Dave & Woody's Chicken Slaughtering, LLC

I have always liked Leap Year, and I find it unfortunate that it doesn’t get the proper celebration it’s due. I feel that Leap Day should be an international holiday! After all, it’s relatively unreligious (it’s rooted in the Gregorian calendar, which despite being widely adopted across the planet for commerce and diplomacy is still of Christian origin...), is unattached to any specific ethnicity or culture, and affects the entire planet.

Americans seem to go out of their way to co-opt holidays they have no business celebrating—Cinco de Mayo, or St. Patrick’s Day for instance, not to mention invented holidays such as the Super Bowl, or ones that celebrate dubious individuals, such as Columbus Day. And yet, we let Leap Day pass as hardly more than a little extra packing before March.

Leap Year happens because the cycle of the Earth around the Sun is 365 and a quarter days. That’s how long it takes for the earth to return to the same physical position in relation to the sun. But a quarter day is an inconvenient thing to mark on a calendar, especially because the rotation of the Earth on its axis doesn’t care about the rotation of the Earth around the sun. So our calendar is rounded down to 365 days. But if every year were marked as only 365 days, our calendar would slowly get out of sync with the seasons—January would head towards Autumn, while July crept back towards Spring. Every four years we add a day to the calendar to reset the phase shift.

It’s my kind of holiday—essentially inconsequential and unimportant, but quirky and necessary. It falls at the intersection of our particular location in the universe, and our own human culture with our particular ways of recording time. It’s unique to us as Earthlings, and even more so to us as humans. And on top of that it only happens once every four years! What’s not to celebrate?

Back in the year 2000, my dad told me that this Leap Year was extra special because Leap Years don’t happen in years that are multiple of 100, unless it’s a multiple of 400—an extra accommodation of math to maintain seasonal accuracy. I remember lamenting in my journal at that time that I had missed the opportunity to write in said journal on 2/29/00 because it was a once-in-400-year opportunity to experience such a Leap Day.

Years later, it occurred to me that this Leap Day century thing was something Dad invented, and I had mistakenly believed it for years. This was right around the time I was discovering a lot of things Dad had told me as a kid were in fact invented, not maliciously, just jokes about the workings of the world that I was too young not to take at face value. This fell right in line with those—it just didn’t seem to make sense.

Last Leap Year, I was researching the origins of Leap Year, and I discovered that he didn’t invent it. It’s true!

I told you that the a full solar orbit isn’t 365 days, but actually 365.25, but actually actually it’s 362.2425 days long*, or about 11 minutes shy of 365-and-one-quarter days. Even with our Leap Year accommodation, we would still get out of phase with the seasons (albeit very slowly) by gaining three extra days every 400 years. To account for that, every 100 years we don’t mark Leap Year, but on the 400th year we do.

What makes this Every 400 Years Leap Year so special (and thus, even further up my alley of inconsequentiality) is that it’s not special. It’s marked like every other Leap Year, even though it only happens every 400 years. It’s significant by being ordinary. As a lover of Leap Year as I am, I was thrilled to discover that I did in fact experience a once-in-400-year occasion! And to discover this on Leap Day felt like the perfect way to celebrate.

This year I’m celebrating Leap Day by spreading my enthusiasm about Leap Year. So happy Leap Day!

Hi friends. We’ve been dormant for a while, like a chicken in a coop in the winter not moving very much. Is that a thing?

Whatever. We’re gonna be doing a live show with lots of new novel approaches to building stories out of small thoughts and mundane details. It’s gonna be a Dixon Place on the Lower East Side and it’s Saturday 10/13/18 at 7:30pm.

I have lived exclusively at EVEN number street addresses in ODD number zip codes* (for instance, 22 Lawn Avenue, 06459; 244 W Lakelawn Pl, 53703, etc). Mind you, we’re talking 10 different addresses, not just some insignificant sample.

States I Have Eaten Off a Plate In

As part of D&WCSLLC, we've spent a great deal of time extemporizing on topics far and wide in parks, in backyards, subway stations, for one another, for strangers, for friends.  I don't think either one of us was deficient at coming up with something thoughtful to say previously.  But this weekend I was at a headstone unveiling at a cemetery on Long Island.  The deceased (a year ago) was my grandmother.  A full slate of parents, aunts, and uncles were there.  My generation, though we can roll deep at times, was under-represented; I was one of four (as I said we usually roll deep).  The folks in the generation above me took turns and said thoughtful, emotional things.  I had nothing in my head, but I felt like I should offer something, both as a representation of how I felt and to make sure the younger generation added something (which is a funny conviction to have, really).

I ended up talking about New York City and the layers of history my (and many other) family have here.  How the hole left when your grandparents' apartment is no longer a dependable spot to go to when you need it/them can be re-spun when you learn that your great-grandparents lived a few blocks from where you work.  Or knowing you pass one grandparent's interred remains every time you take the train to your parents, and another's remains every time you go to LaGuardia or JFK.  I composed it on the spot, it had form and shape and flow, it was true and heartfelt.

I've never really been on the dating scene as an adult.  I have hunches.  I have hunches about how you can gravitate towards characteristics that're important to you, ie beyond both enjoying Doctor Who and casual boating, how do you find someone who will indulge your request to never look directly at your nipple, or someone totally fine with never drinking milk, even in coffee, before they kiss you?  These things work out all the time nonetheless (and they don't work out too, but it's more amazing when they do).

Woody and I first became friends because of music that we played together.  The story telling part coalesced a lot later.  Even after that (we had similar taste in some stories we wanted to tell by other people), we began to realize how similar our memories were.  We both have a deep trove of insignificant signifcances that we walk around with, blessed or cursed, all the time.  Sure, this isn't such a rare trait to have, but this weekend I was reminded of how impressive it is.

This weekend, my person-partner and I had some conversation that resulted in me recounting the minutiae of after-school routines at various ages, from 5-18.  Different locations (I lived in six different places before I went to college) help me keep track of things, and having a brother I think made me remember things differently, with siblings adding a whole other pool of landmark moments compared to if it's just you and a parent as it was in her case.  There wasn't much definition to a lot of her memories, but I could spin out these stories starting from a tiny suggestion.  I realized that the circumstances of my childhood really lent themselves to being remembered far better than the circumstances of her childhood did.