Heard on 15th Street this evening:
Doe Fund Guy: Get out of here, or I'll call the police.
Guy Pushing Shopping Cart: Then I'll call the FBI!

Boy, nothing seems to stir the passions of the populace like Tristram Shandy, I've gotten more conversation out of that post than all the others combined.

I'm pleased to report that I'm now about 60% through the book and that it is, in fact, awesome. There are just some things you have to let go of in order to enjoy the ride, though--you have to get used to non-modern punctuation, accept that you won't be familiar with all the allusions and that it's okay, be humble in the face of unfamiliar vocabulary, and most importantly, don't worry about what the book's about. "Is all this stuff taking place while Mrs. Shandy's still in labor upstairs?" Yes, it is. "Is he saying that the town of Strasbourg fell to the French because a gentleman with an exceptionally long nose passed through?" Yes, he is. Then you actually get into it. By the time a chapter ended with the Shandy men's plans to walk upstairs to see the baby, I was playing along, trying to guess what would prevent them getting there. Of course, I couldn't, but M. Sterne does not disappoint. So the book is really worth it, but like me, you might have to semi-retire to put the dedication into it it requires.

It gives me hope when I see a bad play because I know if that one can go up, mine could too. (I like how I'm such an egomaniac that I always envision low standards as the key to my success.) Well, hope bloomed in a mushroom cloud last night when I saw a play so bad that even the promised "prolonged full frontal male nudity" couldn't keep my eyes open.

On the bus today, we were pulling out from a stop when the woman in the seat in front of me yelled at the driver, "Stop, someone's running for the bus!" When he'd stopped and let this woman on, my gal leaned over to her and said, "I'm the one who got him to pick you up. So you do the same for someone else and we'll be even." Okay, first, "Pay It Forward" was the worst movie ever. Second, buses run down Flatbush Ave every five minutes. Third, what about those of us anxious to shop for plus-size fashions at Target for our upcoming trips to Maine? Yes, we Libertarians are always bristling at the taxation of the many for a windfall to the few!

Here's me and Cousin Betsy Howard on the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a gorgeous day, beautiful to be up on the bridge with lots of boats and helicopters about (it's Fleet Week), and I didn't freak out in the least walking across it. How come I spazzed every single time I walked over the George Mason bridge on the Potomac and didn't fear this one at all?

Betsy, her husband Thad, and I proceeded to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. So, so beautiful, urban oasis, etc. While I don't think anything affected all three of us at the same time, in each area, there was something to set one of us to coughing or sneezing, though. "Apparently I'm allergic to something in the rain forest," Betsy said. Thad coughed all through the Rose Garden. As for me, I started sneezing when we got in sight of Prospect Park. But that's like complaining about living a block away from a big, beautiful park, so shut up, Janet.

Mmmmm, rijstaffel!

For fans of delicious drinks, try the Dark & Stormy; it's rum and ginger beer. (If you think of ginger ale as really being ginger water, you'll get an idea of how gingery ginger beer is. It curls your nose hairs.)

So, the lesbian bar in these here parts, I found out, is called the Caddyshack. I was trying to remember this morning what it was, and thought for a couple of hours that it was the Haystack. Y'all, Haystack is totally a much better name!

For fans of the New York Post: A woman fell 12 feet through a sidewalk grate yesterday and survived. Read her story in "Her Grate Escape".

As most of Western Civilization knows, last night was the finale of Cycle 8 (for the older dog) of "America's Next Top Model". And if you don't love Natasha the Russian mail order bride, I don't want to know you. Miss Liz came over to share the moment, and we're going to try to adopt some of her "my cup is 3/2s full" philosophy.

But back to the subject of this message, I made the special Cycle 8 Finale dinner: shrimp cocktail, lamb steaks, salad and corn on the cob, but I had trouble opening the mystery brand Reisling. The little razor blades on the foil cutter broke, I swore at the knock-off rabbit wine opener in general, and grabbed a knife to cut the foil. I tried that for a while, then--oops--realized it was such a good bottle of wine that it had a screw cap.

As for yesterday's promised tale of philanthropy, I worked a Whole Foods fundraiser at Union Square today to raise money for Food Bank for New York. I went into my carnival barker mode to hustle people from the perimeters of the square into the donation collection chute. I have to say New Yorkers didn't seem to embrace the carnival barker. They're all on their phones, or ear buds, or else people screaming a them has a bad connotation. But we did okay for Food Bank. Enjoy the soup, Hunt's Point.

Some kids I know crack up every time they see a sign for Glebe Road in Northern Virginia, and NoVa being what it is, you might in fact encounter Glebe Road three or four times on your way from point A to B. I assumed there was a Squire Glebe or something back in Georgian times (cf Sally Fairfax County) but thanks to Tristram Shandy (I've broken a heretofore inpenetrable barrier and am now in pages numbered in the 40's) I now know a glebe is land which provides revenue to a church.

I know the mother of some kids who's read everything written in the 19th Century who undoubtedly knew that. So, probably, did a weirdly literary computer geek I know.

Big things are brewing for tomorrow, superfans--I'm doing something for others!

It looks like I spoke too soon regarding the collected correspondence of the Hopf (the notebooks are titled "Love, Janet") being salvageable. Two days of being misted with bleachy water and dried in the sun haven't eradicated the mildew smell. They're all in computer files (shout-out to WordPerfect 5.1!) but you never really browse stuff that way. Without a laser printer, it's hard to imagine I'll be reprinting them any time soon, though. The best part is, I have only myself to blame.

I think I've reached the point in Tristram Shandy where I stopped reading in grad school--page 24, which is blackened out so that we can ponder poor parson Yorick. It's all virgin territory from here!

Y'all, drop whatever you're doing and go see "Hot Fuzz"!

Sorry haven't posted anything in a while. The basement flood is the gift that keeps on giving. I thought a box that got wet was full of books I wouldn't miss and what I didn't realize was that by doing nothing, I was creating a little mildew farm. The box turned out to contain the printouts of my collected correspondence, which was about a month's worth of work, which are fortunately not fatally damaged, a bunch of old checks which are, my college yearbook (I don't mind throwing that out; none of my friends were in my class and the only curiosity about the yearbook is that there were a jillion activities, none of which I participated in), and a notebook with some writing ideas. It had some notes about a wrestling/Iliad crossover which wasn't very popular, although I stilll like it, something about a story based on Jason Cherkis, which I can't read and don't remember, and the spec episode of "The Simpsons" I wrote with Alan Flyer at the Senate. That also is little loss-it's all amateurish set-em-up, knock-em-down comedy writing. Oh, and the leatherette folder my Associate of Arts diploma came in is ruined.
I've got a new project going which if you want to get in on it, you'd better leap, because it's not going too well. I decided to read the two books, Tristram Shandy and In Praise of Folly, I was tested on for my Master's at the U., and which I was too distracted by a crush at the time to read. (How did I pass the essay exams? Was I that good, or were the standards that low? It did make Roseanne Sullivan furious that I got the same score as she did. I finished in about half the allotted time, and when I turned in my books and left, she thought I was forfeiting. That would argue for the standards were just that low, I guess.) Anyway, I've started Shandy, and I was optimistic, given that I loved the movie, "A Cock and Bull Story" that was based on it, but the first ten pages left me exhausted and short-tempered. I'm so old now that I can't remember the beginning of a sentence by the time he ends it. But don't worry, I'm going to give it the old U try--I vow to read at least ten more pages.

Andy, bigger than life, in Times Square!

Someone rang my buzzer an hour ago and said there was a man on the sidewalk, did he belong to me. I grabbed my cell phone and umbrella and went out to see what was going on. The woman said she'd seen the guy on our steps, he sat down, then tried to get up and then fell and cracked his head on the sidewalk. I asked him his name, and could he move his feet, which he could. I felt his pulse, which seemed somewhere in the range of normal though I didn't have my watch on. We stayed there until the ambulance came, telling him over and over that he'd fallen and help was coming. Turns out he lives in the building and his roommate rode to the hospital with him. (Is he the one I hear puking every morning? Can't be sure, but he's now the prime suspect.)

My mom was here last weekend.