Along Those Lines

PREPARE

REMODEL

EMULATE

POLEMIC

ADAMANT

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ELECTED

This Unfolds

Most Hollywood house parties are premeditated, either for security or pretension. Usually, there’s a grandiose entrance involving a staircase, long corridor, or series of lists. There is hardly ever a front door you simply walk through to get to the living room. The point of entry is very purposeful and meant to direct visitors to a highlighted feature of the host’s life. In this case, it was a silver Lamborghini parked in the garage. 

Sing Tomorrow's Praise

This was the third visit to Joshua Tree National Park - at the exact same time of year - except the weather was harsher than usual. A storm rolled in on our second night and completely altered the park’s already austere setting. The trees sagged more than usual and the sky played a larger role in the overall dramatics of the landscape. And then I won at Scrabble and all was right again.

A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, “I’m sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.”

Tarot Sport

Watching Lockup on MSNBC the other night offered a singular view of prison that I had never seen before: the women’s prison is a spot for building friendships among inmates and intimately reflecting on the crimes that landed them in there in the first place. If anything, the rise in prison-focused TV shows plays on people’s fears, but this particular episode seemed almost comforting. 

A daughter was incarcerated alongside her mother for a joint effort to kill the daughter’s husband – actually, several of the women interviewed were in prison for attempting to kill their husbands – and they seemed pretty comfortable behind bars. One shot showed the pair in the kitchen, baking, while the next image was of the two of them reading side by side.  This is not far off from the activities I enjoy doing with my own mother and, in fact, I think we would do very well in prison together. 

MERGERS 

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GRAVITY

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SLAYERS

When They Fight, They Fight

If you drive up the Pacific Coast Highway for a couple of hours, about five miles past the Hearst Castle – which is definitely worth a stop, if only for the swimming pools – you’ll find a beach where elephant seals go to breed. 

Standing five feet away on a boardwalk, you can watch these creatures in a disparity of sizes. The largest are the males, protecting their mates with floppy hook noses and untimely snorts, and the females look like Jeff Bridges after a bender: heavy, stranded, and downhearted.

The mothers lie there unable to do much else but spoon their pups and throw sand on themselves to cool.  The display is physically awkward but easy to empathize with after returning from a two-week vacation.