n o i s e
The way I remember it
Four kids and a couple grandkids ago I met an intelligent, delightful, stunning, ornery blond girl in moccasins who could recite the alphabet backwards, tie a cherry stem in a knot with her tongue and boasted her culinary specialty was to boil toast. In an instant I was turn turtle, tail over teakettle taken with her. In addition to family life and two or three pseudo career paths there are a hand full of other activities I've engaged in through the years:
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achieving mediocrity, acting as if I just came out of light speed, acting my age, not my shoe size, acting suspiciously normal, adding a fillagree of piquancy, adding pocalypse to the end of nouns, adding urgency, aggravating, agitating, agreeing to disagree, alux spotting, analyzing algorithms, annoying, annually recalculating my micromort average, anticipating halcyon days, anti-eventizing, applying metacognitive strategies to problems I've already solved, asking the kids what band it is every time an ELO song plays, asserting "odd's bodkins" when asked to quote Hamlet, assuming, attempting to be simultaneously hunky & dory, attending, attracting chaos, averting my eyes when I didn’t really want to, avoiding affectation, avoiding any show Adam Sandler is in, avoiding apophenia bias, avoiding croc-a-monsters, avoiding food trucks, avoiding my own petard all together, avoiding repetition during a blue moon, avoiding speed wobbles, avoiding the inevitable, balloon animal bending, barking up incorrect trees, basking, beating the odds, behaving quirkily, being a foremost expert on the dunning kruger effect, being a proper skeptic, being a relevant expert, being a wisenheimer, being algorithmically challenged, being and defeating my own worse enemy, being bang on, being calculating, being casual-fly, being champion, being cheeky, being chuffed, being contrary, being critical, being damned if I don't, being damned if ido, being deceptive in my veracity, being dizzy with a dame, being in cahoots, being in the moment, being jargogled, being left to my own devices, being my own worse enemy, being off by a gnat’s whisker, being spontaneous, being statistically significant, being steady in the face of danger, being taken to the cleaners, being testy, being the antagonist in my internal monologues, being the very first person to ever say there are no original thoughts, being the water, being ware the Ides of March (typically more-so in March), being hoorawed by a little girl, believing in the absence of proof, bending the rules, binge-watching, blamestorming, blessing and/or thanking potentially lucky stars and at times declaring ownership of the same, blessing disguises, blessing things while in disguise, blinking, blurring the lines, boondoggle planning, brabbling, breaking blue laws, breaking the case, breaking the ice with bardolatry, bringing on the funk, bursting at the seams, buttoning up & pinning down, calculating GCD, calculating GDP on intangible assets, calling 867-5309, calling for drastic measures, calling knickers and pantaloons bloomers, calling Pluto a planet, canoodling, casting about, causing a rumpus, causing quite a kerfuffle, challenging fellow diners to tater tot jenga, changing attitudes and destiny one super mundane truth at a time, changing my tune, changing the start date of my fiscal year, chasing wild geese, cheating on the Turing test, checking after a thought to see if I have another think coming, checking my totem, Chekhov's gun foreshadowing, choosing to zig when I’m expected to zag, claiming to be the walrus, clambering, clickbait dodging, cloning mistakes, collecting bats for my belfry, comedy sketch mapping, coming up with "slow TV" programming ideas, complaining, complicating simple truths, conceiving, conceptualizing paradoxical self-transcendence, conjuring cacoethes, connecting humanity to technology, continental dining tines down, conundrumming, converting analog audio input into compressed digital formats, converting the 7-10 split, cookin' with gas, coordinating itineraries, correcting people that say doozy instead of humdinger, counting down, creating an entire new color theory inspired by Isaac Newton's studies based on sound intervals, creating confidence with consonance alliteration, creating new old proverbs, criticizing metaphors, cross-stacking, crumpling, crushing it, cultivating wit, cultural appropriation investigation, curbing my enthusiasm, cussing a blue streak, cutting the rug, cutting to the chase, dancing in the moonlight, dangling participles, debunking commercial comfort technology, deciphering genetic code, declaring shenanigans, deferring judgment until I’ve evaluated analyzed and forgotten what I intended to have an opinion on, demonstrating, demonstrating instability using Braess's Paradox, describing things in one word or less, developing protocol, devising a bibliosmia aroma for digital books, disagreeing to agree, disambiguating, discarding theories, discombobulating, discovering other seasons for my discontent, discovering the magic in the wake of a fiasco, dishing, dispatching, dispersing ideations, displaying ultracrepidarian tendencies, disremembering, dodging dodgy ne're-do-wells, dog-earing pages, doing daring-do, doing myself a mischief, doing nothing that requires stick on name tags or lanyards, doing the teaberry shuffle, doing the whistling walk-away, doing the whole shebang at full tilt, doing things in spades, doing things to smithereens, dragging my feet to the sunny side of the street, drawing inferences, drawing on my experience, drawing reference, dreaming of glory, drifting along with the occasional tumbleweed though often without, drinking Dublin Dr. Pepper, dropping into medias res, eating left handed whoppers, eating my lunch all by myself, eating pear halves trapped in green Jell-o, employing micro expression misdirection, employing orthogonal moves in Dejarik, employing prospective hindsight, encouraging minimal standards, enforcing Murphy's Law, engaging in competitive revelance, entering "a touch of the mulligrubs in its collywobbles" in shut-down logs as the reason for unexpected system issues, enticing providence, entrepreneurship with monkeys, envisaging mystic crystal revelations, establishing hot wheels terminal velocity with a 1969 whip creamer rose super, evading opportunities, exaggerating the vocables singing Sweet Caroline, existing 8vb, expanding on the truth, expecting, experiencing esprit de l’escalier, experiencing pareidolia, experiencing slippage, explaining enigmatic analogies used to clarify restated clarifications, explaining paradoxics, explaining some of these things, explaining the origin of the word diatribe as a serious occupation of time in discourse, explaining things to the TV, exporting, exposition with purposeful omission, expounding dogmatic options, expressing unrealistically pragmatic objectivs, fabricating hosting and being the primary recipient of awards in imaginary awards shows, fabricating ripping yarns, facilitating rumor spread, facing facts, failing over, falling inbetween, favoring normalization, fearing the worst, feeling bluer than blue, feeling funky, fending off, festering, fetching, fighting my way out of wet paper bags, filtering, finding some people to be the bee's knees if not the cat's pajamas, finding the time, flabbergasting, flashing bios, fleeing though none were pursuing, flink spotting, flipping out, flirting with disaster, following protocol, forgetting auld acquaintances, forgetting combinations and pins, forgetting who I've told I'll forget more than you'll ever know, fostering antonyms, fostering reflexive axioms right to equality, fostering skittish cats through whisker fatigue, frustrating bumfuzzled throttlebottoms, functioning at another level, furthering ado, gap stopping, gardening indehiscent weeds, gathering experience through quest rather than battle., gawking, generating false statements about practicing radical honesty, genome sequencing, getting a tiger by the tail, getting back to the place I once belonged, getting bygones to be anything but bygones, getting caught, getting embarrassingly good at Q*bert, getting funkified, getting goose bumps, getting into the tanglefoot, getting knocked into a cocked hat, getting peeved, getting peoples goats, getting swept up, getting the blue plate special, getting there as the crow flies, getting to the point, getting words in edgeways, gilding lilies, giving “7” as the answer to almost any question, giving credit, giving in to my whims, giving individual hoots, , giving informed consent, giving my all, giving the pets pet names, giving undivided attention, going a bridge not quite far enough, going at it hammer and tongs, going back one day (come what may) to blue bayou, going blue blazes, going off on a tangent, going off script, going plaid, going widdershins, governing my inner circle of confusion, grasping at straws, grudgingly suffering fools, grufeling in the face of a challenge, gungling, hanging on in quiet desperation, hanging with the usual suspects, hashtagging octothorpe, havering, havin' a time, having a clue, having aspirations, having brilliantly waggish riposte to any rogue epithet, having compulsions, having druthers, having my druthers, heading into the wide blue yonder, heaving a sigh, hiding in plain sight, hitting the deck (slapjack), holding all the cards, holding on loosely without letting go, holding the line, hopelessly springing eternally, hoping, hoping against hope, hoping someone will take me to funky town without having to be asked, hyperfocal distancing, igniting the fire within, imaginary trompe l'oeil, imagining, imagining an unscripted life, imagining being an envisioneer, imagining new uses for hippos, imposing, improvising transactional analysis activities, in the absence of certainty calculating the probability of finding a logical hypotheses in a theory of inductive inference using only the most complicated theoretical models...

For a slightly easier to read version of this list just click the PDF button.
Due to complications with the etch-a-sketch delivery system we chose this slightly less remarkable, regrettably pedestrian alternative.



inspiring innovation, installing batteries backwards, interacting, intermittent music and artistic diversions, interrobanging, ironic YOLOing, jesting bawdily, joshing, judging book covers, juggling, jumping the gun, jumping to conclusions, just standing there mumblin', a-fumblin', keepin' my day job (as recommended), keeping an eye out for gutter cat, keeping an eye out for Icelandic sea monster Lagarfljotsormur, keeping anima sana in corpore sano, keeping busy doing something close to nothing but different than the day before, keeping everything Jake, keeping my cool, keeping my opinions on forced perspective techniques to myself, keeping the peace, keeping the secret to a meaningful life, keeping things in perspective, keeping up appearances, kicking habbits, knowing my onions, lateral thinking, laughing in the face of danger, leaning into success, leaving a mark, leaving things at sixes and sevens, letting chips fall where they may, letting people know I was in a zone, letting the spirit move me, leveling up, living a blissful existence, living on the edge, living the dream, living unscripted, logging in, lolloping like a big brown bear, looking addled for my before picture, looking at things in a different light, looking for the bare necessities, looking for the bare necessities - the simple bare necessities, looking for the haystack I put my needle in, looking for things I misplaced, looking for things I neatly put away, looking for words that rhyme with orange, looking guilty by looking innocent, looking things up in my Funk and Wagnalls, losing focus, losing my cool, losing my hair, losing my sense of direction, losing the plot, lowering the boom, making bad calls, making blank points, making examples of, making executive decisions, making fun of commercials, making impact statements, making intentional mistakes to avoid tempting the devil, making it my business, making simple look complicated, making sure all systems are go, making sure I can easily identify Shinola, making sure I wasn't the one walking backwards when helping move a large object, making sure if it's not one thing it's another, making sure what you see is what you get, mangling metaphors, manufacturing mindless cliché’s, marginalizing probability, masquerading as my evil twin from an alternate universe, maximizing molecular comedy, meandering, measuring monetary value of things by the number of slinkies you could buy, measuring success, measuring unfueled hypnotic susceptibility, meditating on my obsessions, mentioning things en passant, migrating, mimicking, minding my p's & q's, minimizing, misbehaving, miscommunicating, misfitting, misinterpreting, mismanaging, misremembering, missing points, mistranslating acronyms, misusing the word etymology to change it's meaning, mixing metaphors, mobilizing ideas, mocking moof milkers, moderating frank discorus, mondegreening lyrics to old rock songs, motivating collective intelligence, mowing patterns parallel to that of my neighbors lawn, mucking about, muddling through, multitasking, narrating chipmunk schemes, nesting, never troubling troubles unless or until trouble troubled me, new word developementization, not tweeting or re-tweeting, noticing, opposing phyllotactic spirals, optimizing with a YAGNI attitude, opting out, over engineering, over reacting, over thinking, overstating underappreciation, parsing, paying blue book, peeking, pellucid and verbose defence of sesquipedalian loquaciousness, peppering my stories with attic salt, perceiving experimental haptics in virtual environments, perfecting asymmetrical facial expressions, perfecting last seconditus, performing, peripherally leveling up, pestering, planning to show how sometimes doing nothing increases my productivity but never actually doing it, playing a mediocre Purdie Shuffle, playing air-tuba to the muzak in elevators, playing favorites, playing party records, playing the blues, playing the cards I was dealt, playing with marbles, pointing-and-clicking, poking fun, polarizing, pondering being the thought leader, post-it note graffiti, pouring perfect pancakes, practicing brevity and clarity, practicing phlyarology, practicing sprezzatura, pragmatically defending seriously misguided feckless ideological notions, praising petrichor, predicting happiness, predicting obvious outcomes, prescribing placebos for humdudgeons, pressing my luck, presupposing, pretending, prevising, prioritizing, proclaiming wowzers, promoting being the snake's hips - the kipper's knickers - the eel's ankle - the monkey's eyebrows, promoting idiotic listicles, promoting morality, protecting steel against rust by bluing, providing the seitensatz, proving concepts, puddle jumping, pulling push brooms, pushing in all the stops, pushing the boundaries of intertextuality, putting a deep snap in my hat, putting feathers in caps, putting it right in the ol' pickle barrel, putting my own spin on charcuterie board design, putting Red Fred in the shed, putting the hammer down, putting too fine a point on things, putting up my dukes, putting very little thoughts into things, questioning authority, quickly pretending I was just scratching my stomach when caught playing air banjo, quoting Yoda, raising expectations, raising my eyebrow like Spock, rankling like a cankle, reacquiring recklessly released krakens, reading out loud (whispering the parts in parenthesis), reasoning under uncertainty, recklessly speaking in riddles, reclaiming, reconciling focused neutrality, recontextualizing, recovering, recreating Devil's Tower in mashed potatoes, redacting, refining my vision, refraining from using janus words, regulating chaos, releasing curses on the world, relentless caviling, reminding the kids we are not the Rockefellers, renewing, repeating history, repeating hysterical inaccuracies, replying to requests saying "by your command" in my best Cylon (circa 1980) voice, requiring MacGuffins, researching quality internet studies, resisting temptation, restating for clarification, resting assured that life would go on beyond the palisades, rethinking probabilistic identifiers, retracting, retracting redactions, revealing less than accurate slightly skewed chronicles of my life to the kids, revectoring focus, revenge bedtime procrastination, reversing charges, reversing myself on always being backward-compatible, reviving moxie mixology, revving on the red line, rhyming with no reason, riding into the danger zone, rising above the noise and confusion just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion, risk managing, rockin' down the highway, rolling the dice, rolling with changes, ruminating, runnin' against the wind, running a complex bait and switch on neighborhood squirrels, running all the traps, running amok, running calling wildfire, running for the roses, running through happy cabbage, running with scissors, rushing in where angels fear to tread, sarcastically saying good luck with that, saving face, saving up things to only do once during the next blue moon, saying "Just sayin'", saying things in a more difficult way than it is to do them, scheduling, schmoozing, scratching in my easy chair, scratching in second gear, scribbling, scrunching, scrutinizing, scurryfunging, seeing alligators later as opposed to sooner, seeing spots, seeing the world through my own knot hole, seeking comfort amidst chaos, seizing the day, selling pancakes at flat earthers conventions, sensing empiricism, separating the wheat from the chaff, shake, rattle, & rolling, shaking it off, shaping the future, sharing a little known and uncanny ability to whistle many popular guitar solos, sharing quiet moments, shouting "Wolverines" at passing helicopters, shouting “it's all over but the shouting!”, sidestepping the pleasure principle, silencing critics, singing Babalu, sitting here watching the wheels go round and round, skedaddling, skipping to the end, skylarking, slip slidin' away, slipping into torpor, slowing my roll, smiling back at blue skies, snacking, sneezing even in the absence of anything to be sneezed at, sniffing out perpetrators, soldiering on, sondering, sorting, sounding glib, spanning, speaking many a true word in jest, speaking neologisticly, spilling beans, spinning yarns, splintering into irreconcilable realities, spontaneous cross partition dodecaphony, spreading phonus balonus, staging my own "ted talks" presentations for the pets, standing between the devil and the deep blue sea, standing too long with the refrigerator door open, staying in when it's monkeys outside, steering clear of obviously hell bound hand baskets, stewing, stirring, stone's throw trekking, storyscaping with buzz words, straying from the herd, stretching the truth, striving to be boombdiggity, suffering borborygm, suffering fools sadly, suggesting alternate endings, suggesting horses for courses to get it right, summarily dismissing, summarizing with the phrase it is what it is, supercharging my resume with action verbs, super-imposing, supposing, surrounding myself with my wits, surviving resistentialism, sustaining metaphysical productivity in a virtual world, swilling the planters with bumbo, takin' it to the streets, taking credit, taking midnight trains goin' anywhere, taking prolixity to the next level, taking the path less traveled, taking things personally, tapping, teaching self-hypnosis techniques using the disk defragmenter action pane and the Man of La Mancha soundtrack, tellin' it to the birds, telling it like it is, telling people I'm already gone, telling people these aren't the droids you're looking for, telling people they can’t handle the truth!, telling the science editor "no comet", telling whoppers, tessellating shapes, testing limits, testing patience, testing strength, testing the waters, thinking something is remarkable when in fact it is marginally markable at best, throwing serious shade, throwing shapes, tickling peoples fancies, tolerating humbug candy, tootsie-roll sculpting, tracking shipments, tracking the bluebird of happiness, traipsing about, transforming the transactional, translating the classics into grammelot, treading on thin ice, trending unnecessary spin-offs, tricking mood rings, tricking the dog with an invisible ball, triplicating entendre, tripping, tripping the light fantastically, trying to be more like Hank Kimble (from Green Acres), trying to keep it around the ol' double-nickel, turning blue, turning corners, turning laudatory exclamations into sarcasm by the tone of my voice, turning left, turning off the lights, turning tables, turning up out of the blue, turtle collecting, TV remote control controlling, twistin' the night away, underestimating Hot Tamales candy, unnecessary rhyming, unnecessary transliteration, unsulting, updating, upsetting apple carts, using access to low level graphical primitives to make interface objects that have new perceivable affordances, using cookies as the utensil to eat ice cream, using custom query parameters to determine goal conversion rates with a tracking code in an asynchronous snippet to display significant changes in data patterns, using inference verbs as quotative frame in argumentative colloquial phrases, using PGP on files containing PHI, using prospective hindsight to confound future success, using rhyming greetings at high level meetings, using self-deprecating humor to entertain morons, using unknown knowns to deconstruct my own knowability hypothesis, vaccinating for pac-man fever, vertical mustering, visual storytelling by means of the Kuleshov effect, voting against the candidate I want to lose instead of for the one I want to win, walking in the shade with my blues on parade, watching bloopers, watching for bumpkins in rural settings, waxing philodoxically, wearing frumpy clothes, wearing my heart on my sleave, wearing thin, wearing unfamiliar pants, weathering a tempest in a teapot, weathering forecasted impact days, whisking, whispering in the sounds of silence, whistling Dixie, whistling in the wind, whistling past graveyards, winding down, winding up, wishing this summer wind would bring back paradise, wondering what the big deal is about Jessie's girl, working like a charm, working on my wave, wrangling with analysis paralysis, believing nothing is impossible if you’re asking the right animated mouse.