Better Living Through Introspection

Sneak Preview

Spring brings organization, accessibility, and web standards compliance to jasonmnovak.com. With any luck, I’ll be done before summer.

Be warned: if your web browser is not up to snuff, my new site will look like crap. For more information about the browser upgrade initiative, visit www.webstandards.org/upgrade/.

Centennial Lake, March 25, 2001
Columbia, Maryland

I think the geese are playing,
knowing their lumbering effort —
boeing-like — requires skill at
judging distance, they wait until
the last minute to pull up
from their awkward take-offs,
skimming the bridge spanning
the end of the lake instead of taking
the lazy way out underneath.

But that’s not the end of it — the powerlines
just beyond the bridge are an added bonus. The geese
flap harder, stronger to get that extra inch of lift, wings
thrashing the air with the snap of a garrison flag.

Clearing the cables, they honk casually,
nonchalantly, at their incoming comrades,
hey, hope your flight was good. Watch the lines
on your way out.

Celebrity Sighting

Doug McKelway on the corner of 18th and L.

I had no idea he was so tall.

Ladies and Gentlemen, once again…

I present the Maryland Terrapins. Thank you very much.

A Guy Walks Into A Bar and Asks for Directions

She loved him metaphorically, basking
in the sun’s promise, prone to stumbling over
the moon; yet he loved her in similes
like the man lost in the desert suffering
a thirst for knowledge of water, drying
like a raisin, like a prune, like a fig.

Which is to say she never watched where she
was going, blinded as she was by love,
and he, equally dumbstruck with this rare
emotion, was constantly asking for
directions.