a ballad for September

We walked into the lobby and I knew it had been a mistake. Not just the hotel, although that was definitely a mistake, a mistake of the sort that only happens when one is trying to build bridges with hostile future in-laws and accepts an offer to allow a diabolical sister-in-law to make all the necessary honeymoon arrangements, and if the lobby was a foreshadow of the rooms, of the honeymoon itself, of the future of married life, it couldn't be starker.

Walls painted hospital blue. A reception desk modeled after a nurse's station. Scattered faux-Windsor furniture in maple stained to resemble mahogany. Of course the hotel was a Ye Olde Inn. Of course the room was a screaming dissonance of chintz and fake Colonial. Of course there were modern replicas of wrought iron kitchen and farm implements on the wall next to the plastic plants. In the bathroom was a badly colored Currier and Ives print of a snowy scene of a covered bridge, improbable horse in the shadows, and a hot water tap that only ran tepid. Dinner in the hotel restaurant was roast beef, roast potatoes, roast carrots, all of which were predictably the color and texture of beef jerky, and were followed with an apple pie so heavy it could compete in the ye olde Skillet tossing contest. Is it necessary to mention that the hotel staff all wore some strange hybrid of costume, between Nathaniel Hawthorne and lederhosen?

We stayed in that ghastly pseudo-period piece for a good week, with its tepid showers and soggy toast and weak coffee and mattresses that seemed to be made out of straw that had been hauled in from ye olde barn in 1823, and during this week of programmed nuptial bliss we saw the Falls; we perambulated around the Falls; we boated through the Falls; we joined a geological tour group for a history of the Falls slideshow; we crossed a bridge over the Falls; we crossed the border and examined the Falls from a foreign identity; we attended movie showcasings of great moments of cinematic history filmed at the Falls; we listened to lectures about the Falls in the Guinness Book of World Records; and by the end of the week choosing between throwing myself or my beloved spouse over those goddammed Falls would have been too difficult a decision to make.

We sent Niagara Falls postcards to all three hundred wedding guests; we bought Niagara Falls snow globes, Niagara Falls keychains, Niagara Falls colored prints, Niagara Falls monogrammed pencils, Niagara Falls etched highball glasses, and Niagara Falls umbrellas. And of those items, the etched highball glasses and the umbrella were in constant use. It rained, and the rain was followed by fog, and the fog was followed by mist, and the mist was followed by a watery form of daylight, which eventually coalesced into rain again. The water in the bathroom remained tepid and the coffee weak, and by the third day we were both existing off of neat Scotch to make the rest of the stay bearable.

It was our honeymoon, and we thought we were in love, so we didn't even obliquely discuss leaving early, since that would have been far too perilously close to discussing the dissolution of the marriage, and no one gets divorced while still on the honeymoon; it simply isn't done. Of course the entire thing was a mistake, as I knew that moment I entered the lobby, but at that point I thought marriage was like cards and a good poker face and a bluff could still win the pot.

Not that I was a card player; not then, not now, since I haven't a head for numbers and can never keep track of what's been played, and maybe my disinterest in cards could have been construed as a disinterest in wedded bliss, although the minister in his prenuptial counseling never mentioned the connection, and it wouldn't have occurred to me as an apt predictor of a relationship. No, the minister was all about our duties to our community and to god and to each other, and how love weathers all difficulties, and children are blessings from above that develop the depth and warmth of blessed family.

Actually, I think the minister received one of those postcards, too, and I'm sure that if it alluded to the lumpy mattresses and inedible food and atrocious interior decorating, he would have just chuckled at the idiosyncrasies of married life and remarked that Job would have done anything short of selling his soul for such a moment of civilized comfort. But I've always thought Job was a fatalistic whiner with self-aggrandizing tendencies, and if there had been even a chance at a Faustian bargain: my soul for an espresso and a hot bath: sold, no need to negotiate further.

By the end of the week, hunched in the Windsor rocker in the "lounge," a quilt folded over my lap, a mystery novel next to a highball glass with my third whiskey since lunch, the feeling of impending doom that had lingered since we arrived grew into a solid lump in my stomach. Was this my future? Was wedded bliss a succession of rubbery scrambled eggs and bad coffee, while one's soul mate joins the six a.m. bird watching expedition, just for something to do? Would we raise children in a house decorated with early Americana reproduction furniture and kitsch? Do the holy bonds of matrimony preclude hot showers? Was this my sister-in-law's introduction to the expectations of the new family?

We still hadn't unwrapped the wedding gifts, much less sent thank you cards, but I had a suspicion that our new house was going to be decorated in maple furniture stained to mimic eighteenth century mahogany, that the living room would be draped in chintz, and that every Sunday would be filled with the word of god followed by an overcooked roast.

In the end, we were married for just over seven months when I woke up to the chirping of the whippoorwill on the Audubon society alarm clock on the bedside table, when I stumbled into the kitchen and found the note propped against the pre-programmed coffeemaker, and all I could think was -- I was free. We were over. Somehow I had to liquidate a fully furnished house and manage all the household bills in the interim, but there would be no further expectations from god or in-laws, no further trips to Ye Olde Inns, no further death by chintz or burgeoning family responsibilities.

I kept the snow globe and the highball glasses, and am thinking about paying a visit to the Falls sometime soon, perhaps, seeing how they've held up through the years, maybe watching some young kids just beginning madcap adventures of their own.

---

reading
This Sunday! 4 pm! Neilson Library, Smith College!

Morning Edition : "[if you say:] 'Write something; write anything; you can write a story about anything you want,' they can't think of anything," says Hornby. "But if you say, 'Write a story about a crocodile, a pineapple and a stair lift in a hotel,' then it will spark something up."

weather
alors, October!

ire / wrath / anger / heat / madness / rage / fury

The day after the tsunami, the town was empty. A small town, perched on a cliff above the ocean, removed from various population centers; but not so high above the ocean that the wholly unanticipated arrival of a wall of water could be defended against.

Three days after the tsunami, a man who had been away selling his wares returned, saw the ghost town, collected a few fragmented remains of his past, and returned to the road with his cart and his tired horse.

One week after the tsunami, reports and rumors of a disappeared population circulated through governmental offices. A bureaucrat was sent to investigate and submit a report on the probability of survivors and potential resources in the local vicinity. As a result of his report, the town was quietly removed from all official maps and road signs, and barricades constructed to remind potential visitors: there is no town here, continue elsewhere. But as the town was small and held few commercially or geographically valuable features, it slowly disappeared from the conscious memory of the other citizens of the region, who rarely visited before the tsunami and now could no longer recall that there may have ever been a village down that road to visit.

One year after the tsunami, nature began to colonize the town, flowering bushes encroaching on walls and rooftops, seedlings of trees growing in meadows, roads developing patches of brambles where asphalt had broken down or gravel washed away.

Ten years after the tsunami, many of the roofs had given in to the efforts of wind and rain and clogged gutters, and the trees were as much a part of the village as the people ever were.

Fifty years after the tsunami, children were warned against wandering through the forest and along cliff edges, but the tales were not frightening enough to entice adolescents to test their nerves nor specific enough to awaken a memory of a community.

The first inhabitants of the village after the tsunami were the travelers, itinerants moving between here and there and somewhere else without ever quite feeling the anchor of settling, amorphous communities which may have three mayors one month and no mayors at all the following six months, groups of three families living in proximity for a time, to be joined by a wandering group of young women, the families eventually continuing onwards as the women remained in the village, another week, three months, moving on again in their turn.

The travelers left the original houses alone, still smelling of the damp remains of the tsunami, and while one early traveler family found a small boy who had been playing in the forest when the tsunami arrived, who had returned home for dinner only to find everyone gone, and had subsisted as best he could off of crackers and berries until the first travelers had enticed him into their family, taming the scared and feral child and taking him with them on their journeys, otherwise the travelers turned a intentionally blind eye to the relics of the previous inhabitants. They camped in meadows and public squares, and gave any of the built environment a respectful distance, whether they were passing through a street or the center of the village.

The wave of travelers eventually fully passed through the region, migrating to the fields to the south and the mountains to the west. The village lay dormant, resting, waiting for discovery, raccoons and mice taking up residence in the remains of the buildings, occasional solo wanderers stumbling upon the village, consulting their maps, then eagerly moving on to ground which was less haunting, less damaged.

It was not so very much longer, although some years had passed, when smugglers discovered the village above the cliffs, followed old fishermen's trails up from coves and into the center of the abandoned streets. Had the cove at the base of the cliff been slightly more protected, or had the geographic site of the village been somewhat more accessible or convenient for entry into neighboring regions, it is likely the smugglers would have constructed an alternative distribution center at the top of the cliff. After several years of imperfect moorings at the base of the cliff, after one too many tumbles down the old fishing trails up the cliffs, the smugglers marked the location among themselves as too much trouble for too little access to the heartland, and only docked at the base of the cliff when storms or government patrol boats kept them from their usual route.

The buildings in the village continued to merge with the trees and the roads to grow dense with shrubs; deer and bears wandered down residential side streets, only very occasionally disturbed by the presence of people. A developer of natural resources, looking for unmined reservoirs of tin or gold or tungsten purchased the site of the village and the surrounding forest from the government on favorable terms, but then grew uninterested in speculative geology and returned to his industrial interests in the north.

The village slowly forgot that it had ever been a village, that the sales and barters of daily life had taken place among what had been immaculately manicured streets, that parades and debates and markets had been held at the center of the town, that children had been born and lived and been educated and raised families on specific sites, constructing houses and tilling gardens. Where once tame dogs had chased squirrels intermittently, now coyote packs raised pups and wandered off to hunt; walls eventually succumbed to gravity and the rubble of the tsunami destruction washed into the ocean or was covered by growth.

A hundred and seventy five years after the tsunami, the land had once again reverted to the government, a government eager to develop potentially undiscovered sources of revenue and interest. The travelers had dispersed and the smugglers had become disenchanted and when the surveying team arrived to begin the planning of a resort community, almost no traces of the original village remained.

Small sabotages kept happening to the crew: compasses pointed every which way, levels would never find equanimity, set squares sent pencils and saws off at strange angles, plumb lines hung in crooked arcs, cement wouldn't set, water wouldn't rise to a boil, and all milk curdled. The managers of the crew, who believed only in the god of rational science, fired their crews for insubordination and incompetence, fired the replacement crews, fired the replacements for the replacements. Mathematical measurements didn't add up, ground which had been cleared became inexplicably rocky and uneven, drinking water grew algae.

After much expense and many replacements, a destination was finally constructed, but it was a destination of leaking taps and whistling windows and squeaking doors from the beginning. Visitors complained of head aches, panic attacks, food poisoning, and a statistically impossible number had to be airlifted out due to medical emergencies. After less than two years of operation, the resort, an unmitigated fiasco, quietly closed.

The waves at the base of the cliff churned, but the sea was calm. The tsunami had arrived, departed, and could wait, centuries if necessary, until it was needed again.

---

reading
Bill Bryson / A Short History of Nearly Everything

weather
{sob} the last day of summer

it was there

It was all tied up in a brown paper sack, one of those brown lunch bags that we used once upon a time for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and apples and a brownie, before peanut allergies took over school cafeterias and brown paper sacks were replaced with reusable insulated lunch bags.

It was heavier than a brown paper sack would normally be, much heavier, the density of the contents pushing against the seams and threatening to spill out of confinement if given the slightest provocation. Which would have been a problem for more reasons than one, if that had happened, but there were no sharp edges to break through and no damp objects to cause weak spots in the paper, so the chances were not great. Still, it was much safer to hold the bag from the bottom rather than just grasping the folded-over top, and it was hard to not look suspicious carrying a small brown paper sack with its weight supported by the palm of the hand, or, worse, cradled in the crook of the elbow and held against the body: far too obvious, when the entire goal was to be so trivial, so innocuous, as to disappear.

The disappearance of the bag had proven and unanticipated difficulty. The contents needed to go far enough away that they could no longer have any geographically identifiable meaning. Options including: all the city's dumpsters and trash cans leading to the same identifiable urban landfill; a coatcheck being a too-distinct location; mailing using a false return address to a false address or an obscure and fictitious general delivery name suffering from all of the identifying information provided by the post office in the domestic fight against terrorism; driving down the interstate for several states and leaving it at a rest area trash can facing the possibility of a too-attentive janitor watching, or a conspiracy theorist elder or teenager or child reporting suspicious activities and license plates to the police: geographic anonymity was proving a difficult barrier to escape. So, shredded in a paper sack, other items triple sealed in genuine Ziplock freezer bags inside the paper sack, and now trying to carry it discreetly, where?

There weren't any actual witnesses, which had been carefully tested and proven several times over. The cctv cameras which were ubiquitous these days had somehow all been scanning a slightly different and distant angle, and screenings of the recorded footage, begged, borrowed, stolen, confirmed no visual record had been made. Nothing had been transmitted electronically, so notoriously impossible-to-erase files were not a present ghost. Everything compacted into a brown paper lunch sack.

He had carried it with him for almost two days now, after the first hour becoming aware that the bag had a recognizable quality, and so then hiding it in an assortment of back packs, brief cases, tote bags, and shopping bags, changing clothes to camouflage with the style of the bag. He had spent the past forty eight hours or so walking down streets and alleys, watching public parks, driving down interstate highways checking into motels, going to shopping malls and sports stadiums, visiting derelict neighborhoods and abandoned strip malls, but not sleeping, not resting, not eating, just taking buses every so often and trying to avoid destinations with too many observers, or cameras.

Nothing was clearing up or enlightening. A brown paper sack, the easiest item in the world to dispose of, had become a burden the size of a steamer trunk. But in the bag was the only link -- but a damning one -- between what had happened and what instead was believed to have happened. NASA could lose all of the footage and documents relating to the Apollo 11 flight; Canada could lose all but one copy of its Constitution; major ships carrying gold and treasure could disappear off the coast of Florida; but a brown paper bag was a different matter altogether.

The neighbors could have become problematic, had they been paying attention and interested in something more than the drama of their battles with lovers and bosses and children, but the week of the incident one had blissfully been on a business trip and the other going through yet another torrential, loud, and all-engrossing break up with the same on-again, off-again guy from the past year and a half. The neighbor on the business trip lived a plant-free, pet-free life, so there had been no untimely interruptions from petsitters or gardeners, no visits from Census workers, no Save the Whales campaigners, and no Jehovah's Witnesses with their colorful tracts on the miseries of sin.

He knew about sin, he didn't need a color printout from the Jehovah's Witnesses to diagram it for him; he understood Dante's circles of hell just as well as he understood the criminal and civil law codes, which was pretty damn well, thank you very much. But every so often situations arise where the criminal and civil law codes really are completely beside the point and the destination of the soul is a matter of predestination and reincarnation as much as good works and the sacraments, besides which a spot of confession would absolve the soul, just as soon as the paper bag could be safely disposed of, somehow without tracking.

Thrown from a bridge leads to washing ashore, burying leads to inquisitive dogs or small boys, tossing from a ferry inevitably involves an insomniac fellow passenger watching the entire thing, some materials simply don't burn into powdery ash, and even the abandoned corners of junkyards tend to be open for exploration.

It was just a brown paper sack. It had been a week now. He needed a shave and a good night's rest and to be absolved of his actions and to take up the reins of his normal patters of existence again, and he'd hit the wall with a forceful thud. In a desperate attempt he took a bus to Cleveland, a bus to Knoxville, a bus to Houston, then a train to Santa Fe then Provo, where, by the chain link fence surrounding a military testing zone, he placed the paper sack under a large rock, and then took a bus to Portland, then Seattle, then the train home, where he was greeted by two men in black suits with briefcases, and he knew that his moment of truth was just beginning.

---

reading
a novel with a lovely title and far too many metaphors and similes

weather
forty??? really??? already???

in a tent

Outside: crickets, mosquitoes, bears, raccoons.

According to the troop leader, if you want to see a raccoon, go to sleep with a Hershey's chocolate bar unwrapped on your collarbone, and you'll wake up to one taking it away in the night.

I believed this story for years, ignoring the gaps in logical consideration, such as, what Scout goes camping with extra Hershey's bars? Who can fall asleep with the scent of chocolate wafting into their nostrils? Who has the self control to not take the tiniest nibble, just off the corner, then a tiny bit more, then just another crumb, until the existence of the chocolate bar is purely in the past? Assuming this stoic self control, the body heat of any camper would turn the bar into a gooey mess well before any self respecting chocoholic raccoon received the message.

And, assume: (1) the chocolate bar, left over from making S'mores; (2) unwrapped and uneaten; (3) an interested raccoon: all of the above leads to (4) any raccoon willing to come that close to humans is probably rabid; and the Scoutmaster's theory begins to fall to pieces, as do the ghost stories and superstitions whispered earnestly across bunks after lights out, stories terrifying and utterly believable, told, as they were, with conviction and world gravitas.

Except the scene is not childhood past, the scene is the present.

Outside: crickets, mosquitoes, bears, raccoons.

All of the food, the apples, the carrots, the crackers, the propane stove, the tea, the raisins, the almonds, and, yes, the organic fair trade dark chocolate bars are neatly crammed into the federally provided bear proof locker. The campfire has been thoroughly tamped down so that a stray spark doesn't endanger thousands of acres of forest. The tent is covered with a mostly rain-proof tarp, the sleeping bags adjusted so that major rock formations do not bruise sensitive internal organs, wool socks cover feet unaccustomed to a lack of central heating, and an internal discussion ensues with the bladder wherein the distance to the outhouse is algorithmically compared to the temperature and the battery life remaining in the flashlight.

Outside, crickets, mosquitoes, bears, raccoons. Outside, meager provisions for a week. Outside, a rustle in the bushes which is either an animal or a fellow traveler with unchivalrous intentions. Outside, a campfire extinguished. Outside, a creased road map provided at no charge at the visitor's center. Outside, thousands of acres of groomed and labeled wilderness, full of scenic vistas, old growth forests, natural springs, replanted wildflower meadows, yellow and black caution tape, several dozen more campers, and the road home.

The road home looks enticing beyond anything offered in the way of great unspoiled beauty and natural wonders; the road home leads to showers, hot running water, a clean change of clothes, a mattress and box springs, a hot meal with items from all of the major food groups, music at the touch of a finger, and strangers who don't look like psychopathic anarchist murderers, but just garden variety urban maniacs.

Inside, inside is a sleeping bag that isn't really warm on top of ground that isn't really forgiving, next to the snores of companions who seem to find this sort of thing energizing and deeply spiritually fulfilling. Inside is a reminder that some people blossom under the strangest and most hostile conditions; inside is a pile of dirt encrusted camping clothes and various bottles of bug spray.

Outside is another rustle in the shrubs, closer this time, close enough to jiggle the corner of the tent a bit. There are ventilation windows made of mesh along the base, and if there were a moon it might reveal at least the silhouette of a chipmunk or a fox or a bear or a murderous escaped prisoner, and if the flashlight had more of a charge and I was less afraid of disturbing the ramblings of a bear and / or aggressive stranger and waking up those goddamned snorers in the process, and if I at least had a baseball bat or a pistol rather than the underwhelming flash of a sleek new camera, then all this would simply be local color, the charm and majesty of the great outdoors, rather than the least comfortable way to possibly spend several thousand dollars.

As far as value for dollar goes, these fees ought to at least get some hot water. Maybe an old hip bath. A communal pig roast. There was some college kid with a backpack and a guitar up on the trails, but humming along to three chord changes doesn't seem like the most engaging way to spend an evening.

Footsteps, definitely footsteps, not just a rustle in the grass and a bump to the corner of the tent. There's not a clock within reach, and if I wake up the others either they'll be angry because it's just a squirrel or we'll all be dead. Either outcome seems preferable to lounging on hard, lumpy soil in itchy socks and trying to think warm, soothing, calming, fall-asleep thoughts, none of which are working.

Counting sheep was a fiasco; meditating on relaxing each individual toe and working up to closing the eyelids and falling into oblivion just led to an awakened knowledge of each individual mosquito bite, where it itched most and how hard it was to scratch an ankle in a sleeping bag; visualizing sources of awake-inducing thoughts and watching them float away on balloons never works; and without a flashlight to read the NASDAQ listings and sports scores and race results there was no external washing away of conscious thought.

The rustling seemed to be getting louder. The wind was picking up, the already cold tent getting colder. The snorers were snoring with deeper conviction. The mosquito bites itched with a fury all their own. Somehow the songs of cicadas and crickets did no so much turn each line into a postmodern symphony as create a compelling soundtrack for a horror movie, eerily appropriate since whatever was making the movement outside seemed to have found the entry flap for the tent.

Was it better to feign sleep or stare whatever it was in the eye? Was a camera flash a reliable weapon, and, if not, what about well-aimed bug spray? Would it open the tent and take whatever was closest, be it a pair of feet or a set of keys or a water bottle, or was it hunting for a specific person seen or smelled on the trails in the park?

The zipper began to move, and, I confess, I passed out from fear. What happened next may or may not be discoverable: but my companions didn't snore again during the next week on that mountain; and, after we returned home, something had changed in them. They went from being camping enthusiasts to camping fiends, and within three months had sold their furniture and bought a Volkswagon van, and were never seen in the city again.

---

reading
suddenly, a plethora of work, as commitments resume /// thus, no books

weather
a box of utility peaches and a farewell to summer

Oct. 3 : A Gallery of Readers

Save the date, if you know what's good for you. Apple pie and all that.



A Gallery of Readers
presents
Marc Berman & Stephanie Gibbs
Sunday, October 3, 2010
4 p.m.
Neilson Library, Smith College

---

reading
Nox / Anne Carson
weather
autumnal apples

apologia

I.

Oh, damn, I'm so sorry. I know I promised to walk your dog for you, that you were going away for the weekend with that new infatuation you contracted although if you ask me the infatuation is more delusional than anything else, and rather than put your high strung mutt in a kennel I was going to be friendly and neighborly and walk your dog several times a day. Couldn't be easier, you said. She's a low key affectionate sweetheart, you said. She is totally well behaved on the leash, you said. But the problem is that your self knowledge about your dog ranks right up there with your ability to judge potential romantic partners, and that dog threw such a fit when I tried to open the door that I just gave up and went back home, there was a game on and then it just seemed like too much trauma for the dog to interrupt it over the weekend, when it would be sleeping on the couch or whatever, and it just seemed best to wait for you to return.

Maybe that wouldn't be the best way to go about it. There was a lot to explain, and that upside backwards recursive apology wasn't going anywhere. It kind of alluded to the broken window, the hospitalized UPS driver, the series of rabies treatments that the show poodle next door was receiving, the boy with a broken arm and a mangled bicycle and the unfortunate encounter with the skunk, but those were all just allusions.

Maybe the best apology would be to simply forward all the bills to her address, and spend the next five or six months on sabbatical somewhere innocuous and untraceable, without dogs, UPS drivers, small boys, or skunks, receive mail only sporadically and unreliably through the general delivery box at the central post office of Prague or Budapest or Montenegro. That method had much to recommend it, although I was uncertain if fleeing to a foreign country conveyed the depth of contrition I felt about the entire situation.

Walking the damn dog was the neighborly thing to do, of course, but in hindsight pleading an allergy or a conference might have been wiser. Perhaps even secretly hiring a professional dog walker, or maybe asking the SPCA for assistance in the matter once the situation had started to deteriorate. Perhaps it was my moral obligation to call the police after the UPS incident, but what type of person schedules packages to be delivered while they're out of town? I mean, we know what type of person, and it was not at all my neighborly duty to walk her dog and collect her mail and receive her packages and water her plants just because she had a fancy date with a loser.

-----------------------

II.

Dear Sir,

Please accept our most sincere sympathies for the complications you have endured following an allergic reaction to the recent performance of Olfactory Oratorio Number Eight, attended last Saturday evening. You will, however, be aware that a full list of counter-indicators were provided on page seventeen of the program, where susceptible audience members were encouraged to view the performance in the annex via a live camera feed. As such, we are unable to provide any financial settlement at this time.

Yours very sincerely,
. . .

-----------------------

III. Military Industrial Complex

I am very sincerely saddened to inform you that, owing to changes necessitated by the recent master plan overhaul as realized by the budgetary analysis and allowance and as executed by the ad hoc management team assembled for this purpose, we will be unable to fulfill the terms of our agreement and to finalize the situation as was expected and originally planned.

It is my privilege to announce the new, streamlined method by which the spirit of our interactions were governed, if slight variations in the details of the plan are unavoidable.

Please accept my wholehearted sympathies for now requiring all forms to be filled out three months in advance using the colored pencil specifically relating to the category of request, as detailed in appendix 3 subsection 18. While I would like to personally be able to walk you through the new paperwork, you will find sample forms in appendices two, five, and seven, each marked using the newly standardized shorthand and the color correct annotation system.

Any associated fees may be paid by cash, in British pounds sterling or Canadian dollars, but at this time analytical examinations have shown the euro, American dollar, and yuan to be precipitously unstable, and we are no longer able to accept credit cards according to the directives of the central monetary policy group, based on the off-shore island of Jersey. Furthermore, if all payments in full in cash are not received with the appropriate request forms, any further considerations will be, by necessity, null and void.

Changes in the recent political climate as relates to the distribution of personal property of potentially hazardous nature, including but not limited to: enriched uranium or other forms of "heavy water," certain sizes and models of semi-automatic and fully automatic weapons, strike missiles both air dropped and heat guided, drone aircraft, specific models of submarines as depicted by appendix fourteen and jetpacks of all sizes now require the individual or government requesting the items to go through a three year intensive training period, to be held at one of our fully appointed, state of the art, secure locations, with all food allergies and communications preferences fully respected. Please be aware that the training facilities on St. Bart's and Mauritius currently have waiting lists for the next thirty six years; immediate placement to receive special authorization training may be available on the Mongolian steppe or upper Alberta campuses, depending on staff availability, although we regret that neither of these locations is able to cater for vegans.

For applications for items which are not on the authorized training list, including subversive mime instruction, whoopie cushions, hovercraft, rubber-band propelled balsa wood airplanes, and entry level homing pigeon eggs for home incubation (full color instructional leaflet included in package), a three day training intensive can be arranged at the customer's direction.

Certain substances and items will no longer be able to be provided under any circumstances owing to global shortages, including tungsten light bulbs, AA batteries, vuvuzelas, aluminum baseball bats, bagpipes, or small children trained to throw tantrums at specially programmed key phrases.

Laughing gas, Chinese water torture kits, loaded dice, marked cards, and dueling pistols may still be found according to the original prospectus of the company; and insults in a variety pack of languages and offensiveness ratings are still provided free of charge with every order.

While I apologize for the extensive administrative overhaul that our company has undergone and for any and all complications which it will cause to you, our most loyal client, the necessity to implement these changes throughout will hopefully be met with understanding. We know you have a choice in your patronage of suppliers of interruptions and annoyances and coup accessories, and appreciate your continued patronage as we overhaul our products and services for the special and specific needs and demands of the postmodern state.

---

reading
omigod omigod omigod: there's actually a medical condition for this? I honestly thought I was just really, really flakey about people.

weather
remembering the hot=summer, so hot=not depressed.

Kept Charlie. Using pheromones and psychotropics.