The Last Horse crosses the finish line

There's another post in my drafts section I want to get to later- nothing mindblowing, but it's there and I just kind of forgot about it. Oh, no, this isn't it, this whole thing her is just me typing for a bit before going to work.

Already forgot a bunch of what I just dreamed last night, the only image I can hold in my head at the moment is this guy, a commanding officer or generic leader, putting my extra pair of shoes in my bag when I wanted to wear them instead of the heavier boots. And even while I was lamenting the extra baggage I had (pretty much just the extra footwear, other people around me had three extra blankets and four suitcases.

They didn't travel light is what I'm saying.

Checking out my list of comics for this week, and it looks like I'm only picking up the two things- The by-weekly published "Brightest Day" and the Elseworlds prestige (I think it's a prestige format)Superman: Last Family of Krypton.

While Brightest Day hasn't been anything to write home about, the Last Family of Krypton book is interesting in that it takes place in a world where Supermans parents travelled to Earth with baby Kal-El- there's a lot of emphasis on the media reaction to a family of aliens landing, then going about doing philanthropic things. The parents instantly become super celebrities, which has caused some domestic trouble for the parents. I'm looking forward to the issue because thus far there has only really been the seeds of conflict shown, nothing that couldn't be worked out with a good conversation. We should meet some antagonists this issue- or else Jor El will become the antagonist.

Oh good, it is raining a little. That should keep the day reasonable, temerature wise.

Yes, it's lame to mention the weather, I'm stalling a bit. Man, my typing sucks, I keep missing.

One more day of work and then I get a day off. Will be exceptionally sweet.
Also, need to either remove or super trim the old beard here.


I know, fascinating.

And now for something else

One of my goals today, I decided while running down from Dufferin Gate to Ontario Place today, was to talk to someone new today and just hear what they were about.

And it just so happens that I had one staff call in sick, and another was scheduled even though she is working somewhere else... so that was a fair number of staff to be missing. So for the purposes of breaks I borrowed some random people from another department...

Well, I didn't get much out of the first guy- he likes Super Smash Brothers and anime, but I didn't get to what kind specifically. I guess I kind of blew it on that one.

The second person immediately said she wasn't a very interesting person. Not a great sign... but she's the youngest of four and she likes watching mystery and crime procedurals and those things, but her parents aren't fans. Her parents want her to be a doctor so (as she supposes) she can amount to something beyond her brothers and sister- I forgot what they were doing, except the one brother is definitely a history grad, and hasn't figured out what to do with that. I hope he's passionate about it anyways.

She was very sweet, I ended up just entertaining her with a retelling of the episode of Bones I saw most of the night before. I don't watch a lot of Bones (despite loving David Boreanaz... may have spelled that wrong. Guess my love only goes so far) but it was a halloween episode where Bones was dressed up as Wonder Woman and there's an especially whimsical moment when she spins around pretending as though she's changing clothes as old school Wonder Woman did. Ah well, she seemed interested,and there are worse things than entertaining someone for half an hour. I'm of course talking about entertaining my borrowed staff, not being entertained by Bones... that's an hour long show duh.

Fell asleep for a little over ten minutes in my chair at work just at the end of the day. A necessary respite so I could make the hour and a half trek home. Ran for a bit towards Union station, just walked the rest of the way from Spadina, I was pretty worried I'd be unable to keep awake at home to post something here. Fortunately I had regained enough juice to read some on the subway- which is really all I ask.

An eternity of fanexpo. that was this weekends reality.

Entirely unfair- I'm going to have to make separate posts on the same day if I'm going to get to my number when I've been writing all weekend long.

I actually took a lot of notes at the Fanexpo so I could feel all professional and whatnot- I didn't take nearly this many notes in university.
Not entirely true- during the comics and cartoons course (about the only course that I would never EVER need notes for) I helped a guy out by taking notes for him. I never really got any feedback about whether or not they were useful, but I was just trying to help out.
Aha, but I still got away without having to buy the course kit for that class- again, because as far is it goes, I knew everything in there already. But anyway, that was a couple of years ago.

Oh, no! I just realized what I forgot to talk about in my fanexpo coverage, the thing that struck me was the fact that all these people, maybe you don't like some of their work- but they're only human. Take Ian Flynn over at Archie comics (please!), I'm not thrilled about his work, but those Archie guys... it's a whole other universe from what I'm interested in. So even if I could be arrogant enough to suggest some things to Flynn that I think would improve his story writing.. the man has fans, and his own way of doing things, and I can't say he's hurting anyone.

But man, throw some curveballs at your characters from time to time, huh?

It's too bad I didn't get another chance to talk to Jeff Lemire (upcoming writer on a new Superboy series), all I did the first time was basically quote my own review for his Action Comics back up story, which was great, don't get me wrong, but I still shared some of the negative point (yeah, just the one bad thing), and he didn't need to hear that. He didn't seem to mind, but then again I feel like I was doing more talking on that front...

Learning my lesson, I tried to let JT Krul do most of the talking, which is important, since my goal was to get a feel for the guy since I really didn't know much about him. He was really nice, talking even while I was delaying him from going to lunch with Marcus To and Francis Manapul.

I've never really been too mean as far as it goes with my criticisms of different creative teams, but I'm sure I'll be even more understanding now.

Really wish I shook Stan Lee's hand though- I'm all about the handshakes.
The autograph is sweet though. I better take care not to lose that book.

Dream time, colour you interested

Oh man-

So I'm at work (this is a dream) and a guy is asking me about combos and stuff, and this one woman (it's the character from the Office, she's from Florida, has two huge pet dogs, if you watch the show you proably know who I mean) apparently runs the business now, and when I say I don't know what combo we're taking about here- she flat out fires me.

And not the joking "ha ha.. you're fired." that I say to my staff all the time, this was legit. Well, dream legit.

So I'm assured by other people that I'm way too good a worker for a firing to "stick", but in the meantime, needing money, I'm in trouble.

So I walk into this one sketchy building, and it's one of those places that give temporary jobs to people for the day.. so even though it's late and they're clearly closing up shop this guy at a desk asks me what do I want?

"Uh, er, a job I guess."

"Do you want mine?"

"What?"

"Not for the long term, just for a bit, while I go on vacation." He starts grabbing things for his suitcase.

"Well, okay, what do I do, where do I get the jobs to give to people, when am I supposed to be here every day?"

While this exchange is going on, there are four other characters in the scene: an older woman is near the front door at the desk, she's like some kind of secretary, there are two other girls about my age, for whatever reason one is black and the other is white, both are soft spoken but friendly, and the fourth is a guy about my age, I feel like he had a red jacket (similar to that one famous Eddie Murphy thing, or maybe the Michael Jackson Thriller jacket- it's an eighties look for sure) and he's got the glasses and demeanor of a Johnny Cage (I guess by which I mean he's got the sunglasses and is cocky and daring)

The man, who becomes increasingly grotesque as I look at him- particularly with his lip, which is evidently split halfway up to his nose, giving him the ability to put a pennie in his mouth and have it poking out standing vertically over where his mouth should technically be.

He says I can show up to work whenever I want to- all I need to do right this second is tie these cups together for easy access later. I start at it, but I'm not the best at knots even in the waking world, so a dream one isn't doing me any favours (incidentally I had great success FLYING for a short segment earlier, it was pretty awesome now that I remember it) and then I start attempting to tie the cups to muffins as well, and of course the string/wire keep cutting through the muffins.

Remember that penny I described? So the gross man spits it out, vertically of course, onto the seat next to me, and I'm pretty horrified. I try to joke, and say, yeah, you keep it, but he's standing there as if he wants me to pick up the thing (had I not seen where it had been, just walking along, I'ld probably have picked it up. But not here, not like this...). So the Johnny Cage guy struts over, spits out his own penny next to the other, then gives a wink to me when he picks up both of them like it was all some variation of craps or something. He did it to get me off the hook of having to pick up spit covered pennies, and I am indebted to him.

Free from the pennie prospect, I get out of my chair so I'm not in such an open position. I half trip over a bag of smallish apples (except for the random opening times, this place/agency actually treats its walk ups rather well- not old coffee and old donuts, but muffins and apples. And fountain cups... hopefully for something that isn't old coffee, but I can't be sure on that one. At least they don't have to share.) and get some string that looks like it'd be a bit gentler on the muffins.

Sitting back on the couch as far away from the man as possible I'm now surrounded by my new... coworkers? Staff? Don't know.

The gross guy is doing that leaving thing where he's got his suit case packed and he puts on a trench coat and fedora, the older secretary is up and is clearly leaving with him.. even though earlier she had mentioned the old guy was shacked up with someone who he refused to marry. Maybe she was talking about herself.

The gross man: "Yes so, I'll be back after a few weeks, just have to avoid some creditors and whatnot"

The older man and woman are just about out the door when the Johnny Cage guy says "there go two ugly, rich bastards"

I nervously laugh, and it feels like the classic end to a sitcom episode, until it shifts to the recent subversion of an addition after the laughter, in this case it goes...

nervous laughter.
*beat*
"Am I going to die here?"


And then I get a text waking me up. It was probably for the best. In the waking world I have not yet lost my job- that's what September is for! Job losing.

Yeah, this isn't Scott Pilgrim talk, but I just woke up, I needed to get it down.

Actually, I've got the post started for Pilgrim and for another one, I just need a second (hour) to do them. I don't usually have posts all lined up like that.

Ours is a society of broken umbrellas

Everyone else is on a trip out to Montréal, but not us working guys. There was enough time for me to get a ride up to Castle Frank station, from which I walked most of the way to work. It was raining (still is).


Soon past Castle Frank there’s a part in the trees bordering the sidewalk where you can see that the ground has fallen away into a mini valley of lush greens, the austere subway tunnel cuts across ones vision, while mists of fog congregate to obscure all that remains. It was pretty cool. I didn’t mind the rain at that moment.


I’m not really in the typing mood- in as much as you can call what I do typing… but it’s good to just do some writing for the purpose of doing something. In fact, in doing so I got to use the word austere and then go “wait, do I REALLY know what it means?” and then see that I did, while gaining some additional info on various connotations and whatnot. I do that a lot.


My title comes from the fact that I espied two women walking in front of me and took note of how busted up their umbrellas were… and the realization that it’s lame for me to be blown away by the fact that my current found umbrella responds well to the little activator switch on the handle. A working umbrella? In this day and age? Mr. Isaac, how you do go on.


Speaking of found things, I never buy my own pen, I always rely on found pens- my current foundling is a grey number from Scotiabank with a red top and corresponding red rubber finger guard thing. And some Chinese writing. It was pretty nice, but I tossed it in the air, failed to catch it, and somehow it ended up chipping one side of its end. How could this happen- I toss and drop pens all the time, they’re fine, it’s fun for them! It still works fine, but it’s all brokeny. I may have to keep on the lookout for a neat replacement. Unless that’s what this pen WANTS me to do!


My shoelaces are very near to snapping, speaking of things being all brokeny. It’s weird, my laces are brown but where it’s frayed is purple, blue or red. It’s as though I’m getting a glimpse into the fictional circulatory system of my shoes. My shoes veins, just over its tongue, surrounding its sole. (


I see I have once again not talked about Scott Pilgrim. I was going to, but then got distracted by rain and writing implements. Tomorrow for sure.


Suuure.

P.S.- several hours later, returning home and the sky is all rained out, there's a crystal clear man in the moon.

P.P.S.- got home just in time to see the very ending to "You've Got Mail". Love that movie, but especially the ending... that's actually the only part I generally sit through when it randomly pops up on tv.

Oh hey Scott Pilgrim!- A warm up

I'm just about to get into some articles I'm writing for fanexpo stuff, but I thought a warm up would be useful, and maybe if it's just me going on about whatever, I may as well get my Scott Pilgrim thing out of the way.

So in Feb 2006 (I think) I started working at the Grey Region Comic store at Yonge and Wellesley, and the first two Scott Pilgrims were out.

The above sentence was basically all I had waiting for me in the limbo of waiting to be completed/posted blog entries. Part of what has been slowing me down on writing about Scott Pilgrim is that I think that somewhere there's a progression, a story about how I got into it, my feelings about it, but until I figure it out it's just a bunch of mostly random impressions. Which is usually what you get out of me anyways.

So the first two Scott Pilgrims were out, and I don't think I read them, maybe the first one, but it would have taken a while, because when I first started working at that store I was pretty serious about not taking advantage and just reading comics all the time (by the end I'd read something like 4 volumes of the Image comic 'Noble Causes')- but the book, in being there, in being something I didn't immediately know what it was about.. Well, obviously, I had made it. I worked in a store with cool things (if I don't know what it is, it is cool. That's how it works, right?) making ME cool. I keep wanting to call it an 'orange' atmosphere, the region of the store its presence contributed to (there were other mystery titles as well, I just can't think of them right now, but they were banded together, oh yes indeed, to reinforce their coolness) but that doesn't make any sense. What does 'orange', in this context, mean?

I don't know.

BUT then we can flash forward to the future (of course) when I've long since not been working at the Grey Region store (that's a long story. Ha, no it isn't, I'm kidding, the boss was just "so, yeah, I'm cutting back on your hours, I'll call you if anything comes up" and I'm thinking "wow, you don't even have the guts to just fire someone") things are blue, not like the jazz, library blue, like the Toronto library cards themselves, but a little lighter and friendlier, and I read the Pilgrim's progress (by which I mean Scott Pilgrim vol 1 through maybe 4, not the book 'Pilgrim's Progress' which I only read this past winter and at the moment I forget who wrote it) and read them twice through the same day I borrowed them.

Flash forward again, a friend of mine who I no longer talk to, and has managed to super alienate himself from everybody I know he knew, was selling all his comics. Which, to me, would be the first sign of being crazy-go-nuts, but that's just me. I bought his Scott Pilgrim set, one through four or five and paid a super low price for them. In fact, I insisted I pay a bit more, so I did. I guess he was desperate for money to pay back his recently ex girlfriend so he could cut those ties (or try to).

Relatively soon after that (several months) I loaned all the books (definitely 1 to 5 this time) to said ex girlfriend, because she's a friend of mine. She kept them nearly forever, and felt really bad about it, but I didn't mind, especially since she enjoyed them so much.

Loaned them out to a bunch of friends, probably around this time I hear about the Scott Pilgrim movie and the casting of Michael Cera, at first I was all for it and everyone else was not (or so I'll say for simplicities sake) but then the trailer hit and I wasn't blown away and everyone else went: wWWAAAAAAAHHT?!?!? (as in: "it's so awesome!")

They were amazed, it was apparently perfect. I thought he looked too awkward and Cera-y in bed with the Ramona Flowers girl- and if the central relationship of the movie doesn't seem natural, that's a problem, right? Well, it was just a trailer.

The sixth book comes out, I miss the midnight release because of work and a lack of team planning, but I didn't really mind that much. I got to go to bed when others were not in bed... he says at a computer at 2:20 in the morning when he should have finished his articles and gone to bed to rest up for the fanexpo stuff tomorrow.

Got the sixth book. Continued to loan out the books to friends, thus continuing to increase love of Scott Pilgrim. It's revealed that two of my bros aren't the biggest fans of Pilgrim, but it's because he's a flawed character, and there are worse things than having a relatively realistic protagonist who makes mistakes and everything. It was of course a new way to go about it, but hey, lets give it a shot, why not?

^Sarcasm

The movie I got to see with a bunch of friends, which was the plan all along... not actually (for the most part) any of the friends who I'd gotten hooked on the thing, but whatever, it was a lot of fun and a blast.

The dialogue did a good job of incorporating the spirit of the books into movie format (not easy when trying to work with the "talking is a free action" style that you get in many comics) but some of that dialogue could have been better... if they did it the way I imagined it as being said.

*Isaac Laughs at Himself*

Yes, I know that'd only make the movie better suited to MY tastes... I'm allowed to think things would be better for me if they were made for me. That actually is just true. Straight up, yup.

The fight scenes must have been made for me though, because they were amazing.

Okay, that's plenty good, now for an e-mail to be written and THEN my articles.

Hmm, I may have crossed the line from "warm up" to "procrastination".

What has it been, a week?

Been longer than I planned to get back on here- very busy at work you see.

I've taken a break from my Walden reading (man is that thing late going back to the library) because I wanted to hold onto this feeling from reading the essay on 'Reading' to write about here. That was at least two days ago already, so I've probably mostly lost it anyway.

Not as though it would have made much difference, I would even then have only managed the barest snippets of experience, loosely tied together only by the space of time in which they occurred to me.

It talked about how the paper is written for the un/low educated, that most people can't really read, that in all our hurry to set up communication between coasts and across seas once it's all accomplished we will find we have nothing to say to each other.

When was this written- 120, no, just over 150 years ago (published in 1854) and he may as well be talking directly to the people of the 21st century. I'd be impressed with the prescience of Thoreau except of course for the overwhelming alternative that ours is merely a world that is the continuation of Thoreaus- a world that didn't care to listen to what he had to say. Well, what he and others had to say, I don't want to sound like this guy is the only one, but it's pretty close.

This was sort of addressed in a recent Superman book, a young woman was going to kill herself because of how automatic life was, just blindly moving from phase 1 through to whatever (my phrasing of course). It's the kind of hidden stressors many are facing (that quarter life crisis that's been creeping up on the public consciousness) from not living with any kind of deliberate consideration.

To steal from the 90's Spider-Man show, it's not the how we must master, but the why.

Oh, Superman talked her down, after staying with her for several hours, saying "if you can even imagine yourself having one happy moment after this, don't do it", or something to that effect. Which is okay, it doesn't really help her avoid whatever specific mind set sent her almost literally over the edge.

But then again, I'm not that big a fan of the current writer these days.

***
Scott Pilgrim stuff tomorrow, promise

The one where I complain... you can skip it and read the next one, I bet I wrote something silly there.

Completely woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. Not three minutes after getting up do I check in on my lunch, pre made the night before because I wanted to be all responsible and whatnot- and it's half gone. Rrr that killed me. I've tried to get over it, but nope- it's just been eating away at me all day. And it was the half WITH the alfredo sauce I bought for me that was eaten.

It's fine to eat pasta plain (plus some pumpkin seeds and raisins because that's how I roll) but when you have finally bought sauce, and you're expecting that flavour, and then it's denied to you.

Well, apparently it ruins the whole day.

That and two kids puked in the theatre and I had to deal with it.

Also, a guy took offence when I called him "dude"- in a moment of weakness (I was about to clean up vomit, you see) I addressed him as I would any other human being. And I'm pretty mad at myself for apologizing to the guy after his eyes bulged out of his head at the notion.

He said "this isn't the last you'll hear of this" like some saturday morning caricature, so I spent the next hour spoiling for a verbal sparring match ("I'm sorry I apologized! I don't want to add to the culture of victimization that service industry workers have to live with" Yeah that'd get him) but he didn't come back.

It was another hour before it dawned on me that what he probably meant was that he was going to file a complaint about me somewhere. But I was going to totally show him what for with words. Words!!

Ah well, the guy really just wanted to get mad at someone because his dumb kid slipped (without actually falling down, mind you) on puke that had only materialized on the floor not thirty seconds ago.

Why did I not put up some kind of sign on the floor, you ask?

The sign itself is actually just in the room behind you, so if you'd stop demanding I put a sign up I can actually go, you know, do that.

And this part is on me, it's pretty funny if you're someone else- I'd walked across the exhibition grounds to the bus stop after I was done work when I realized I had the work pager still clipped to my belt. And back to work I went.

AahI would much rather not complain about too much, like even this morning I kept trying to step back and put things in perspective... but nope, still grumpy, still on edge.

"Hey There Delilah" was playing on someones uh music player, at work today- I think it must have been 2007 when that song came out? I seem to remember it being played on the radio a lot while I was working in a parking booth, and was singing along- much more carefree then than I am now. But I could be wrong, I've managed to have a lot of carefree moments despite everything through the years. I guess I could just google when that song came out... looks like for North America it came out on "the charts" in 2007, so there it is.

Oh, hey, I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. the World yesterday- I'll definitely write about that here or somewhere when I'm in a better mood for it. Of course the catharsis of typing has begun to take effect, lets just hope "lunch eater" stays out of my business. By which I of course mean my lunches.

Thoreau're you doing?

Spent my day at work yesterday gloriously serene and quiet. Things were simple and complex and beautiful- I imagined that as the feeling or state of being I will be in just before I die.

Of course I also had a slight headache yesterday, and as I don't usually get headaches, I managed to give myself a little scare. Not too much. I was probably just tired without realising I was tired.

In spite of the fact that I was probably tired, I felt very alert. Aware is perhaps the better word. That of course doesn't necessarily make it so (feeling aware doesn't necessarily equal being aware)

I felt like a taut band was pulled over my left shoulder for a kind of emphasis. There was no actual band- I did some pushups before leaving for work, it felt great.

During a break I read the introduction and first ten pages to Walden. I've felt a kindship with Thoreau since a particular american literature class of a few years back, and that was just with me reading approaching nothing of his work, just liking the cut of his jib from the lecture. The intro mentioned an idea about your clothes growing into yourself, taking on certain of their owners aspects when they become firmly entrenched in the identity of their owner. It occured to me that that was exactly why I have so much trouble with getting new clothes- anything I like the idea of- clothes wise- doesn't feel like me at the time. I've pretty much worn the same thing for the past decade plus... I had a year a bit ago where I had some blue pants with big pockets, those were good times. They were actually pretty difficult to run in, relatively speaking. And my only pair of jeans have a good sized hole in the crotch.
I'm not exactly a fashion raven over here. I mean maven.

I'm a poor representative for Thoreau, making it sound like all his ideas revolve around clothing- no way, that was just something that leapt out from the intro, so don't even worry about it.


Driving home from work yesterday, with a black licorice sucker (not as disgusting as expected) not too much trouble reaching the Don Valley Parkway, having to get around the Lakeshore what with its crowded closed-Gardiner-Expressway runoff. Incidentally, the trick was the Queen's Quay. But yes, driving along at a good speed, Bedouin Soundclash's "Wall's Fall Down" starts playing on the radio- I love that song, especially when I'm alone in the car, because it has some rather tricky higher notes, and I can get them, but only if I don't mind belting them out. Hence the lonely car being a necessity. As ever, I don't know all the words, and what words I think I know don't always make sense.

That's not true, the words I know merely sound contradictory- that can still make plenty of sense, you just have to figure it out. Most things are contradictory on the surface, if this song embraces that (as I pretend it does) then that's another point in its favour.

"He says he's a stone
No man's a stone"

It speaks to me. I belted it out, and smiled a lot as I did so.

Eastern Standard

I forgot this at the time (by which I mean yesterday, writing here yesterday) but here's something I wanted to bring up earlier.

Go back to last Tuesday, I had left the house late for work, so I drove (yeah awesome) instead. Checking the traffic I knew the Don Valley Parkway was... well, there are words for what it was. Two separate accidents on the road had forced its occupants to join up with the nearest snail race. And the snails were winning.

So instead I went south Victoria Park and travelled across Kingston Rd- okay, here's what I wanted to mention:
when I got to Kingston and Woodbine it was like I could see myself from the week BEFORE last when I walked down Woodbine for the first time ever.

Sometimes (okay, actually pretty often) I just look at things and see how they were before, how they will look in a month, a year, fifty years. I wonder about the people that will be gone, and the people that will grow into being.

You know there are a finite number of people born in 1985? They aren't making any more of that!

"I'm ready for anything" famous last words before getting into a bar fight with a scary snouted guy

Once again, I'm getting a little uncomfortable with the level of charming irony I'm employing at work. I'll probably take a few days off for a breather.

I mean off from irony, not off from work. I need money.

I've fallen off the reading wagon again- I've just been too exhausted after work, it's pretty lame. I've got my bed side light on for a few minutes before sleep and I go "nope, my eyes are already closed."

And today, I just worked on my comic reviews (much better than last weeks bunch- I'm speaking of my writing, not necessarily about the quality of the comics) after watching Star Wars. Pretty fun, maybe tomorrow I'll throw up the next two installments before...

tomorrow I'm doing the lazer quest thing with my coworkers. A couple of them wanted me to bring my twin brother, so I will to make them happy- even though that means (cue high ptiched) "OH twins WOW you do look so alike that's awesome"

Ah, they're not bad people, they just haven't gone through the 'pointing out of the twin experience' thing for 25 years.

It's fine, I'm just the best boss type ever apparently.

So the other day I was describing the phenomenon of the group of people that are Joss Whedon fans, the group that don't know what that is at all, and being in the middle knowing both groups.

I said it was like a venn diagram, then proceeded to draw a venn diagram, then had it pointed out "uh, that's not really how a venn diagram works..."

"I know, it's just an illustration"

"but that's not how it works"

"but you see what I'm tryng to say, right?"

"yes"

"okay then"

So I called it "diagrammatical"- the case of using a diagram to illustrate something regardless of what it would actually mean. Like those commercials that show golds value is going up by having a chart with no values on its x and y axis and just a line bisecting the 90 degree angle. That line means good!

I thought I'd just created a "cool" (to me it's cool) new word...

BUT IT'S ALREADY ON DICTIONARY.COM!

Diagrammatic
1. in the form of a diagram; graphic; outlined.
2. pertaining to diagrams

so, nuts. I like my definition better. The combination of diagram + grammar.

Oh, hey my youngest brother has reappeared after disappearing for a week. It's a good thing I got a text from his girlfriend(?) two days ago to say he was fine.
Because obviously the family would only be concerned after a full five days without any word whatsoever.

But I guess I'm not going to say anything, because it'd just end up with me yelling a lot?

I'm way too hot and sweaty right now. But looks aren't everything- heyo

That doesn't really make sense with the sweaty part... the joke usually just goes from hot to "but looks aren't everything".