"American Alphabet" by Heidi Cody

I don’t think I’ll get them all, thank God. But a few of them will continue to bother me.

Don’t “Read More” until you’ve given yourself a chance to guess at them.

Here a few that I know: Bubblicious (or is it Bubble Yum?), Campbell’s soup, Dawn dish soap (not sure), Eggo frozen waffles, Klondike ice cream bar (maybe—from the middle of the word?), Lysol disinfectant products, M&M’s, Orios (?), Pez, Q-tips (?), Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, V-8 cocktail juice, Twix (?—from the middle of the word again?), York peppermint patties.

The A and S are driving me crazy. (Alpha-Bits? and that fruit toffee stuff that comes in little squares? what the hell’s the name …) The K looks awful familiar as well.

Okay, lemme outta here!

On Wilson Boulevard in Arlington, Virginia

Not bad: more than $100,000 a year! Maybe even $200,000! Clearly all income is pure profit—why bother paying for a professional-looking sign? And don’t worry if you can’t spell—the boss can’t either!

In the process I’m also memorializing the huge rolling, grassy expanse that has lain fallow for several years now, on the same block where my employer plans to break ground in November for a new building. One can only assume the owner and/or developer ran into financing difficulties after they tore down the Taco Bell, Dr. Dremo’s Taphouse (formerly Bardo Rodeo and, before that, Ningaloo),  and the scary-looking used-car dealership. The fickle economic stars are apparently realigning, however, pointing to a successful and timely outcome for us, if not for them.

That said, I have to add that I found drivers in Quito very skilled. They prefer manual transmissions, yet they still use their brakes heavily. And unlike drivers in US cities, they tend to use their horns only as a warning (“Look out, I’m not stopping”), not as an angry gesture. In fact, with all the intense driving I encountered, I didn’t see one expression of pique, let alone rage. Drivers seem to intuit what other drivers are going to do. Maybe it was a special week, but I didn’t see one accident while I was there, or the remains of one. Hardly a day goes by in DC when I don’t see one or the other. (Quito has a population of near two million.)

While being shown around the old city center, I noticed something my new son-in-law, a native Quiteño, seems not to have. Maybe this type of traffic signal is peculiar to the Centro Historico, but in any case, I thought it was amusing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It just so happens you can see me in Street View, captured in the act of gardening, even though I am not a gardener. There I am in the red T-shirt, down in a monkey crouch with a spade in my hand. That lady over there is my wife (she’s the gardener), and that’s our neighbor, chatting while he watches us work the soil of the tree lawn in front of our house. I actually remember the day quite well, though I never noticed any car with a strange bit of apparatus on it rolling slowly past.

After the initial glissando of a weird feeling that ran up my spine when I saw it, I felt strangely at ease about my Street View presence. When I showed the printouts to my brother the lawyer, he was spooked, for some reason. (Maybe that’s why he lives in the exurbs.) Am I nuts? I mean, anyone walking or driving by at that moment would have seen us, and frankly, you can’t make out our faces. (Google says it pixelates car license plates and faces, but it seems the resolution of the shots we’re in didn’t require it. I know it’s us because I know us pretty well.) But still … am I crazy not to care?

I confess I like Street View. Just the other day I wandered along the street in Cleveland where I was conceived and gestated (my parents and brother moved into a new house the day I was born, so I had never laid eyes on that neighborhood). Didn’t see any people, though. In my virtual wanderings in DC and elsewhere, I like seeing the traffic and people going about their business. I don’t recognize anyone, and certainly no one recognizes me. Is it voyeuristic or creepy to go Street Viewing in Paris or Chicago, or is it simply the cheapest, most ecological way to satisfy a mild case of wanderlust?

Perhaps more importantly, does this give the lie to my previously stated concerns about government encroachments on privacy? I think not, but the devoted reader is free to think otherwise.

Addendum 2009.05.21: A friend alerted me to this page describing the Google Trike that is photographing scenic footpaths in the UK. A bicyclist like me, he says this would be a neat job after retirement, and I agree.

Addendum 2009.05.22: Here’s a nice article in the New York Times about the Google camera car and the buzz surrounding it.

It seems to me that my blogger friends are blogging less and Facebooking more. I don’t think we can attribute that all to the fact that the election season is over (although I’m sure Nate Silver has seen a precipitous drop in his visits). Maybe they’re just living life more, which is great. I know that’s what I’m doing when I’m not blogging.

Still, I couldn’t let March pass without a single post. Being a fundamentally lazy person, and finding myself in the mood to memorialize my year on Facebook as I prepare to cut back on my participation (admittedly modest, compared to some of the addicts I see out there), I figure I’d pull all my status messages from Facebook’s ravenous maw and copy them here as a pathetic but possibly admonitory example of Facebooky navel-gazing. Some of the entries still almost make sense; some elicted rejoinders that far outshone the status message itself. And the earliest ones show just how lost I was at first in the Facebook universe. Does this traipse backward in time qualify as autobiography? Hardly. But it’s something, and that’s better than nothing. Maybe.

At any rate, here goes …

2009.03.28 WorldWideWeber took the quiz “What color is the inside of your spleen?” and the result is yellow ochre.
2009.03.18 WorldWideWeber was going to tell you his fortune, but when he opened the cookie, it was empty. (Actually, that’s an improvement over what he usually gets.)
2009.03.16 WorldWideWeber has enough to do. Y’all can stop dumping stuff in his In box. Seriously. Enough, already.
2009.03.14 WorldWideWeber is guessing that this will come after my name and will make grammatical sense. Yet another minute wasted on process rather than substance.¹
2009.03.10 WorldWideWeber almost gave some advice.
2009.03.02 WorldWideWeber :: Ceci n’est pas une status update.
2009.03.02 WorldWideWeber is shoveling the white stuff.
2009.02.25 WorldWideWeber keeps seeing a girl with four eyes and four lips.²
2009.02.25 WorldWideWeber is pounding on a new social networking system to see how it works (or doesn’t).
2009.02.24 WorldWideWeber is woiking hahd to put food on de tebble.
2009.02.23 WorldWideWeber :: the mere act of digitizing Ysaÿe did wonders for his double and triple stops.
2009.02.21 WorldWideWeber is digitizing some Ysaÿe.
2009.02.13 WorldWideWeber :: rebeWediWdlroW
2009.02.13 WorldWideWeber did nothing special for Darwin Day. What an ingrate.
2009.02.12 WorldWideWeber says, “Happy 200th, Gas! And you, too, Abe!”
2009.02.06 WorldWideWeber is belatedly preparing to be Lost.
2009.02.04 WorldWideWeber made good time.
2009.02.04 WorldWideWeber will be swooping in and out of Baltimore and Annapolis. Hi-yo, Volvo, away!
2009.02.02 WorldWideWeber wonders what kvetching was like before there was the word “kvetch.”
2009.01.29 WorldWideWeber is back in the saddle again.
2009.01.28 WorldWideWeber is tired of taking the Metro.
2009.01.27 WorldWideWeber is taking the Metro today. Looks like the snow will turn to slippery slop this afternoon.
2009.01.26 WorldWideWeber feels that it’s not a matter of not trusting Monday, it’s … something else.
2009.01.23 WorldWideWeber :: the clementine was perfectly fine.
2009.01.22 WorldWideWeber really should do something about that clementine that’s been sitting on his desk since January 5th.
2009.01.20 WorldWideWeber had a pleasant walk home from 3rd and Constitution on 20 Jan 2009, with a nice lunch along the way at Wasabi.
2009.01.20 WorldWideWeber Such a pretty ticket! Too bad it worked like crap.
2009.01.20 WorldWideWeber :: Annals of the National Security State, Part 754: Our hero learns that having a ticket to a “public” event doesn’t mean diddly.
2009.01.19 WorldWideWeber :: look for us in the purple section. (To the right, looking out from the Capitol.)
2009.01.18 WorldWideWeber is going to be Malled at some point in the next few days.
2009.01.17 WorldWideWeber …
2009.01.15 WorldWideWeber is enjoying the cold snap.
2009.01.11 WorldWideWeber is on a Fritz Lang jag.
2009.01.09 WorldWideWeber is.³
2009.01.07 WorldWideWeber is wondering why there were three Mondays this week …
2009.01.02 WorldWideWeber is trying out the idea of working in 2009. Feels like … work.
2009.01.01 WorldWideWeber says: “С новым годом, с новым счастьем!”
2008.12.31 WorldWideWeber is back in sweet home DC, watching the horizontal snow.
2008.12.26 WorldWideWeber is spending a few days in Ohio.
2008.12.25 WorldWideWeber keeps forgetting it’s Thursday.
2008.12.24 WorldWideWeber is Christmas Eving.
2008.12.24 WorldWideWeber is “working.”
2008.12.22 WorldWideWeber suddenly appreciated, while crossing Key Bridge this morning, that extreme cold is the default condition of the universe (2.725 Kelvins).
2008.12.20 WorldWideWeber is heading to Shemali’s for some grape leaves.
2008.12.19 WorldWideWeber hung around long enough to be awarded custody of a box of crackers and a mostly full bottle of Chardonnay.
2008.12.19 WorldWideWeber is not going to mince words: his company’s holiday party has been downgraded to a “reception.”
2008.12.15 WorldWideWeber finished his last crazissimo Monday of the year. The rest will be merely crazoid.
2008.12.14 WorldWideWeber is coasting.
2008.12.11 WorldWideWeber is not going to tell you what he’s doing right now.
2008.12.09 WorldWideWeber is not so keen on cold rain.
2008.12.08 WorldWideWeber is gradually regaining fine motor control in his fingers after the bike ride in.
2008.12.06 WorldWideWeber says, “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.”
2008.12.03 WorldWideWeber is plugging away.
2008.12.01 WorldWideWeber noticed nothing awry in his office after four days away. Wait … that wall calendar … “November” …
2008.12.01 WorldWideWeber has nothing against shopping, except actually doing it.
2008.11.30 WorldWideWeber is still not shopping.
2008.11.28 WorldWideWeber is not shopping.
2008.11.26 WorldWideWeber is busy sending out thank-you notes. (Mentally. Like most of what he does.)
2008.11.20 WorldWideWeber is I found a new way of talking where you put “is” right after the subject, regardless.
2008.11.18 WorldWideWeber is working on the cover sheet for his TPS report.
2008.11.17 WorldWideWeber is watching the planes land out of the corner of his eye.
2008.11.13 WorldWideWeber is not staring out the window.
2008.11.12 WorldWideWeber is staring at his computer monitor.
2008.11.11 WorldWideWeber is spending the day with the birthday girl.
2008.11.10 WorldWideWeber actually watched one leaf on the dogwood decide to “let go.”
2008.11.05 WorldWideWeber is decompressing.
2008.11.05 WorldWideWeber danced in the street with his <real street name>⁴ St. neighbors. Literally. Really.
2008.11.04 WorldWideWeber says, “Si, se puede!” (Да, мы можем!)
2008.11.03 WorldWideWeber will soon be doing his part to keep DC from falling into the McCain column.
2008.11.02 WorldWideWeber thinks he may already have wasted his extra hour.
2008.10.30 WorldWideWeber still likes spaghetti best of all.
2008.10.24 WorldWideWeber loves the smell of shish taouk in the morning. Smells like … victory.⁵
2008.10.23 WorldWideWeber is in the mood for some hummus.
2008.10.21 WorldWideWeber is back on track, look out, baby!
2008.10.20 WorldWideWeber is running late today.
2008.10.16 WorldWideWeber wonders where they find “undecided voters” at this late stage. He thinks they’re being coy.
2008.10.14 WorldWideWeber has nothing to say, and just spent six words … er, eleven words … fourteen? (is “er” a word?) … oh, never mind.
2008.10.07 WorldWideWeber is tired of these debates, my friends.
2008.10.06 WorldWideWeber can’t decide which is more unsurprising: that J.McC. is sending S.P. out to do his dirty work, or that S.P. seems happy to do it.
2008.10.03 WorldWideWeber plans to exceed some low expectations today.
2008.10.01 WorldWideWeber thought he was looking forward to the VP debate, but it turns out he isn’t. SP fatigue. (BS tornado.)
2008.09.27 WorldWideWeber watched two candidates spout the banalities (and in some cases, poisons) of the US foreign policy consensus. One of them won on points (barely).
2008.09.25 WorldWideWeber signalled for a timeout, but no one stopped the clock.
2008.09.23 WorldWideWeber discovered he had another replacement shift cable all along. Duh! Now he has three.
2008.09.22 WorldWideWeber discovered a shift cable hanging on by two threads … back to the bike shop he goes.
2008.09.19 WorldWideWeber hopes to gather parts this weekend for his Trek 750 that’s been on the disabled list all season.
2008.09.18 WorldWideWeber hears wedding bells.
2008.09.15 WorldWideWeber was okay with the old Facebook.
2008.09.05 WorldWideWeber Palin … the general tenor of the GOP convention … the breathtaking inanity of Giuliani … etc.
2008.09.05 WorldWideWeber is still astonished.
2008.09.04 WorldWideWeber is sleepwalking today.
2008.09.03 WorldWideWeber is going to enjoy Dulles Airport in the wee hours again …
2008.09.02 WorldWideWeber is herding cats.
2008.09.01 WorldWideWeber is doing nothing.
2008.08.29 WorldWideWeber is pretty sure he’s on McCain’s short list. What? Sarah Palin? The one person with more experience than he has! Oh, well.
2008.08.29 WorldWideWeber is pretty sure he’s on McCain’s short list.
2008.08.22 WorldWideWeber says, “Did I say Wes Clark? I meant Joe Biden.” ⁶
2008.08.20 WorldWideWeber is enjoying an extreme close-up of the grindstone.
2008.08.19 WorldWideWeber is enjoying a sudden day off.
2008.08.18 WorldWideWeber is recovering at work from a busy weekend.
2008.08.15 WorldWideWeber liked the Nats ballpark, is still replaying the bunt single for the Nats that brought in a run.
2008.08.15 WorldWideWeber liked the Nats ballpark, was glad the Nats made it a game against the Mets … until the bottom of the eighth.
2008.08.13 WorldWideWeber is looking forward to seeing the Nats on Thursday with G & A.
2008.08.12 WorldWideWeber got some big news on Sunday.
2008.08.06 WorldWideWeber experienced the glories of Dulles airport at 2:30 am.
2008.07.30 WorldWideWeber is looking forward to seeing the chiquita and her novio.
2008.07.25 WorldWideWeber is back from the Outer Banks early because of team loyalty.
2008.07.25 WorldWideWeber is back from the Outer Banks early because of softball obligations (i.e., too many of the youngsters are injured, out of town, out of the country …)
2008.07.18 WorldWideWeber is outta here.
2008.07.17 WorldWideWeber is on the verge of vacation.
2008.07.09 WorldWideWeber thinks the Fourth Amendment was nice while it lasted.
2008.07.07 WorldWideWeber was welcomed back to the work routine by a soft rear tire on his bike. Crap!
2008.07.03 WorldWideWeber has slogged his way into a three-day weekend.
2008.07.01 WorldWideWeber is slogging away.
2008.06.30 WorldWideWeber cancelled a meeting—woohoo!
2008.06.27 WorldWideWeber is watching another thunderstorm approach or go by or something.
2008.06.27 WorldWideWeber is finished writing and deleting status updates.
2008.06.16 WorldWideWeber needs deadlines. Sad, but true.
2008.06.08 WorldWideWeber will try to be more transparent in the future.
2008.06.04 WorldWideWeber wants everybody to shut up about Eve. Just shut up about Eve, that’s all he wants.
2008.06.03 WorldWideWeber feels bad for the mackerel.
2008.06.02 WorldWideWeber notes that it’s Monday. ‘Nuff said.
2008.05.26 WorldWideWeber has become a garden-variety photographer.
2008.05.23 WorldWideWeber And yes, she apologized and “clarified” what she said, but geez.
2008.05.23 WorldWideWeber Hillary is certainly making it hard to say anything positive about her. It would be one thing to say RFK won California in June (which he did, although California is not a June bright spot for her); but the implications of her saying he was assassinated in June are clear and unnerving, whether they were intentional or not. She either needs a good week’s sleep, or she’s losing her bearings completely.
2008.05.23 WorldWideWeber has not exactly earned his three-day weekend.
2008.05.23 WorldWideWeber This Slate article must strike those who detest HRC as risible fantasy or pathetic delusion, but the history is interesting: http://www.slate.com/id/2191942/
2008.05.17 WorldWideWeber is sick to death of hyperbole.
2008.05.16 WorldWideWeber is squeezing four days of work into one.
2008.05.15 WorldWideWeber took three days off in mid-week and, damn, it feels good.
2008.05.12 WorldWideWeber bugged everyone by writing in Russian. But she started it!
2008.05.12 WorldWideWeber не понимает о чем говорит своя дочка.
2008.05.09 WorldWideWeber has nothing to say at this time.
2008.05.02 WorldWideWeber has finally experienced Eddie Izzard in real time.
2008.04.27 WorldWideWeber went 3 for 6 and that will have to do.
2008.04.24 WorldWideWeber wonders why folks are so bent out of shape over the choice between O and H.
2008.04.22 WorldWideWeber has given up (for now) on configuring wireless on a Thinkpad running Fedora.
2008.04.17 WorldWideWeber is installing and configuring his sixth flavor of Linux in a week’s time.
2008.04.10 WorldWideWeber saw a whole bunch of netroots, and a few netberries.
2008.04.09 WorldWideWeber is off to see what a netroot actually looks like.
2008.03.31 WorldWideWeber is still doing his taxes. What gives with that?
2008.03.24 WorldWideWeber is contemplating oxymorons.
2008.03.21 WorldWideWeber wonders why people advertise their microcephaly with Bush 2004 bumper stickers.
2008.03.17 WorldWideWeber always wondered what it felt like when the stock market crashed.
2008.03.13 WorldWideWeber harbors unspoken thoughts.
2008.03.10 WorldWideWeber is glad Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia worked out their differences in a gentlemanly way.
2008.03.08 WorldWideWeber is wondering where that hour went.
2008.02.29 WorldWideWeber welcomes the lion of March.
2008.02.27 WorldWideWeber is running out of February.
2008.02.22 WorldWideWeber ‘s middle name is Ohm.
2008.02.20 WorldWideWeber is resisting an invitation to play chess.
2008.02.19 WorldWideWeber understands the importance of games.
2008.02.19 WorldWideWeber isn’t sure why he’s here.
2008.02.18 WorldWideWeber replaced the chainring on his 80s-era Giant.
2008.02.16 WorldWideWeber plans to replace the chainring on his Giant this weekend.
2008.02.14 WorldWideWeber has been prompted to avail himself of the delete option.
2008.02.13 WorldWideWeber wishes you could edit a wall message after it gets posted
2008.02.09 WorldWideWeber Sort of like the nineties, but having to do with years beginning with zero (“aught” or “naught”). Some people say “the naughty aughties.” I think that’s a bit much. But hey, that was on our wall2wall, so you’re⁷ p.s. doesn’t make sense to everyone else. (See? I’m catchin’ on here, baby!)
2008.02.09 WorldWideWeber Didn’t mean to cramp your style. But frankly, I’m a little lost here. Guess I need to start exploring.
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¹Testing Facebook after yet another redesign. The status box now says “What’s on your mind?” Okay.
²One of the idiotic IQ quiz teasers in the right column on Facebook.
³Facebook used to have the text box prefilled with “is”.
⁴If you’re a Facebook friend of mine, you know it.
⁵I had joined thousands of other Facebookers in making my middle name Hussein in the run-up to the election.
⁶You don’t get graphical smileys in Facebook, of course. Nor italics, bold …
⁷Among the innumerable pleasure of Facebook: unfixable typos. The solution: delete the status message and retype it.

For hundreds of years, we have understood in this country that “keeping and bearing arms” is different from “having a loaded gun in the drawer of your nightstand.” Now we don’t. Devolution. What else could it be?

Antonin “Tony the Mouth” Scalia says Second Amendment protections extend only to “weapons in common use, like rifles and pistols.” There’s strict constructionism for you. Strictly pulled from the justice’s well-constructed colon. I guess a notion like “arms control” doesn’t fit there, let alone a bazooka.*

If the Founders (or Framers, actually) didn’t think the Second Amendment had to do with communal defense, why did they add the “militia” clause? What’s the point? Were they drunk at the time? They also used the term “bear arms,” which has a distinctly military connotation. (You don’t bear arms to go hunting—you take your rifle.) Was it a slip of the collective pen? Yet it goes perfectly with the militia clause. (Just to confuse future generations, they drunkenly threw in another couple of words, making it “keep and bear arms.” But they also said “the people,” which sounds like “We the People,” which is a collective entity. When speaking of individuals in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, didn’t they tend to say “person” or “the accused” or some such singular, noncollective noun?)

Several people in the blogosphere have said “well-regulated” = “well-equipped.” Say again? Is English their native tongue? It’s this kind of crap that makes one want to put a gun to one’s temple.

Washington’s mayor says, while it will now be legal for DC residents to have a handgun in their home “for self-defense,” it’s still illegal to carry that gun outside the home. Makes you wonder how the damn thing gets into your home. I mean, even if you buy it on the web (is that even legal? as if I know), someone has to deliver it, right? What about when you want to go out and shoot a few paper people for practice? There’s bound to be a bit of distance between your doorstep and the friendly neighborhood firing range.

Okay, enough kvetching. My solution (probably not original): let anyone have bear a handgun, but make it illegal to keep ammunition. Second Amendment protections do not extend to ammunition, now, do they? All ammo will be stored in licensed facilities, where you can shoot your gun to your heart’s content. When you leave, you will be checked—and I mean airport-security, see-through-the-clothes checked—for shells. Don’t try to leave with even one cartridge. It’s sort of like the inkjet printer scam. The printers themselves are dirt cheap—it’s the consumables that’ll kill ya. In the case of bullets, of course, this is literally true.

The Framers certainly left open the possibility that their fancy new system wouldn’t work and might even need to be overturned in accordance with something other than Marquess of Queensberry rules. In the scenario limned above, if The People decide they want to rebel, they need to make sure the ammo dump guys are on their side. Chances are good, since these working stiffs are likely to be more akin to The People than to bluebloods and plutocrats like [fill in your favorite bluebloods and plutocrats—mine may not be yours, but added together ... did someone say “class warfare”?]. The simple and very strictly constructed formula is:

r = d(a/g),

where r is revolution, d is widespread discontent due to longstanding grievances, a is ammunition, and g is guns. If a or d equal zero, r = 0, no matter how large g is.**

The New York Times noted that Tony the Mouth Justice Scalia, in his dissent in the recent Guantánamo habeas corpus case, warned portentously that the decision “will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed”; yet he seems not to notice or care that Americans will die with much greater certainty because of his gun ruling. And, if I were a betting man with no scruples about wagering on a person’s life and death, I would lay heavy odds on most of them being innocent folks—bystanders at a stickup, kids in a gun-infested home, philandering spouses, bilking business partners, and so on. Clearly, by “innocent” I mean “no physical threat to you or me or anyone,” not “pure as the driven snow.” That is to say, people like you and me, who don’t deserve one-man justice delivered from the barrel of a gun, or the boilerplate newspaper comment about being “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Just so some people—the ones who lack any feel for the statistics that actually govern our lives—can feel secure against the boogeyman who never comes. They can sleep soundly, dreaming of how they will be able to point their Smith & Wesson Model 910S (American Pride Series™) at a burglar with one hand while calling the police with the other. Just like on TV.
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*Okay, “Tony the Mouth” is a cheap shot. That son-of-a-gun brings out the absolute worst in me. Apologies to all my Italian friends and family. And remember: my favorite food is spaghetti. [back]
**I don’t have a lawyer, but if I did, she would insist I point out that I am advocating neither (1) nastiness toward my social and economic betters nor (2) armed insurrection. (Not yet, anyway.***)
***Kidding.****
****Maybe. [back]

I finally got around to reading a novel a friend gave me a while back, Beyond Sleep, by the Dutch writer Willem Frederik Hermans. Enjoyed it immensely.

On Sunday I heard live jazz performed at a private home in Washington, DC.
The vocalist Ilona Knopfler was captivating, Steve Rudolph put on a great show on the keyboard, and my friend Victor Dvoskin brought his usual blend of intellect and passion to his accompaniment on the bull fiddle. After the first number, my hard-to-please college buddy, whose dad played jazz in New York City, turned to me and said, “We could be hearing this at Carnegie Hall.” But strangely enough, we were in the airy living room of a Russian émigré couple on MacArthur Boulevard. The afternoon more than lived up to the promise of the previous concert in January, featuring guests from Philadelphia and New York joining Steve and Victor.

Did I mention that this month is use-it-or-lose-it month at my place of employment? As usual, I have accumulated many hours of leave in excess of the number we can carry over from year to year, so, much as it pains me, I am taking time off work in May to the tune of 2–3 days a week. It is so indescribably liberating to be walking down Wisconsin Avenue at 11:00 in the morning, or 2:00 in the afternoon, dropping in to the hardware store or coffee shop. It makes me wonder: What have I turned into?

I still intend to write up a post titled Rhinochromatography. I don’t know why I haven’t got around to it.

Time for a nap.

Freedom is on the march everywhere. In my town, starting today you can look just about anywhere and smile into the camera. A friendly Homeland Security employee will take note. Feel free to give the “thumbs up” sign—they love that.

I am hoping all the cameras will be clearly visible and labeled, with a blinking red light. I want to make sure they catch my good side.

Voice offstage: “Mayday! Mayday!”
Second voice: “May Day?”
Third voice: “Get those two …”

I hadn’t realized there was a pent-up demand for peeking at other people’s “work spaces,” or whatever you want to call them. But I guess it’s human nature, еspecially in these virtual times we live in, to be curious about how other people structure their personal space—their actual physical living place; or let it be structured, if we might assume the existence of a countervailing nonhuman structuring force that bugs the control freaks but provides such a cozy world for the inspired, the distracted, the … slobs.

Be that as it may,* as a semiconscientious blogger who may have a devoted reader, I feel it’s my duty to satisfy the curiosity that, left unfed, would eat away at the innards and, in a colossal ripple effect, like the butterfly in the Amazon, destroy Western Civilization, or at the very least, cause the cancellation of the Super Bowl. Or the banning of commas.

So here it is—my hallowed “blog space”:

The wine is Dr. Loosen, a nice little white from the sunny slopes of Germany. The wallpaper is the cover of a Soviet children’s book from the 1930s, Вчера и сегодня (Yesterday and Today), written by the great Samuil Marshak and illustrated by V. Lebedev, about whom I know nothing—sorry, V.! The bronze Taco valve serves the first and second stories; the green-blue one (with the blue-green corrosion at the joint) serves the basement.
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*Isn’t that a lovely phrase? I would use it all the time, if I could. [back]