Newsflash

The radio newscaster says "Police are calling it murder." And then he goes on to report that a body was found inside a suitcase floating in the bay.

Um...I am also calling it murder.

My father

Quoth my father:
"...you have to be sort of crazed and committed, because there's no stopping."

And there, ladies and gentlemen, you have what I think of as my father's personal motto. Oh. That and also "run your ass off." In fact, you will see that he has almost no ass to speak of. That is because he has been living true to both these mottos my entire life.

Imagine him running much, much faster than this and you might be able to envision the Dipsea legend on race day. My fearless, fleet-footed father. Personally, you couldn't pay me to even walk that trail. But I do definitely look like him, so I did inherit something along the way.

I'm thinking vampire

This year, I have been plagued by mystery bites. These are bites that seem quite small and innocuous at first, but then become monstrous: venom-spreading, heat-producing, mind bogglingly itchy blights. Previous bites have been on my leg and on my hip. I have ruled out mosquitoes and bedbugs; I was thinking maybe spiders (although why suddenly after an almost entirely spider-free life, I would have them crawling into my bed and biting me, I couldn't say).

However, this time I have formulated another theory. Vampire. Don't you think?





Never having read any Anne Rice or Twilight, I'm not sure there's any documentation about people having an intense allergic reaction to a vampire bite, but it might make an interesting twist for a sequel. I may now be forced to live on human blood for all eternity and I won't be able to go out during the day, but that actually seems fine. Vampires neither ski nor hike, right? Perfect. In my old apartment vampires probably would have woken me up, but in the new place I wear earplugs, so I think it's entirely possible.

Yes. A rather dashing vampire finds me irresistible. Otherwise, poison bugs are crawling over me while I sleep. And clearly that can't be happening.

Recumbent women

This morning I had the occasion to ponder which song I loathe more, "Lay Lady Lay" or "Lay Down Sally."

The poor grammar is just the beginning.

Snap shot

I know. I'm not really on top of this writing thing. Let's not talk about it.

On Saturday I put on a hat and drank a mint julep from a silver cup (provided by my father, incidentally, who has won many such cups in a race. I'll bet the other winners of these cups don't drink juleps from them, which seems a pity) at my cousin's Derby party. She has a view of Mt. Tam and a pocket-sized bit of bay with sailboats. You'd like it. In fact, if you want to prove that you like it, you can vote for her in Apartment Therapy's Small, Cool Contest. She's in the teeny-tiny division. Let's make her the big winner, shall we? [At this very moment she is well ahead in the polls, which is exciting.]

Upon leaving her civilized gathering, I went to the car wash. It's a thing where you drive through, but there are also guys in there with rags and sponges and the like. They have this little platform that the guys can climb up on to reach the roof of your car. This means that, if the guy is short (and they all seem to be), when he is on the platform his crotch is framed in my window. That's how I happen to know that the guy washing my roof found it to be more stimulating work than I might have imagined.

I then drove home across the Golden Gate Bridge where, upon passing the north tower, I saw a bicyclist down flat on the ground surrounded by worried compatriots to my right and a would-be jumper clinging to the rail and in conversation with police to my left.

I don't really have a point except: huh. Bourbon in a garden, hard-on in a car wash, physical peril on a bridge. There's a lot going on out there.