HER MAJESTY
“No one suffers more than their President and I do.”

—Laura Bush
April 25, 2007

YOU MUST BE KIDDING ME
Seriously?

IN THE BAND OF LIFE
I'd like to be the Bass Player.

He always seems so relaxed.

ROGER, ROGER
Some people simply think of Roger Ebert as a guy who reviews movies with his thumb(s). But he also happens to be an excellent writer, political commentator and cultural critic. So I don't why (alleged) white collar criminal Conrad Black thought he could go up against Ebert and win, but somehow he did.

And he lost.

Way to go, Roger.

I CALL DO-OVER
I wake up this morning and it's suddenly the middle of February. This is unacceptable.

AT ODDS
I'm going to change the name of this blog to Scientific Weather Analysis & Some Other Things.

1. I don't like hearing meteorologists say things like "our lowest temperatures in three decades."

2. I don't like hearing someone called a "coquette," because then I mistakenly think that chick is a coke head.

These items are not to be flirted with.

NOT THOROUGHLY SENSICAL
There's something cold about the weather. It's primarily the temperature. And the morning winds sent me careening off the north face of the IBM building. I picked up my glasses and smoothed my pants, only to realize I wasn't wearing any. Too proud to admit my mistake, I continued walking and am now sitting at work, pantless, lying through my fingertips and too proud to admit I have little if anything truthful to type about.

I saw a dead woodpecker on the sidewalk yesterday. I worry when I see dead birds. I worry about a sudden imbalance of atmospheric things that are normally quiet and invisible and balanced and easily taken for granted. And then birds start falling from the sky because maybe there are too many parts per million of, say, nitrogen in the troposphere and the birds just can't fucking stand it.

Remember when I said little if anything? That was it.

Well not all of it. I didn't realize my fly was unzipped until about 10:30 a.m. Too proud to admit my mistake, I began typing to look busy. Let them think I'm too busy for their trivial customs. Silly zipperers of flies. I am living on a higher level of everyday experience—one on which pulling a tab to bind metal teeth and thereby hide my undergarments is a silly habit best left for lesser beings.

PHOTO OF THE DAY
Thank you, Stephen Crowley of the New York Times.