Firstly, we would ask that you would agree to this: I just remembered that I hadn’t checked any of my friends diaries in a long time. So I went and did that. Ben is sheer genius wrapped in tinfoil. And Nadia is as sweet as punch and I wish I could hug her right now. That’s the sentimental part. Please proceed directly to:

And Seeing As It Is Inevitable, agree to this: I couldn’t sleep last night. After an hour or so of fitful staring I got up and finished Italo Calvino’s “If on a winter’s night a traveler.” After that I went to Douglas Coupland’s website and started wishing that I lived in Vancouver where everything smells like the future. Here where I live, things either smell like the past or smell like the very lack of time. I then read some Wallpaper* and decided to get my act together and start living with an awakened sense of personal aesthetics. Which led me to cleaning my house and doing laundry until ne’r six in the morning. At which time I went to church to pray. Then I came home at ten and went to bed, only to be awakened on the hour every hour by various phone calls, both meant for me and also meant for someone else whose phone number either used to be the one I have now, or is eerily similar to the one now connected to my house. I believe his name is Stephen and I wish he was dead.

So then, having finally given in to a state of dreary wakefulness I continued my rampage toward aesthetic wholeness. I really really want some eames furniture.

And having read all the above, you do solemnly swear that: I talked to Cheyenne tonight for the first time in ages. She’s going to the Philippines in early January. Which is strange, because so am I. She lives about 300 miles away from me. I will soon travel 20 hours in supersonic jetdom to the Philippines and see her there. Very Strange.

Finally, and without a hint of Irony, there is this: Today, as it is the 29th of November I shall have a new nephew. This is the result of my sister-in-law giving birth to said infant sometime today. Which is important because it means that I will be in Ohio at the end of December to celebrate the holidays and the birth of a squalling human child. If you are from Toledo and know me, as opposed to those who hit upon this page because a search engine looking for something to satiate your strange “squalling” fetish recommended you here, I look forward to seeing you and hugging you. (I’ve been into hugging, at least theoretically, since I observed various rastafarians hugging each other at my sometime favorite coffee shop “JahVa House” in Santa Cruz. Rastafarians have perfected the art of the hug. Their hugs are long and happy and they squeeze each other and whisper to each other and hug hug hug.)