I'm getting old, part 423,967.

Yes, I am. I was reading journals tonight, and the latest entry from a lady I very much admire caught my attention.

She's a newspaper reporter, a talented writer on her way to greater heights. She wrote eloquently about being in the office late and receiving a hot-off-the-press copy of tomorrow's paper. That put me in full reminiscence mode.

When I was in my early teens, I worked for a newspaper. As a delivery boy. It wasn't much of a paper, really; just a weekly community rag short on news and long on ads.

Each Wednesday, I'd walk or ride my bike down to the office to get a stack of papers for next-day delivery. Once I had them home, I'd fold each paper, encircle it with a green rubber band, and stuff it in my canvas delivery bag.

I didn't make a lot of money. Subscribers paid 25 cents per month, and no one had to pay. The paper went to every house on my route whether the resident subscribed or not.

PARENTHETICAL NIPPING-AN-EMBRYONIC-BUSINESS-TYCOON-IN-THE-BUD THOUGHT: Once, I decided to deliver only to subscribers in order to boost the number of paying customers. My grand plan failed; several non-subscribers called the paper to complain (none volunteered to pay), and I got a hell of a rocket from the office. I lost some of my enthusiasm after that....

I always arrived early on Wednesday night. I was fascinated by what might grandly be called the "pressroom." The press seemed huge, black and ancient. The strange motions it went through turning raw paper from the huge roll at one end into printed and folded finished copies at the other end held my eyes.

In the same room was a Linotype machine, which set the rows of lead type that, set in wooden frames, went into the press. For some reason its operator worked on Wednesday nights, so the silvery clatter of his machine provided a kind of counterpoint to the rhythmic noises of the press.

And then there were the smells, as heady in their own way as the smell of fresh-cut grass on a baseball diamond on a warm summer night. Hot lead from the Linotype, the distinct aroma of the newsprint and, all-pervasive, the tang of printer's ink.

I said it was a small paper. The "editorial office" was tiny; I think the staff numbered four or five, apart from the editor, pressman and Linotype operator.

One was the circulation manager. His job seemed primarily to ride herd on the delivery boys and take calls from irate customers -- or non-customers -- whose paper was wet, thrown on the roof or missing.

I remember the circulation manager. He was a youngish man who lived with his mother and drove a 1952 Pontiac. The car was immaculate, white with a silver top. It seemed cool to me, but was probably all he could afford.

One Wednesday night, I went to collect my papers and someone else was there to dole them out. The circulation manager had been killed earlier that day when a truck slammed into his nifty Pontiac. I remember that the radio was on, cranked up high to drown out the press, in the pressroom; the tune it was playing was, gruesomely enough, "Our Day Will Come." His day had come, all right.

Every time I hear that tune, I remember that night.

Not long after, I took a job at the local pharmacy. It paid better.

Oddly enough, though I already enjoyed writing, and had had plenty of exposure to a "real" newspaper, I never connected the dots.

I wish I had. Perhaps I'd now be the editor of some small-town newspaper somewhere, presiding over a staff of four or five and thinking myself a big, fish, indeed. I know I'd walk out into the back to watch the press every night we published....

I think about that sometimes. It's a tasty fantasy to a dinosaur like me in this speed-of-light world of internet news, instant communication and dying newspapers.

And I know as the editor I would offer Kari a job if her work came to my attention. If she accepted, I'm certain she wouldn't stay long. She's on her way to something far better than the metro paper for which she works. The thrill of writing stories about local events for a tank-town crowd (at coolie wages, to boot) would have little appeal for someone like her, I guess.

It does for me, however. Having seen the bright lights of the big city, I often yearn for something quieter and simpler. And slower.

Years after my delivery-boy days, my hometown paper had been swallowed up, and had become a "regional" section in a larger paper. Last time I was there, it had vanished altogether, and the old building was gone, too.

Its day had come. Has mine?

A few more photos from the show...

...taken in large measure to distract myself from feeling miserable.

The attempt failed, but I rather like the photos.

First off, the radiator badge from a rare French car circa 1910. I didn't recognize the name -- and don't remember it -- but I think the badge is cool...



The Minerva, a luxury car built in Belgium in the 1920s, bore a likeness of its namesake goddess on its radiator cap...



I always like tailfins, especially those brash appendages on a 1959 Cadillac. That's a factory-original paint color, by the way, unbelievably called Persian Sand...



Another French "invention," circa 1910: canvas fenders! Practical, and easy to replace when damaged...



Finally, a Model "A" Ford from 1929. What made this particular car a crowd-pleaser was its utter originality, from paint to upholstery to mechanical components. Only the tires, fan belt and radiator hoses have been replaced, and beyond that the owner has only cleaned it...



And that's all I have to say or show regarding this day.

I wasn't there...

...or, more accurately, I was there but wishing I wasn't; today was not a particularly happy experience.

I had promised some time back to be a judge at a car show today. My life is a sh*t sandwich at the moment, and shows no signs of getting anything but worse; I wasn't in the mood to hang with a bunch of zillionaires and their pampered wheels, thank you very much.

But, since I promised, and posting photos is less stressful for you and me than whining, I made the 57-mile trek (each way) and, suitably attired in jacket and tie, I did what I said I'd do. And I took a few pics.

It was damn foggy at 7:30 a.m., but the cars were already parked on the golf course....



As usual, there was a wide variety of cars, from this early-1900s De Dion Bouton...



...to this lovely and unusual Rolls-Royce Phantom I with a rare boat-tail custom body...



...to Cadillacs, like this ultra-luxurious '58 Eldorado Brougham, one of roughly 400 with bodies built in Italy, with "suicide" rear doors and stainless-steel roof panels...



...and even some racers, like this Ferrari Monza, which was also for sale. I (and a friend or two) could retire for what it will change hands for. Think seven figures (to the left of the decimal point)...



I have a few other shots, which will fill the following post. My heart wasn't really in it, though, and it took a hell of a lot of energy -- too much -- to maintain a professional, friendly demeanor.

Never mind, though. The other people seemed to have a good time.

I want to rip out my eyes...

...because they hurt. Naturally, they hurt most when I'm staring at the computer while working.

I have two pairs of glasses, both bifocals: one is for driving, the other is for computer work and reading. The former give me no troubles.

But squinting through the latter has become a painful experience. So I guess it's time to head off to the eye doctor and get new specs. When I can wrest the extra money from what I perversely term a "budget," that is.

Oddly enough, most of the time I don't wear glasses, and I do just fine. I can read most things, can walk, shoot pictures, even drive* and never notice I'm somehow visually challenged.

Hand me a book, or plunk me down in front of the 'puter, though, and everything seems to go blurry.

I didn't wear them until I hit my mid-20s anyway. My first eye doctor, senile when I was first taken to him at about age six and progressively worse thereafter, said they wouldn't help me. My parents believed him; for some reason I have long ago forgotten, they had been convinced that I would go blind during my childhood, and I was, for a time, put in a class with blind kids and started on learning Braille.

During my last eye exam, the doc mentioned that contacts would be good for me, but hard as I tried, I found jamming those puppies in my eyes a psychologically draining task.

I know better than to dream of surgery, laser or otherwise. That ain't cheap, and even if I had the spondulics for it someone would be right there with hands out, asserting a prior claim.

Maybe I just don't wanna work anymore. I suspect there's some heavy truth behind that, but I don't feel like going there right now.

With or without glasses, I can see beauty clearly. I know what sight would soothe my hurtin' eyeballs the most, but it is far beyond my field of vision.

Alas.


* The last time I renewed my license, my eyes were tearing so much from something in the air at the DMV office that I ripped off my specs and did the eye test without. But the clerk still checked off the "must wear corrective lenses" box.

Journey beyond the edge of the Earth...

...as I finally managed to make it down to the classified location where my friend Juan (a/k/a "Senor Hospitality") lives. Knowing he is notoriously shy about revealing his whereabouts, I took his directions with the proverbial grain of salt, and cross-checked them with MapQuest.

Their directions seemed even more dubious ("take Forest Service Road 39TJ05...") so I relied on his litany of strange signs, mile markers, pavement changes, end of pavement/start of dirt road, etc., and drove South.

I thought I had gone too far when I started seeing beat-up vintage Dodge vans with Mexican license plates, but realized I had only been on the road for 10 minutes and was still heading toward downtown Los Angeles....

Eventually -- "eventually" being roughly 2 1/2 hours later -- I made it to his pad, which seemed to still be in the same time zone. While small, it's a wonderful place with a view that would command Big Bucks in any accessible place.

After coffee, we toured the neighborhood via a maze of dirt roads. I didn't take any photos, since it reminded me of a desert town I once visited -- the colleague who accompanied me there looked around and said: "it's so quiet that I can hear people cocking their AK-47s!" -- and I was concerned about violating security rules for the trip....

But the scenery was great and it was, despite the presence of some hungry- (and deadly-) looking dogs, nicely pastoral...



I wondered if I had traveled too far and had somehow made it all the way to the Andes when this curious llama ambled up to the fence...



In time, "Juan's" famous "TourMobile" carried us to a wide spot in the road where we stopped for beverages and Trail Mix...



All in all, a fine afternoon. We talked about all sorts of things that interested us, decided the world's problems didn't need to be addressed or settled today, had a few laughs and never got into an argument. Using readily-available vegetable components picked up at a roadside stand, he made us a snack which was quite tasty and filling. An excellent host!

In time, I had to leave, and did so, reluctantly. Never told him that the impending darkness had me in fear that the chupacabras might emerge from their caves. On the way out, I did manage a surreptitious snap of his bunker, carefully cropped here to remove all location-identifying marks...



A most enjoyable day. I'm looking forward to going back. Soon.

And now that I'm reasonably certain the rumors of cannibalism among the denizens of his neighborhood are most likely unfounded, I'm hoping I can bring someone with me. "Juan" is the kind of guy you want to introduce to your best friends.

I'm easy.

I didn't have a good morning today. My work was not going well; in sheer and total desperation, I headed out to walk four miles or so. Halfway through, the sun burned through the fog, turning me into a sweaty, angry wreck by the time I made it back home.

And then the phone rang.

"Can you hear the ocean?" she said. Yes, I could hear a rhythmic rushing noise in the background, restful and so much different than the sound of the ocean here, which competes, not always successfully, with the noise of helicopters, airplanes, motorcycles and glass-pack-muffled '48 Chevies.

And I could hear the voice that makes me smile...happy, relaxed, with the unique, musical lilt of her heritage still strong despite the influences of different accents around her.

Grouchy as I was, I couldn't stop a smile from forming. I'm easy like that when she's around, whether we're talking on the phone or sitting next to each other.

"I'm studying," she said, "but I wanted to call."

Studying? At the beach? Her dedication is one of the things I admire most about her.

I study at the beach too, of course. I study rocks, sand, seagulls, pelicans, waves, people; never books, though.

What a nice mental picture it made: there she was on the sand, lithe and sleek as a seal, book in one hand, a pen for note-taking in the other. I somehow knew from the first time we met that the beach was her special place, and knew even hurricanes could not keep her away from it.

I love the beach. It's a major reason why I stay where I am despite the expense and other problems. If you look at our respective beaches, though -- I'm over here on your left; she's way over there on your right -- you'll see she generally has the better deal. No earthquakes there, and as far as I know fewer signs warning people not to act like human beings. Or not to eat the fish.

We talked about work -- mine, mostly -- and I promised to send her my latest article when it's done. I value her insights; she is a far better writer than she knows. That shows through in the most commonplace articles she takes on.

And fair is fair, after all...I have done a little editing of her work, which is as pleasurable as any red-pencil work I've ever done. In part, of course, because her writing needs so little cleaning-up.

"I have 17 pages to go," she said. "I need to get back to it."

Somehow, that didn't matter. She had already worked her magic, and I went back to my work with a smile.

She knows what to say to me when I'm not at my best, even as she knows what to say when I'm happy.

How can one not love a friend like that?

Sad day so far...

...as I remember, as most of us remember, the events that took place on this day seven years ago.

Being three time zones away from the destruction in New York City that morning, I can only remember watching TV for endless hours, making calls to find out if people I cared about were safe (all were, thank God), and wondering what would happen next.

This documentary sums up, as well as anything I've seen, not only the terror of that morning but the attempts to reduce what happened to understandable, human terms.

An impossible task. It can't be rationalized or explained.

I remember the aftermath: the silent, empty skies, the countless stories of heroism and sacrifice, firefighters standing by highways accepting donations for their brothers and sisters in New York City, the brave words of politicians.

I remember, too, the revisionism that began almost immediately, the suppression of "disturbing" video images, the pleas to "understand" those who condoned, supported and participated in the attacks, the conspiracy theories, and the ultimate failure of the politicians to follow through on their brave words.

In other words, too many people reverted to their old, selfish, offensive and ineffective ways.

For most of us who experienced that day, even peripherally, the anger has not subsided. Nor has the deep sadness we feel for 2996 people who, without any say in the matter, became the victims of primitive hatred and, later, martyrs to a cause the politicians decreed as "right."

My feelings have not changed. What should have been done was not done, both before and after that day in 2001. We have tolerated savagery which should have been erased from the Earth. We have aided people whose aim was to destroy us, and our political "leaders" have stood side-by-side with them and called them "allies."

The world has not been the same since that day. And, until we find our way to common sense and a willingness to defend our nation and its people from harm, even at the risk of "offending" certain others in this world, we can never be entirely certain that Sept. 11, 2001 won't be repeated.

Legs...

...not the legs I'm thinking about, as I have neither pictures of them to post here nor permission to do so if I had any -- but some interesting legs I've seen on my last few walks.

My walking companion thought this was an egret, but wasn't sure. I haven't the faintest idea...



Definitely a peacock, a short way away from its normal habitat...



Obviously a spider, "floating" because back-lighting made its web invisible...



Something of a stressful day. So you get nature photos instead of whining.

Pay no attention to the man behind the...

...Hawaiian shirt!

The charming and beautiful lady on the left is one of my all-time favorite journal-keepers, Joan Perry. I am addicted to her work, which can be found here and here. And probably many other places, too.

A trip to a convention put her a mere 25 or so miles away, and we managed to work a get-together into her tightly packed schedule. So I went down tonight (in the supertanker, which barely fit in the Marriott's parking garage), to have a drink with her and spend a couple of hours in delightful chat...



PARENTHETICAL OH-FOR-A-FACE-TRANSPLANT THOUGHT: Damn, I look old! Can't help remembering what my Flip Wilson talking doll used to tell me when I pulled its string: "The ugly people know who they are...don't they?"

What a pleasure to meet someone so interesting to talk to! I've long considered her a friend -- in no small part because she was one of those who called when I was in hospital (using some rather devious means to locate me, I guess) and did so much to keep me glued to reality at that time -- and was thrilled to find out previous impressions were true. She is a friend, and the warmth she projects in her writing and the humanity one senses behind her photos are very real in person.

Thank you for a lovely evening, Joan!

Famine or feast...

...which, if you want to be correct in your quotes, goes the reverse direction. It's just not doing that for me.

Recent days have been sheer, unadulterated hell. No, worse than that. No ambition, no energy, no nothin' except fear that catastrophe was now unavoidable.

Thanks to those who helped, and a client who finally laid some loot on me (not to mention my hunch that my greedhead landlord would take a check of some size from me and cash it instead of throwing it back in my face and yelling -- in his best Bela Lugosi voice -- "get out!"), kept the worst from happening.

It did leave me with a Ford F250 diesel pickup (12.9 miles per gallon...sheesh!) I planned to use to haul all my crap to storage.

Worse, it left me an emotional wreck, almost motionless, and unable to deal with even the smallest things.

Most of the people I encountered during the worst of the meltdown didn't know. They got my usual positive, energetic self. And that, too, was incredibly wearing on me.

I ain't out of the woods. But I think I might see some evidence of a clearing ahead.

And now, the pendulum swings the other way.

As of yesterday, I had three articles to write within the next week or so. Not bad, as one had basic research done and the other two could be padded with, well, bull excreta.

Now I have six, and should have them all done within seven days if I am to maintain peace among the clientele. Three of them will not be easy.

But I'm not complaining.

Wait a minute, I am complaining. My photographer friend, D., can drive me into a vein-bursting rage with the easy way he promises delivery dates. That's fine for the photography -- he does that in a couple of hours -- but he either tells the editors the story is already written or won't take me any time.

Okay. I need the money. Otherwise, I'd simply ignore him.

Tonight, however, I have a relaxing and fun evening ahead (though it involves driving that supertanker through evening traffic to get where I need to be).

That will bring a smile to my face, and may even be the subject of a posting later tonight.

Today, I received copies of a magazine carrying a story that is my favorite piece of work in a long, long time. The editor remains delighted by it (as do I) though both of us first saw my finished copy four months or so ago. I seldom can read myself with fresh eyes, but this time I could. And it made me think, "damn, that boy is a helluva writer!"

None of the stories I have ahead this week will evoke that reaction barring some kind of miracle.

Enough of that, though. I'll be back later.

And so...

...things have finally hit bottom.

I'm not going into the gory details, but I have finally reached a point where no option is good. Best case, I will have to do some things that bother the hell out of me and make some major changes in my so-called "lifestyle.". Worst case is, well, worst. Not going into that either.

After hearing the news and seeing my reaction, one of the three people whom I trust enough to tell all sent me home with a Valium and a promise of help. If the help pans out, the next few days will only be hideously unpleasant, not necessarily unbearable.

I owe that friend a lot. With troubles of her own to face, she has been there for me.

I owe those of you have helped a lot, too. If the Desperation Plan works, it will be your help that really helped make it possible.

The Valium? Since I'm not into those things, it has hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. My next stop is bed. At 7:35. Unbelievable.

This journal may go dormant for a few days, maybe even a week. I will be out of touch for that time. I'll try to be back ASAP.

Oddly enough, I was beginning to feel as if I might be able to get through this the "right" way. Had a few articles come in for me to do today, and that always gives me hope.

But then the crap really hit the fan.

And now I get to be a jerk, and be really depressed. Again.

Gotta watch out for Numero Uno, you know. And that is what I fully intend to do.

I'll report in when I can.

On the roller-coaster...

...and the ride never seems to get less bumpy.

Friday and early Saturday were the low points. With the help of a friend, I hatched plans that might get things straightened out, and felt better.

This morning, one major element of those plans was torpedoed. It's not gone permanently (at least not at the moment), but is delayed enough that it is far less useful. And any further delay will take it out of the picture. It was central to getting things done the way I thought I might.

As always, I am at the total mercy of other people. And I don't much like that.

I could rant about that, but what's the use?

Now, I have to come up with Plan "C," as Plans "A" and "B" have now failed miserably.

The pressure on my head is almost physical now. And each new idea seems built more on panic than actual forward thinking. When, that is, I can actually string enough thoughts together to come up with anything. Every element of my situation is banging around in the gray mush, never fitting into any logical order.

Should I take this as an indication that I am supposed to fail?

It feels like that right now.

And figuring out a way to cope feels more and more like an impossibility.

At the park today...

...the annual local gathering of the Kustom Kar and Lowrider crowd. You saw most of the cars here last year. Or the year before.

Overheard: "Daddy, why do they call them "lowriders?"...



Overheard: "Mama, look at the li'l Vato!"...



Two classic Chevy wagons in flames...



Chrome, iron, metal and metalflake...



Guess I wasn't really in the mood today. But it was a nice -- if brief -- diversion. And I need diversions....

What helps keep me sane...

...is the ringing of the telephone.

"Are you by your computer?" she says. "I need you to look up a phone number for me."

I point out that she is (a) 3000 miles away, (b) on vacation, and (c) must have a resource closer to hand. But then I think maybe this is like the last time she asked me for a phone number, when she wanted to "borrow" one of my P.R. contacts to ask a question for an article she was writing.

"I need a phone number for a taxi," she says.

Her voice is bubbling over with laughter, warmer than the weather where she's staying. Which is to say it is full of tropical sunshine.

I can do this. Never mind the logic -- or lack thereof -- of asking such a question of someone all the way across the continent. She wants something, I do it. Simple.

I pull up Dogpile, type in "------- taxis." A page comes up, and I scan the list. "Let me see," I say, "do you want 'The Crabby Cabbie,' 'Sunshine Taxis' or a plain ol' dumb 'Yellow Cab?'"

"No to the Crabby Cabbie," she says, laughing. "That sounds creepy."

I hoot derisively. Where's her spirit of adventure?

I give her two numbers. "Oh, give me your address, too," she says.

She's sending me something. Who knows what? I don't ask. The last card she sent remains on my desk; I read it whenever I'm down and instantly feel better.

I wish I was there, and tell her so. I know the therapeutic value of an unfamiliar paradise, and know even better the healing powers of a familiar, beautiful face and personality.

On a day when all Hell is breaking loose, she brings me a smile.

And I will tease her about "The Crabby Cabbie" for a long time, I think.

When the fishing boats come in...

...after a long day on the ocean, the pelicans follow them to the docks, where they feast on scraps tossed by the crews and whatever tidbits come out of the scuppers as decks are hosed off.

Pelicans fascinate me.











It was good to go for a long walk with a friend at sunset after a week that finally reached its absolute worst today. While the coming days -- and perhaps weeks -- will be rough, I think I have evolved a way to get through it all and start making some real progress, rather than simply reacting to whatever gets thrown at me. I'm looking forward to it.

And, for a few minutes, I was distracted by these wonderful prehistoric birds.

Another strange day...

...in which nothing good or bad happened. Nothing happened.

That's pretty frustrating. What I want most at the moment -- aside from a couple of things that are flat-out impossible and therefore not worth thinking about, much less discussing -- is to be working.

For me, that means writing. What's more, it means writing stories I can involve myself in, as well as get a fair return for.

There have been times when that was actually possible. In fact, for a few years I took that for granted. I was batting out some reasonably high-quality stuff, and on a regular basis.

It hurts to go back and read the stories now.

It wasn't perfect. I didn't much like the editor I was working for; I found him untrustworthy and far more interested in promoting himself than behaving ethically. But we shared a desire to fill the magazine's pages with good writing, and his bosses set the pay scale, which was adequate for the time.

And he knew that while I was unlikely to hoist a beer after hours with him, I could and would crank out fine product.

It was a hell of a good deal. I was sent off to Oregon on a day's notice --and with a one-week deadline -- to come up with some undefined "story" for the magazine's first issue. If I say so myself, I came back with a winner. I know it had what I consider one of my two or three best ledes in 22 years of published work.

I went to Alaska for that magazine, too, and to Europe and Japan. I always returned home with good stories. But the inevitable day came when I was no longer flavor of the month, and we parted ways.

This is particularly galling because a sizable percentage of my recent work has been, to put it succinctly, swill. Well-written swill, but not what I would want to be remembered for.

Comparing the story currently under construction to some past efforts almost makes me think I've lost the skills I once had. I know that's not true, but can't prove it to myself right now.

That's the biggest reason for wanting to get back into the game for people who care about the end result. Forget money (never mind, that's a lie)...I'm mainly interested in turning out some of those knockout articles again. I need to surpass the Oregon story, which was written back in 1994 or thereabouts, and a few others in which I take considerable pride.

Being too busy to read my old stuff and wonder who the guy was who wrote those stories would be nice, too.

Words fail me.

I spent a few minutes this morning cleaning out the "sent messages" folder in one of my email programs. I still tend to look at such things as taking up physical space, so why save them after they've done -- or not done -- their job?

In the midst of this little exercise, I noted that a message sent to a friend had what I consider a pretty glaring typo in it. Only the occasional inept turn of phrase or badly expressed/inappropriate sentiment bugs me more.

What's worse is that the recipient is the kind of person who will notice. Not that I expect to hear about it; it'll just be another minus score on my Literacy Quotient.

I can explain, teacher:

I was tired when I wrote it;

Since the addition of one letter turned the word I wanted to use into another word, it wasn't caught by my spell checker;

I'm a crappy typist.

Naturally, this person knows I am a fairly decent editor and has indeed made use of my editorial assistance a time or two. Said writing efforts were damn near flawless in my view, so I made very few changes and suggestions.

And now, more evidence that I clearly need an editor 24/7 to watch over my own writing. Yes, even when it comes to things like emails.

There's a good reason no one sees my raw writing, at least before I've had a chance to read it over and smooth out the bumps, and this is it. I don't spend much time refining sentences and stitching up paragraphs. No, I look for the basics: actually typing the words I intended to use, proper English, and all that stuff teachers tried to beat into my head in primary school.

I was actually better about this in the days before spell-checkers and other computer-generated aids to literacy. I would print out everything I wrote before sending it off, attack it line-by-line and word-by-word, penciling in corrections and changes.

Now I just read it on the screen.

I may have to go back to the old ways. I see increasing evidence that even other "professional" writers have lost their edge when it comes to spelling, word usage and grammar, and I have a bad habit of being very critical about such basic flaws.

When society gets to the point where all communication is done via the electronic equivalent of grunts and gestures -- that is to say: strange acronyms, short words badly spelled and click-the-icon instant questions, answers and concepts -- I want to be the last dinosaur standing, the last holdout for proper English.

And I'm losin' it.

Reptile-osity!

New neighbors in the building....

A chameleon...



A "skink" (that's what they -- the new human neighbors) call it...



And a baby python, on its way to a full-grown 5' length...



Do they all taste like chicken?

Phone-y-ness

Went out for my five miles' walk this morning. A mistake, the direct sun beating down, concrete sidewalks and other sources of heat, direct and reflected, reduced me to a sodden pulp.

One of my neighbors accosted me when I got home: "we were just about to go in your place to see if you're okay. Your phone has been busy since last night."

It's nice to have neighbors like that.

I went upstairs to find that none of my phones worked. No dial tones, no noise on the line; not even any peeps when I pushed buttons. Oddly enough, the DSL worked fine (or at least as well as it ever does).

So, borrowing a phone, I called 611, the "repair" service.

Like every other service at AT&T, 611 now involves a computer-generated voice asking stupid and not-always relevant questions to which you respond with the few words the voice recognition software knows ("I'd like to pay my bill" seems to be the only one you can count on) or by entering a number, "press one for Spanish"-style.

After 10 minutes of this to-and-fro, the computerized voice said AT&T would send a repairman out on Monday, between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00p.m., for a mere $55 "diagnostic fee."

In the meantime, another neighbor suggested I unplug all my phones for 10-15 minutes and let the system recycle itself.

I don't know if that did the job or the "system check" the computer voice claimed was being done actually accomplished something, but when I plugged the phones back in, everything worked. As well as it ever does, anyway.

So I called 611 again to cancel the service call. Apparently, the computer couldn't understand me -- even though I avoided words like %&@# and *^(! and @$$#*/% -- and was, at last, going to let me talk to a human. After 20 minutes on hold, I gave up, and will try later.

I was beyond furious, and still am. I pay $120/month for my phone plan (albeit a reasonably good one) and DSL all rolled together. I expect better service. I expect to be able to talk to a human when things get sticky.

The alternatives available are at least as costly and some, such as cable, are much more expensive here.

Welcome to the 21st Century!

Feeling old this morning...

...which should come as no surprise. After all, I am old!

It's a strange sensation. In many respects, I'm in better shape physically than I was at age 35. I weighed more then, ate poorly -- I was married; my wife had a taste for the kinds of meals that are considered verboten today -- and certainly didn't get as much exercise.

In fact, I feel as if I'm 35 most days, and that is, as it should be, a good thing.

But there are exceptions, and today is one of them.

I look at the road ahead, measure its length and my strength, and wonder how much longer I can continue the battle. Worse, life has an evil way of showing me what I should have seen when I was 35 (or should be 35 now to savor), personal relationships and adventures forever denied to me at least in part because I have too many miles showing on my life's odometer.

Being married when I was 35, and staring into the barrel of an upcoming career change, my focus was on objects at close range. No looking at any sort of bigger picture and, even though I was beginning to realize that a divorce was imminent, no looking around for fresh companionship.

That number -- 35 -- just sits in my mind. Thirty would do; so would 40.

There's a lot of goodness, ability and energy left in this old body. Who will see that? Who will want to see that?

I won't write my answer as it seems to be now.

If nothing else, this shows why I don't write entries early in the day right now. One bad dream (at least I'm guessing that's what did it; don't remember) messes me up for the whole morning.

Maybe the rest of the day will be better. Here's hoping.