NEEDLING

LISTENING TO WFMU TRYING TO BURN TIME

Surfing. Reading up on T.C. Boyle a little. Also read this essay by Lisa Singh, who talks about growing up both Hindu and Jewish. Good stuff. Now I don’t know what to do with myself.

I haven’t thrown out the trash since I moved in here. Mostly empty beer cans. I don’t want to place them in my landlords’ recycling bin because I don’t want them to know how much beer I drink. Vain, probably, surely… but probably wise as well. Tomorrow I’m heading to my parents where the whole family is getting together except for my little sister since she’s in Minnesota. Two N’s, only one S and one T. I first tried two S’s, then two T’s, then two S’s and two T’s before adding an extra N and deleting my added but unnecessary extra S and T's (for that annoying spell-checker underlining red line to go away). MinNesota. Saying the state’s name out loud and realizing that it needs two N’s. As I write this… because I have nothing else to do and I’m tired of surfing, I’m trying to pronouce the word if it only had one N rather than two. Not so simple. What would it sound like? Uhm… maybe it doesn’t make any difference whatsoever. It just sounds to me as if there are two N’s when I say Minnesota to myself. I say Min-and then-nesota, rather than Mi-and then-nesota. Of course, unless I try real hard to get it more or less right American accent-wise, when I pronounce the State’s name without thinking about it, it sounds more like Mee-Nézota.

Webster's Online Dictionary says: Minnesota is the 32nd state of the United States, having joined the Union on May 11, 1858. Its name is commonly abbreviated as 'MN' or 'Minn.', and is taken from the Dakota (Native American tribe) words for 'sky-tinted water'.

Alright. Time to crack another tall-boy, and go read another story from the T.C. Boyle's "Without a Hero" short story collection.

Cheers and good night.