Look out, lads!

Watch out, all y'old bachelor types, you lay-about boyfriends, you unattached eligible males! Today is Leap Day, which also means it's Bachelor's Day:

Bachelor's Day, sometimes known as Ladies' Privilege, is an Irish tradition by which women are allowed to propose to men on Leap Day, 29 February, based on a legend of Saint Bridget and Saint Patrick. It once had legal basis in Scotland and England.

Sometimes confused with Al Capp's Sadie Hawkins Day (which falls on November 13), Bachelor's Day is a way to acknowledge that Irishmen are terrible at getting themselves to the altar. You know the old joke about why Jesus must be Irish:

☘ He turned water into alcohol;

☘ He lived with his mother and never married; 

☘ He spent all his time hanging around with his pals.

Of course, when you consider that Irishmen were mostly surrounded by Irishwomen, who fight harder than the third monkey trying to get on Noah's ark, there may be some reasons for this. (Ha ha! Funny joke, honey! If you're reading this, my wild Irish rose, don't kill me!)

To encourage the straight single Irishmen to reconsider any plans to hide amid the shamrocks until this thing blows over, allow me to remind you of something, courtesy of Gab's AI generator:

Fake gorgeous lassie, you say? Well, I say that it shows that even artificial intelligence, which cranks out bizarre and nightmarish images by the ton, is obliged to make Irish ladies look like the bombshells they are. 

So this year, boys, run a little slower, hide in slightly more obvious places, and give the gals a chance to make an honest man of you, all right? Your mother will get over it. 

Out for a JOG.

Another trash day, another chance to play JOG, or Judging Others' Garbage. And we have some good ones today! 

Uh-oh! A mirror! Notice that the owner carefully places it out on the curb. He does not want to be cut to bloody ribbons by shattered glass. But he's perfectly fine with letting the garbagemen take the chance. After all, they use one of those rear-loader trucks that periodically require shuffling garbage into the interior, which means there's got to be shattered glass involved at some point. Good luck, trashmen! 

I suppose I could mention that this also will subject the garbagemen to seven years of bad luck for breaking a mirror. Why seven years? Well, according to Barry Markovsky at the University of South Carolina, the Greeks and Romans had various superstitions related to a person's reflection, and when the Romans developed quality glass mirrors, they transferred the bad-luck juju to the breaking of the reflective surface. It should have meant bad luck for life, but the Romans also "believed that the body renewed itself every seven years," so there was a statute of limitations. Which is interesting, because in fact all the atoms in the human body are replaced in seven years (most in the first year), and yet the human consciousness continues seamlessly, which makes it seem like the Romans were onto something. 

Man, Bumble's had it. I've seen him around for years, but he's toast. Him and his empty box of Christmas cheer. And you know why? Because if you look closely, you'll see that Hermy did not remove the teeth of this Bumble. That's right -- because he was not rendered harmless, Yukon Cornelius had to kill this Bumble. Blew his arm right off. It's too sad. I can't go on. 

Quoting from the town's announcement vis-a-vis furniture: "Bulk/Large Item pick-up begins the 1st Thursday in April; it will end the last Friday in December 2023." Yeah, but this is just one little chair, right? They can squeeze that in. Sure, they can. Or at least, after you've polished off that case of Stella you probably would think so. 

So there I go again, Judgey McGarbageface, judging everyone's poor refuse behavior. What are you putting out on YOUR curb? 

Too white to live.

Of all the BS articles I've seen condemning white people and white culture, this has to be in the top ten, maybe the top two: 

Alcoholics Anonymous more likely to benefit White Americans

Written by a typical media ignoramous, the article tells us that 

Alcoholics Anonymous is a key means by which millions of Americans deal with drinking problems.

However, White Americans are much more likely to engage in the trusted "12-step" program than Black of Hispanic drinkers, a new study finds.

Oh, so I guess AA is now "problematic." These non-white boozehounds go into the meetings and hate what they see, I guess? 

Black and Hispanic alcoholics are about 40% less likely to have ever attended an AA meeting, compared to White drinkers, according to analysis of data from the National Alcohol Survey.

Wait -- so they're less likely to even try AA, and that's AA's fault? What else can we blame on AA?

Among adults younger than 30, less than 5% had ever attended AA versus about 12% of those 30 and older. After accounting for other factors, younger adults still attended AA at a third of the rate of older adults.

You see, the well-known fact that the disease of addiction progresses with age has completely stumped the band here. The fact that heavy drinkers don't usually start seeing serious problems until they're over thirty is data that cannot compute. Therefore, Alcoholics Anonymous must be repelling the youngsters. 

"This is concerning, because the disparities suggest that these groups -- Black, Latinx and emerging adults -- are not receiving optimal care," said lead researcher Sarah Zemore, a senior scientist with the Alcohol Research Group in Emeryville, Calif.

"Not receiving optimal care" is a nice touch. Like AA is a government-run outfit that needs Congressional oversight.  And "emerging adults" is an interesting term for people who in any culture would be called "adults." "Latinx," of course, is a term of art used far more by white people than anyone else. But that's irrelevant; the point is that Zemore gets to dump a bucket of fecal matter on the heads of an old established white-American-origin organization to boost her own career. Keep your eye on the prize!

Gaps in AA attendance could not be explained by factors like the severity of a person's alcoholism or whether they'd received specialty treatment. After accounting for those factors, researchers still found that people of color and young adults were less likely to have attended AA.

I completely doubt that they've "accounted for" anything. That's become a handwave in the press for We already thought of that so nyah nyah nyah. But let's allow it for the moment. You're saying that these people were less likely to have even gotten in the door of AA because of their own prejudice. Is AA supposed to drag them in with chains? 

What else can you tell us, o sage?

For example, past studies have found that people of color attending 12-step meetings have reported conflicts with the program's general philosophy, or have felt scrutinized or discriminated against, she noted.

A typical alcoholic, shaky and miserable, everyone at home angry, his or her life falling apart, who walks into a room full of strangers who look like normal, happy people is going to feel "scrutinized" and "discriminated against" by everyone. Everyone in the room feels sorry for the guy and wants to help him, but he sees threats -- and would love an excuse to say This doesn't work and go drink.  

And young adults may be turned off by the religious nature of the meetings. Participants have to acknowledge powerlessness over alcohol and give their lives over to a "higher power."

The fact that the program has wrestled with this from its founding in the 1930s, has a chapter called "We Agnostics" in its main text, insists throughout its traditions that it is not a religious or religion-affiliated organization, and hosts meetings specifically tailored for atheists and agnostics cuts no ice with these people. 

On the other hand, the nihilistic culture of today's youth does indeed make it hard for them to believe anything, even that their own lives are worth saving. That tells us less about AA than about youth culture, which is a stew of envy, self-hatred, political correctness enforced without mercy, empty laughs, environmental panic, and meaninglessness. 

The report doesn't say much about why black or Hispanic people shun AA except to indicate that they won't go and if they do they feel paranoid about it. Have the researchers wondered if there are elements in those cultures that make them resistant to a program that believes in surrender, humility, and selflessness? Maybe those cultures are a little "problematic," hmm?

No, that can't be. Only white cultures can have flaws. 

In the end, this is just another academic hit job, aided and abetted by a compliant media. White people bad, old people bad, American things bad, anything to do with God bad. 

If their little study makes just one person less likely to go to Alcoholics Anonymous and get help, and instead encourages him to slide into the depths of depravity, despair, ruined health, and destroyed family, and into a shameful and grotesque death, then their work is done. Take a bow, creeps.

Reports from the road.

We took a li'l road trip recently, which is why blogging has been even spottier than usual. Just a few days to visit family out of state. It was delightful, but that's not my topic today. Actually, I have two:

1) Dog-gone

We were not staying with family, but rather in a hotel in town, and we were bringing oversize puppy Izzy with us. This by far would be the longest road trip he's ever experienced, and since he's not one of those dog that loves car rides, I was worried about how he'd fare. Would he freak out? Get carsick? Whine to stop every ten miles? And what of the hotel? Sure, they claimed they were pet-friendly, but were they? Would Izzy test the bounds of their hospitality? Bark at random hours? Establish dominance by peeing all over the room? Anything could happen. 

Well, it all went off far better than I had hoped. Izzy was perfect -- the ride out was stressful for him, but he settled down and took it easy. We made one pit stop on the way (for me as much as him) and he was fine. He was beloved by the extended family and only barked exactly one (1) time on the whole trip -- the morning we were leaving, as we were packing, when some kids were running and shouting in the hotel hallway. Then he slept pretty much all the way home.

I'd like to thank Embassy Suites for being as good as their word about pets. They are very clear about the ground rules, which are hardly onerous -- use the rear lot for his trips out, clean up after him, don't bring the dog into the dining area, and so on. These requests came in a bag (with very 70's style art) that was full of dog treats -- a spoonful of sugar and all that, you know. 

2) Fire!

When I got home, loaded with bags and trailed by dog as I walked up the porch steps, I was disquieted to hear the fire alarms going off in the house. No smoke inside; no clouds of particulate matter. These are alarms wired into the ceiling, and there's a dozen all over the house, and when one goes off they all go off -- so no telling where it started. I ran from room to room, pulling them off the ceiling as I went, because it was obvious right away there was no real emergency. The next-to-last one was the culprit, in the ceiling of a storage room. My guess is that some bold spider, hearing the empty house, made his move to take over the joint; he knocked some dust into the detector, fried himself on the wire, and set the alarm off. It could have been peeping for days.

You could hear the sound from a couple of houses away. It must have annoyed the neighbors. Especially the lying sack of lies who lives next door. 

So, that's a plus, anyway. 

On the whole, a great trip, but it's nice to be home. I hope I'll be able to pass along more bloggy goodness this upcoming week. 

Hibachi!

Sometimes I get the feeling that when a Japanese chef has been very, very bad, they send him to America to work off his penance serving hibachi. 

"You will go to the United States and cook the same handful of dishes day in, day out, while making corny jokes and singing bits of old pop songs. You will watch the old people and small children laugh but the teenagers groan as if their soul is being removed with a crowbar. You will have to get a dozen orders to the right people or there will be trouble. Sometimes drunken fools will try to get into the act and you have to prevent them from falling onto the grill. Stunts with fire and knives are mandatory. When you have suffered enough to atone for your sins, you will be permitted to return and begin your career again at the bottom. So be it!"

Or maybe not. Maybe the men (not entirely but almost entirely men) enjoy the atmosphere of cooking with an audience. After all, in many restaurants you make the same dishes over and over, and in many comedy clubs the acts make the same jokes over and over. Why not combine them? Could be fun. 

The hibachi restaurants I've been to usually pack a minimum number of people around each table so that the dinner-and-a-show will have a party feel even if you're combining people from a romantic date, a small birthday party, and some dude who just showed up hungry. You can't cook like that for just one or two people. And I must say I've never had a bad meal from one of those places. But I’ve always wanted to wash everything I'm wearing and take a shower when I get home, because everything smells like the restaurant. 

So here's to you, hibachi chefs, and thanks for making great food in a fun atmosphere. And don't worry about the teenagers. It's not you. They're like that with everybody. 

Ain't I a stinker?

You're never too old to learn, and I learned something I did not know about skunks the other day. Actually, I learned a few things. 

Things I did know: Skunks are rare in the mammal world for their odiferous defense, but not alone; wolverines, for example, also have a smell-secreting defense. (The Marvel hero would have been a lot different if he'd had that superpower.) Skunks are very good at deploying that sulfuric spray, especially the one that shot our dog Fazzy all those years ago, the big galoot. 

Things I did not know: The spray of a skunk is composed of thiols and thioacetates, which bond really well to other atoms, which is why the stink is so pernicious. When you (or you dog) get nailed by a skunk, you stay nailed. 

Not surprising, skunks have few predators. Sure, a bobcat or a wolf might try his luck, but only if he's really hungry. Snakes have too good a sense of smell to get involved; in fact, skunks not only eat snakes, but they are virtually impervious to snake venom. Rattlesnake bite? Pepe shakes it off and eats the damn thing. He don't care. 

Skunk, not caring

I wondered if there was a chemical similarity with the skunk spray to snake venom, causing the immunity, but it does not seem to be the case. I'm sure some biologist could explain it to me.

The great horned owl does not mind getting skunked. He has a poor sense of smell but he thinks skunks taste awesome. A great horned owl can take out a skunk larger than he is and fly off with it. Then shoot back to the wildlife preserve and give his minders something to regret, I guess.

Memo: If you are enrolled at Hogwarts and your owl is a great horned owl, learn a destinkification spell immediately. Odiferamus departicus!

Getting back to the topic of snakes: About 90 miles off the coast of Brazil is Ilha da Queimada Grande, or Snake Island, a tropical paradise but for the thousands of golden lancehead pit vipers. The golden lancehead pit viper is among the most venomous, sneaky, dangerous snakes on earth. No one is allowed to go to the island, but no one wants to, either, except I guess the most foolhardy herpetologists and nature photographers. 

The snakes have been there since the last Ice Age, and that's as well as may be, but do we really need them? Sure, they're critically endangered, because vicious snakes need private islands or they'd be slaughtered. (Cf.: Jeffrey Epstein.) But a small island in a lovely part of the world would make a heck of a resort. 

Of course, you know what we do need. We need Chuck Norris to lead an army of skunks onto Ilha da Queimada Grande and wipe out the vipers. It's the right thing to do and the right time to do it. So Chuck, if you're reading this, give me a call. I happen to know quite a few skunks who might be available for daywork. 

A YALE man?!?

Little known fact: A hundred years ago or so, Adolf Hitler was a student at Yale. 

Nah, just joshin'. Klara Schicklgruber's baby boy never set foot in the United States. This is just clipart from a collection of same from the 1910s through 1920s, when no one had heard of Adolf (and what a blissful state that is in retrospect). Back then so-called normal men might sport that whiskbroom mustache that has been thrown in the same trash heap as the swastika, and good riddance. 

Hitler may never have gone to Yale, but now it seems Yale and our other elite universities have come to Hitler. Yale didn't get in the same hot water as Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did recently for their tolerance of ferocious antisemitism and support of terrorism, but Yale's response was meager, and now the worst offender on the faculty is in line to become the new university president.

And the Ivies wonder why normal Americans hate them?

Of course, if we all just celebrated National Brotherhood Week in our hearts and year-round, none of this would have happened. 

The National Conference of Christians and Jews (now the National Conference for Community and Justice) was founded in 1927 to combat bias in America, and launched the first National Brotherhood Day in the 1930s. It was expanded to a whole week in 1936. Mostly it is remembered now for the parody by Harvard professor Tom Lehrer, as the whole concept of brotherhood had become irrelevant by the 2000s and the event no more. Because obviously we all love one another now. 

No, stop laughing. If they tried to relaunch National Brotherhood Week now, it would be condemned for being sexist and patriarchal. What about sisterhood? What about non-binary personhood? What about foreign nationals? What about non-binary foreign nationals?  

So, hate is humming right along these days. However, it no longer comes mostly from dumb bigots in rural America; it is much more common in the cities and in the ivy-covered halls of academia. 

What will it take to make our educated class stop being so full of hate? I don't know. Maybe the Harvard guys could try to stop hating those Elis for a start. And maybe our university students could try to stop hating their university founders and all of America. Not likely, though -- those kids just LOVE to hate. 

Ash Valentine.

I am informed that the last time Ash Wednesday fell on St. Valentine's Day was 1945. The following July we tested the first A-bomb and the world entered the age of nuclear war. 

COINCIDENCE? 

Talk about ashes to ashes

Well, the sad fact is, we're all going to die, but we hope not all at once. Life has been compared to a stream, a river, a race, but it's just a road. We merge into the lane with a peer group, but almost immediately some are taken off the road. As we continue, our cohort does all right, but the farther down the road we get the faster we lose members of our group. Then, one day, we each are diverted off the road ourselves. We hope to go somewhere better, somewhere where all roads end in joy. But most of us are not in a rush to get there. 

It does feel weird to have the day o' love coincide with the annual reminder by the church that we are going to die. But is it so weird? For goodness' sake, there are enough stories of people dying for love. Really, though, we ought to have more stories of people living for love -- devoting themselves through all the difficulties of life to serve those we love, and of course the God who made us from dust. Well, the universal drama of death always commands the audience's attention.

Enough of this death stuff. May your heart be gladdened on this Valentine's Day, and may you not get lousy candy. If you're gonna break a Lenten pledge right out of the starting gate, at least get some quality candy out of it. Good chocolate is da bomb! 

The StINKers.

Awards season is well under way, and I haven’t even got my awards tree up yet. Nevertheless, the show must go on, and I am proud to use today's forum to announce the:

⭐ 2023 StINKer Awards! ⭐

That's right, friends, these are the Worst Books of 2023, honored by an award I just made up to honor books I just made up. And without further ado, or any kind of doo, here are this year's honorees! Each category can have only one winner -- sorry, losers! You were not the best at being worst.   

StINKer author hard
at work

HISTORY

83 Crucial Farts in History by I.P. Daley

Professor Daley returns to the shelves with another spurious compendium of "facts." Did the Battle of Waterloo turn on a loud buttular report from a French spy hiding in the weeds? Did King George II's flatulence spark the Seven Years' War? Was a legume-heavy meal the real cause of the downfall of the Goths in 553? No, and this is a dreadful book. 

BUSINESS

You Can't Spell Inspirations Without Rations: Starve First and Succeed Later by Clara Mook, former CEO of InterTissue

Mook, inventor of the Web-connected facial tissue and founder and leader of the failed company that manufactured it, brings you a book chock full of moronic business advice-- like: "Accounting is boring! Go out and find ideas!" Well, maybe some accounting would be good.  

WORST NEWCOMER

Bullets in My Shooter by Jake Pudd 

Hard-boiled crime story meets genital obsession. Like being trapped on a plane with a strange guy who can't stop talking about what turns him on. Pudd has a long and very bad career in front of him.  

HOBBIES

Collecting Lint for Fun and Profit by Bonnie Fleeble

Find something better to do. Like anything else.

NEWS COMMENTARY

Trump Sucks: Why Trump Sucks by Medea Prentiss

Summary of all the reasons why reporters hate Donald Trump, compiled by the editor of the San Fandago (Calif.) Fishwrap. 

HEALTH

How Green Was My Sputum: You Are Your Spit by Dr. Merriwether Bronzini

Another example of the fact that the last-in-the-class med school graduate is still called "doctor."

SCIENCE

Global Warming, Climate Chaos, Taco Tuesday, and the Nematode by Manny Michaels

Dr. Michaels strikes again. His worst yet.

MOST INTERSECTIONAL

Mangled Brownberry Stew by Mumgabe Swanson

No white heterosexuals are allowed to read this book, according to Swanson, a one-legged black/Asian nonbinary possibly lesbian of Hmong/Nazca descent with phlebitis, and in fact no human being has actually managed to get through the doorstop (1900 pages). Neverthless, the reviews are outstanding, and every white librarian in America has bought multiple copies.   

TRAVEL

101 Great Abandoned Buildings to Stay In by Hobo Winerack

Bring your DDT.

SPORTS

Hoist: Great Moments in Flag Football by Gruff Hoopendown III

Sportswriter and part-time laundry attendant Hoopendown gives us more information on flag football than we ever hoped to see. So much, in fact, that we begin to suspect he made it all up, including the dedication, "To my Girlfriend Katie, who Totally Lives in Canada." 

🕮🕮🕮🕮🕮

Okay, none of these are real books, but shouldn't they be? No, I don't think so, either. 

Lurrrrve hotel.

I believe I mentioned a February or two ago that I stopped hanging a big red heart on the front door for Valentine's Day. It just made the place look like a love hotel (say it with your best Barry White voice: Lurrrrve hotel). 

But what does that have to do with this guy?

The great motels that once dotted the fruited plains are largely gone, or turned into senior or welfare housing, or still running as No-Tell Motels, the kind you rent by the hour and hope the germs on the sheets don't kill you. I have a feeling, though, that they may be somewhat nicer in the Eastern World, because of the Love Hotel emoji in all its variations.

And they are exactly the same as our little hourly rentals on the cheatin' side of town -- what they call in the business "short stay" rooms. 

So I'd rather not have the house look like one of these emojis. 

But what does that have to do with Mario?

You may know that Nintendo was founded as a playing card company in 1889, manufacturing the beautiful cards called Hanafuda. The company was very successful. But by the 1950s, company president Hiroshi Yamauchi realized that playing cards were a fading business. This would lead to the company's entry into other games, including video games. It also led to some unsuccessful diversification ventures, like instant rice and a TV network. Also: A Love Hotel! 

As Kotaku.com says, "The location and name of Nintendo's hotel seems lost to the pages of time. Like many of Yamauchi's ventures, the hotel was a failure. According to The History of Nintendo, local newspapers noted that it might have an upside for the married Nintendo president: 'The only benefit Yamauchi might have derived from this is that this time he and his partners don't need to pay for the rooms, and that might in the end constitute a substantial saving.' Yamauchi's reign at Nintendo was marked by his repeated desire to, like any good businessman, find new markets. If the love hotel or the copy machine or even the soup with noodles ventures had worked out, Nintendo would have become a very different company."

But getting back to the Love Hotel emoji -- why do we even have a Love Hotel emoji? As far as I know, it's the only emoji that was created with the intent to be salacious. (The eggplant just started life as an eggplant, I will assume.) Married couples almost never go to rent-a-rooms; why pay rent or the mortgage and not use your own place? The Love Hotel is a curiously provocative symbol in a library of symbols that are silly, stupid, or weird. 

Oh, well. Some guys go to all kinds of trouble to get a date. Who am I to judge what they do when they get one? 

"Hang inna there, baby! I gotta rooma reserveda!"

Sharks, sharps, flats.

We played a lot of card games in my house when I was growing up, and if someone were to have a particularly good run my mother might call him a card shark. Interesting to note that was kind of a misnomer, except it wasn't. 

The term card shark is well-known, and was the name of a popular game show, but it doesn't make much sense. While the term shark is used for someone very driven at work (especially lawyers), we don't usually append the term shark to an activity to show someone is good at it. A good cook is not a kitchen shark; a great writer is not a word shark. But a pool shark is someone really good at pool, and for the same reason as the card shark -- it comes from cheating.  

We're gonna need a bigger pot.

In centuries past, sharks were not considered the magnificent beasts that the aquariums tell us they are now, but rather were considered parasites, ones that fed on others, as with loan sharks. So we might think that a card shark is either a mighty beast or a parasite that lives on smaller prey, but that may not be how the term originated. 

The word sharper as a noun likely came to the English language from the German schärfen, for sharpen, a way of calling someone a cheater, at least according to Grammarist. I suspect it may come from cheaters doctoring card decks by trimming or notching particular cards in a subtle way so they could tell what their opponents were holding. Oddly, I haven't seen that possible explanation online, but we know that deck doctoring is why new cards come in sealed boxes -- to avoid such tricks. 

Over time the card sharp, a kind of odd phrase, seems to have accidentally become card shark. But while the card sharp may be a cheat, a card shark is more often someone who's just really good at card games. (Different dictionaries, however, will define the terms differently.) It has been my experience in the real world that calling someone a card sharp is an accusation of cheating, but calling him a card shark is not. Whether the player is a card sharp or shark, though, he's not someone you want to go up against. Or at least, you'd best be a master at either method of play to go against him. 

Personally, that's why gambling has been the one vice that's had limited attraction for me -- there is no limit to the amount you can lose, and in a short time. What fun is that? I work too hard for my dough.

Kaboom!

Sorry I have not been around. When I say everything blew up at once workwise, I'm not kidding. While overcommitting to other things, I agreed to a rush job for extra pay that turned out to have some hidden issues. I felt like a cartoon antagonist (say, Wile E. Coyote) whose tunnel got diverted to a fireworks warehouse by the hero (one Bugs Bunny, perhaps); rising from the tunnel in the darkness, I struck a match, then realized I was surrounded by gunpowder-laden rockets, their fuses lolling my way; shocked, I dropped the match, but before it went out, it caught a fuse and -- 

You've seen that cartoon before. 

As a coworker once told me on a particularly annoying afternoon, "If it was fun they'd call it play." 

Well, nothing for it but to shove everything aside that was shoveable and get the thing done. Which I did, yesterday, and was ready for a nap afterward, at which time of course I got a phone call from someone who almost never calls me. I will leave my phone on in case my wife needs me, thinketh I, because the only other person who might call is Claymore, and he never calls at this time because he's at work, and of course Claymore had taken the day off. 

Nice to be popular, but please, my public, let a guy rest! 

Meanwhile, here's a couple of other thoughts that have popped up for you:

ROOSTERS 

Chicken and eggs are good to eat, but sadly, roosters are part of the deal. When we moved from the city to the exurbs, there was someone in the area who kept a few, and I'd hear the idiot chicken known as the rooster scream from time to time. They don't just crow at dawn, as in the movies; they keep it up all the livelong day. 

As the town demographics have changed, it seems that keeping chickens is now more of a thing to do. These seem to be more hyperactive, possible meth-addicted roosters, who don't wait for sunup at 7 but start around 5:30. When one goes off to the east, another, miles away in the west, says to himself, "I'm not going to stand for that!" and blurts out his cheery tune. None of them have the nice, clear "cock-a-doodle-doo!" cry, but rather sound like kazoo-based kaiju being strangled. They used to say that children should be seen and not heard, but I think that better applies to chickens. 

WINTER

A haiku for you:

Chapped lips, chapped hands, feet

Where can I go to buy a

Full-body ChapStick?

See you tomorrow, unless more stuff blows up, or I get arrested for first-degree rooster assault. 

All I want is a room somewhere.

Isn't this a nice office? Of course it's fake, an AI-generated artwork, but nice for all that. It doesn't have a lot of those bizarre AI details, like a D&D monster crawling out of a potted plant. Although a potted plant seems to be holding the curtain open. I can't quite figure how the window works, and if it's in a city building, it probably doesn't work at all. Plus, it's time to complain to the landlord. The floorboards are coming up. 

On the whole, though, it is a lot less messy than my actual home office, the box of files in the middle of the floor notwithstanding. It doesn't have a skid of toilet paper and another of paper towels from the warehouse store. There's no exercise bike sitting idle in a corner. It has no cabinet full of dog snacks and dog-care items. While it does have two computers, it does not have two printers (one of which is only hanging on until its toner is used up). There are some stacks of paper, but nothing like my desk, where notes and pens vie for space with books, hand lotion, wires, and small tools. And there is no complete dining room set, disassembled, as in my office (for reasons too complicated to get into here).

Alas! My mother was right. For years she threatened to get a big saw and cut my bedroom off the house. She foresaw an Oscar Madison-like existence for me, buried under piles of junk. For a time after I left home that was not the case, because I didn't have that much stuff. Then I met my wife, and we got married, and we lived in an apartment, so there was little space to pile up the junk. When we got our house, I was determined to keep things orderly and not bring shame unto my family. 

That lasted a while. But things start to pile up. When I started working from home, the real disaster struck. I was too busy to neaten up as I would at a real office, because as a freelancer, any work that wasn't paying work was a waste of time. So my office became the dumping ground for things that fit nowhere else. And here I am. 

If you hear a rumor of a writer being buried by his own stuff, don't jump to the conclusion that it is me -- book people tend to be packrats as a class. But it could be me. And if I were to go under a pile of books, then I shall have died as I lived, crushed by an endless avalanche of words.