I'll Seize the Day Tomorrow by Jonathan Goldstein Page A

that.
    3.  Because I was really into the movie and didn’t want to miss any of it.
    2.  Because I’m dating her cousin.
    1.  Because her lips were greasy from chicken nuggets.
    TUESDAY.
    While eating chicken nuggets at my desk, I wonder whether fast food restaurants still give out paper party hats and whether they would give one to an adult. I’m not sure whether eating chicken nuggets at my desk while wearing a cardboard crown would make me feel less sad or more sad, but I am sure I would eat with my office door shut.
    THURSDAY.
    Marie-Claude and I are out for an early breakfast. Eating grape jelly makes us nostalgic for childhood.
    â€œWhen I was a kid,” I say, “I thought I’d grow up and eat bacon every day. I couldn’t understand why any sane person wouldn’t.”
    â€œWhen I was a kid, I wanted to be successful,” Marie-Claude says, “and I thought successful people ate only caviar and champagne.That’s the eighties for you.”
    â€œWhen I was a kid, I thought the only way a man could let a woman know he liked her was by winking at her. Because I couldn’t wink, I thought I’d be alone for the rest of my life. I’d sit in my room for hours, trying so hard to wink I’d almost throw up.”
    â€œNow there’s a way to attract a mate,” Marie-Claude says. “Vomiting. It’s just like a peacock spreading its tail.”
    â€œI’ve heard some birds mate for life,” I say. “Like pigeons. I guess it makes me like them more than I would otherwise.”
    â€œDid you know that in Sweden it’s illegal to sell a guinea pig that isn’t in a pair?”
    â€œIt’d be nice if humans came that way, too.”
    FRIDAY.
    I’m watching a member of the Maasai tribe in Kenya on the news. He is a warrior who operates a program called the Lion Guardians. The intention of the project is to protect cattle while not killing lions, which are now endangered in Africa.
    The reporter asks the man why he started the program.
    â€œTo impress women,” he answers.
    Building the Parthenon? Crossing the Delaware? Forget about it. If it wasn’t for impressing women, nothing would ever get done.
    I wonder if a male peacock ever woke up one morning and realized just how obvious he was being, the way a man can.To realize too much makes the world less colourful.
    SATURDAY.
    I’m out doing errands while wearing my Cossack’s hat. What with the burning down of the villages and whatnot,we do not much admire the Cossacks, but we do admire their hats. I find that wearing a Cossack’s hat brings a certain regality to the performance of mundane tasks—things like doing errands, or cleaning up after a poodle.
    For years I could never wear mine because it was too tight for my head, but since having shaved my hair, it fits perfectly. Also nice is that it makes me feel like I still have hair. It’s kind of like “The Gift of the Magi” without all the cruel irony.
    When I get home, I throw the hat onto the couch and put away the groceries, and when I return to the living room, I find Boosh curled up with it, looking, for all intents and purposes, like she’s finally found a soulmate.
    Â 
    SOULMATES

    Before he ever moved to Gotham City, before he grew into the overweight, obsessive sad sack of his later years, The Penguin was a poet and a dandy who lived in London. He wrote complex villanelles and threw lavish dinner parties at which he only became more charming the more he drank. He wore a monocle, a top hat, and carried an umbrella.
    One evening at one of his dinner parties, after hours spent sipping absinthe, The Penguin ran up to the roof of his building, opened up his large black umbrella, and leapt off into the air. As he coasted to the ground, he hollered out lines from Blake, stuff about grabbing life by the fat of its stomach and giving it a twist. He was that crazy. He was that