a moment, this summer

I think this is what life is about. It's not about talking, it's not about talking about talking, or about or knowing everything. It's about enjoying the evening like this – sitting at the end of the pier in late August and watching the smooth bumps on the lake and the city lights just beginning to strike out against the pink sky. Taking turns reading aloud from a book while our tennis shoes bounce off the cement. And it smells like a lake and a beach – for the first time this season you smell it. The air is warm and light and it carries the smell of sea gulls and life in a shell. As the sun falls even farther we skip stones into the small shore waves. We fill our hands with flat stones. Flat stones forever. Flat stones collected by way of the water like a pathway down the beach. If I walked it forever I'd be happy. Instead we head back across the sand, our pants rolled up, to the park and the streets and the night.

Olympic tears

I can't tell you how sad I am that the Olympics are over. You're probably saying, What? But you don't like sports? Well, I do. I like REAL sports—sports that are over in a matter of seconds. None of this hours-long football or baseball bullshit. I don't have the patience for that. Give me 100 meters and a high dive and I still have time left over to do something else. Like watch TV.

This is what I did, because I have no life: from 5:30-7pm I watched a tape of the Olympics from the night before. From 7-9:30ish I watched the live broadcast. Then I taped the rest and went to bed. Repeat for ten days. Now I don't know what to do. No more Bird's Nest, no more Water Cube. No more Mary Carillo—who IS that? I assumed Sigourney Weaver's manlier sister. No more Dara Torres, who taught me not to put an age limit on my dreams, which is why I'm now fulfilling my dream of being pushed around in a stroller everywhere.

Staples was the office furniture sponsor of the Olympics, so they get to keep one of the Olympic torches for some amount of time. And since Quill is owned by Staples, the torch came to Quill one day last week. We could hold it and get our pictures taken with it. I don't know what part of the tour the torch was from, or who carried it, or why I look so scary in my picture, but I do know that was the most excited I've ever been at my job.

Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Finn Fest

It's finally here... The Finn Fest 4 make their Finn Fest debut in this high-quality production brought to you by uncle Dan. My guess is that we're an internet sensation by 2:00.



My favorite part is that we're clearly just interrupting Robert's lunch. And uncle John couldn't be bothered to turn his chair around. Dan said he was going to crop them out, but then that wouldn't have captured the essence of Finn Fest.

Rules for Happy Hour

"Happy hour" indicates that every hour leading up to it is filled with sadness and drudgery. That's because it is. The week days are meaningless until you set foot in that bar, and nobody but nobody can take that away from you. Happy hour is a special time to let loose and free yourself from all responsibility, ever. It's a time to drink until you can't feel your face, until you can't find your bar stool, so you just sit on the floor or on that lady's lap who turns out not to be a lady after all, oops, now you've done it. If not for happy hour, what other time would you be able to tell your boss to go to hell and suck it? Or feel up the hot chick from across the hall, oops, sorry bro, I've had seventeen beers, but YOU have a ROCKIN' ASS? The next morning everything is forgiven and forgotten. That's the rule of happy hour – there are no rules. That is, until I had to write this article about rules for happy hour. These are loose, like me, and, like everything else, have exceptions.

1. No puking in front of people you know.
If you have to drink a lot, which is understandable after the mindless crap you've done all day, make sure you have a vomit route mapped out before it's too late. You can't vomit in front of your coworkers, so you'll have to make a run for it. Are you closer to the bathroom or the door? Is there a dark corner where people don't seem to be sitting? Or a large potted plant like at home? Make a plan and stick to it.
Exception: Puking behind the bar is okay as a last resort. It's acceptable (but not encouraged) for coworkers to hear you puke as long as they can't see you.

2. Keep your yap shut.
As much as you want to tell your coworkers to all go screw themselves, just cool it for a minute. If you're really going to do that, you need a better time and place anyway. Like in an auditorium with a microphone, or standing on a table in the cafeteria. Don't let the booze clog that part of your brain that distinguishes between appropriate and inappropriate. For example, inappropriate: "I like your jugs." Appropriate: "This bar is fun."
Exception: It's okay to ask someone what they're going to do with all that ass, all that ass inside those jeans, because you do that at work anyway.

3. Don't be too handsy.
It's okay to accidentally pinch a coworker's butt once or twice in passing, but three times isn't an accident and they'll become suspicious. If you can't control your hands – and, really, who wants to – spread out the touching to multiple people. Pat a butt here, grope a thigh there. It's better for everyone in the group to think it was one accident than for one person to think you have a major problem and should be fired/beat down.
Exception: Of course, if the groping is mutual, it's considered highly moral to ignore this rule.

Festa Italiana

Friday night Colleen and I went to the Italian festival, just around the block from her (and Matt's) new place. We went last summer, too, and I can't BELIEVE it's been a year already. Where does the time gointomydrinks? I love the Italians. They have the meatiest foods. I had a meatball sandwich, I think the exact same kind I had last year. Then Colleen and I each had funnel cake and I felt sick. But it was worth it. We didn't watch any of the music, but they were advertising Deana Martin—Dean Martin's daughter, if I even had to tell you. I think it would've been funny to see her, but also I would've fallen asleep.

Then we went back to Colleen's so I could put together their new dresser from Ikea. For some reason, she and Matt think I'm awesome at putting together Ikea furniture. Let's look back on my Ikea furniture experience: Erik and I put together my bookshelf wrong; I thought Ikea had given me the wrong pieces for my dining room table, but really I was just drunk. So we got, like, a third of the way done with the dresser, after having to go back and take things apart and repeat multiple steps, when Colleen was like, "Okay, you can go home."

Blue