Behold, the Lamp of Friendship! Isn't it cool? My phlebotomist's father made it, and Kellie brought it to me after her vacation in Michigan in July. It looks a lot prettier in person, actually, I don't know what's up with the gorillapod. Speaking of phlebotomy, my prowess as a blood and blood products donor was finally noticed by the mainstream media. And when I say the mainstream media, I mean, of course, the Park Slope Courier. It's the Hooterville Cannonball of newspapers.

Hurrican Hannah flooded my apartment Saturday in a new and exciting way. I've had floods here before, but never a backed up drain. It's been a while since I had a full flood, and the floors were due for a mopping anyway. I think I had enough reason to stay here one more year, but if I think about siging a new lease next year, someone should slap me upside the head.

Last night, I saw an evening of Edgar Allan Poe one-acts at St. Luke's theater. The stories were "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Bells" and "The Masque of the Red Death" and it was all kind of drama-school, taking tiny little steps in close formation and drawwwwwing ouououout our wooooords kind of stuff. What I'm going to call "Basement Theater". It's not that I can't enjoy that kind of thing, as a matter of fact, I kept thinking my friend Liz would be great in it because she has great physical command of her, as they say, instrument. But the ideas didn't progress as the evening went on, so one one-act would have done it. And as you know, I'm pro-Poe.