connected to the wear lines on shoes and the whole corporate clothing structure, which includes the traditional silk tie, similar to the silk ties his father used to leave on the glass doorknobs in his family's house, and why they don't make those kinds of doorknobs anymore, which were actually "knobs" as opposed to the handles they have on doors now, especially in commercial buildings, where style has taken on this kind of function-style, but what about the items that were not made in the style to function, but have evolved into a function-style all their own?

Like sugar packets.

I remembered when this book came out and how my friend Don praised it up and down, which led me to remember some funny things he's said, which led me to think of funny things most of my friends have said over the years. Such as:

Don -- on seeing Alex Chilton walk by us at the Coach House bar: "Kiss me, son of God."
Mal (after eating ... I think it was my meatloaf): "This tastes like pants."
Melissa Nickel: "I'll bet he was." in response to my describing another friend's phone call ("I couldn't hear a word because she was sucking on a Jolly Rancher while she was talking to me.")
Hugo: "Danny Bonaduce ... didn't he play with Mingus?"

All of these sayings hopelessly worn out with my repeating them to strangers on the street, current friends, unsuspecting family members, etc...

"The Mezzanine" is also making me realize that my own novel writing is sentimental crap. I bear the double scarlet S for Sentimental Shame. (or SCT for Sentimental Clap-Trap. I love that word/phrase, word-phrase: Clap-Trap ... as though you could really trap a clap)