The E. in Robert E. Lee stands for Egg

There are a number of new phases I am entering into. I felt like you should know. I feel like Picasso. Maybe this is my blue period.

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I am officially entering my Beach Boys phase. I am slowly transferring my obsession from the Beatles to the Beach Boys. While I will never forsake my affections for the Liverpoolians, I am really enjoying Brian Wilson and his antics.

I am officially entering my tea phase. I like tea now. I still like coffee but I do enjoy a spot of tea. Herbal. With lemon.

I am officially entering my spinach phase. I love a good spinach.

I am officially entering my hookah phase. While I attempted before, this time it will take.

I am officially entering my moving phase. I am moving out of my place in a few days. I am moving in with some friends. Then 2 months after that I am moving to Charlotte. Which means that in the past 2 years, I will have moved 4 times.

I am officially entering my social apathy phase. Who cares if you wear sweat pants? They are comfortable. Pajamas too.

I am officially entering my beard phase. Though I tinkered with the facial hair before, it is now my look. It is more me than I am. Therefore the beard will come. And it will stay.

I am officially entering my Sudoku phase. I can't go a day without one.

I am officially entering my official entry to phases phase. I have decided to enter into several phases (officially) now.

Eye Make Up vs. iMake Up

Upon flipping through a recent Rolling Stone magazine, I couldn't help but notice that several of the new musicians (male, musicians that is) have gone to wearing eye make up. A little eye liner, a little color around the edges and there - now you have a cool, trendy new look. If you combine the eye make up with a shaggy, meant-to-look-unkempt-but-really-is-quite-manicured, sweeping across the face, highlighted hair cut, then you have almost every new musician featured in the magazine. This got me thinking. Fashion, when you think about it, is so silly. Or at least the pursuit to be trendy or "in fashion." To try and keep up is so exhausting. It is so transient. It is ever-morphing.

Go ahead, pop that collar. It will be stupid in 5 months. You'll regret that decision in the pictures. Go ahead and buy those a-little-tighter-than-normal jeans. Baggy will be in style in 8 weeks. Trust me. (I can't wait for "sagging" to come back. Or maybe even the Kris Kross thing). Let your hair grow out and swoop it across your eyes. In a few months that will be as played out as trucker hats and aviators.

So what is one to do? Is there a style that trancends the relentlessly changing trends? Does the simple polo-shirt and khaki combo rise above the ebb and flow? I'm not sure. But it sure is entertaining to watch it happen and to watch people chase this faceless ghost named Style. The strange thing about our culture is this Antithesis of Cool Coolness. We are a culture of cowards who thinks they are rebels. As soon as something is cool, it is now uncool. But the thing that made it "cool" in the first place was that it was original and out of the ordinary and new. Indie music is becoming the new main stream. Forgettable coffee houses are becoming the new Starbucks. Little independent iMacs are becoming the new Gateways. You see, technology is the same way. The iPod I got in the summer of '05 now looks huge and ancient like those enormous Zack Morris cell phones. And by 2007 the iPod Nanos are going to look like old Ataris. You just can't keep up. There is certainly more thinking to do about this and how the ebb and flow of cultural trends accelerates and is affected by postmodernism and the glut of information due to the internet (blogs included).

I just want to know when mustaches will be cool again. What about powdered wigs? Or leather, bicycle jackets? Or wearing pony tails out to the side? Or getting extra large T-shirts and making them into dresses by simply binding a belt around them? Or Discmans? Or Minidiscs? Or CD ROMs? Or Laser Discs?

Diary Entry of Rudolf Hargrove (5-15-1937)

This hickory-laden coffee house emits the stench of sweat and roasted coffee beans. I smear the sap from its opened pores and waft it closer, only to be surprised by the scent of adhesive and chemical. I'm empty stomached and it's well past afternoon now. My nerves suspend beneath my skin frayed and disrupted, mangled from the coffee and cigarettes. Last night's dark bitter chocolates and dry scotch doesn't feel like such a great idea now, especially mixed with the rattled nerves and nicotine glow. My eyes dart across the smoky coffee house now. Panicked and back and forth and back like wild geese. My skin is now crawling across my stained bones and I itch the crust until it pinkens. I'm unnecessarily nervous and ravenously hungry with an upset stomach that now spills on top of itself in disgust. I'm shaking and the pen I write with seems to be posing great difficulty to clasp. It drops from my clutches and my shaky hand goes to retrieve it, much like a man twice my age who has consumed too much barley. I despise how this old wooden chair squeaks with every shift of my weight. The smells of the coffee beans are too much now. I'm still shaking. Vibrating almost like a cog in some industrial factory. Wait, that's not sap. That's simple glue. Glue that has since been stained into a deep and golden brown. Oakey and smoky. This coffee house is poorly lit. Dim and smoky. Ah I can smell those fresh pastries on Hartington Street. Those crescents and tiny danishes stuffed with fresh cherries. The ones with the flaky crusts and the light sweetness. I really should not have had that chocolate last night. It is a great irony that when one gets to a certain point of hunger that certain foods sound displeasing. I suppose a parched man in the desert would not turn down water or much less be disgusted by the thought of it. I wonder if the sap-glue would be edible. If only I could remove it from this hickory wall. Drat. No luck. Perhaps a cigarette will tide me over until supper. Drat. They really meant business when they put that glue on the wall. It must be holding together the whole coffee house.