Dibs. I can wait.

On the 7 train from GC to Queensboro Plaza today, a blind violinist was working the cars. He looked a little like and sounded like (voicewise) the blind accordion player who's a regular on the N line. Sure enough, on the N train I took from Queensboro Plaza, the accordion player was there.

A little too much adulation at the farmer's market today, then meeting/socializing with a group of people with cultural/social orientation so alien from my own..and my husband's uncharacteristic inability to fathom my neuroses. I'm left feeling like I'm orbiting the planet in my own private satellite.

Hope you don't mind a little added adulation...the past two mornings have been made wonderful by the strawberry conserve and rhubarb jam . Next up-shredded lime.

In my 20 or so adult years (ahem) I have heard tell of this phenomenon but never experienced it: the curse of the nasty toes. Then, without warning, they struck. I step into the elevator and there they are, attached to an otherwise benign looking gentleman with the unfortunate sartorial grace to wear flip flops on his lower extremities. Holy living hell, Batman, thems some ugly toes! Gnarled and yellowing nails, curlicues of raging dark hair, a fist-sandwich arrangement seemingly with no order to the placement of the digits.

I'm certain I'm not doing them justice, and my sadness is only amplified with the knowledge that NeroW should be writing this.

I once dated a guy who was instantly disqualified when he exposed his naked feet. Fucking hell, man.

The worst is when you see toes like that peeking at you from the back of your armrest on an airplane...put those things down and back in the shoes where they belong!

A pierced, spike-haired, spike-collared, mascara-ed, black-clad fellow standing on 2nd Avenue at about 22nd St., holding a small cardboard sign that read: "Bad Advice - $1."

And was it ?

That's really funny! I'd give someone a dollar just to hear what he has to say.

I didn't have a dollar.

Now that's surreal.

My sister received a wedding invitation in the mail -- addressed to her -- and she has no idea who the people are.

they probably want her to buy a condo in nevada.

Sign at the bread stall at the 47th Street Greenmarket this morning, indicating a kind of bread:

"Tuscan Pompeii"

I didn't ask.

Do they participate in online forums?

A (male) coworker just swanned by sporting camouflage shorts. If the dress code here gets any more lax, folks will be wearing their p.j.'s to work.

I wear my jammies to work. Thank goodness I'm self-employed.

Had he kept tongue firmly in cheek, I suppose he'd still be Justice Minister.

Here is the corrolary: I sent my neice a place setting of her Christofle silver pattern. No answer. Nothing. After six months, I called her mother and found that it was never received. I called Gump's, a very reputable gift store in SF and asked them to trace it. They had sent it to some other registered bride with a somewhat similar name, and expressed chagrin at having to ask for it back! I told them to just credit my account and decide how to handle the rest of it on their own time.

BUT, wouldn't you think that someone who received an expensive gift from someone they didn't know would at least contact the store to get the buyer's address for a thank you?

I must have Peter O'Toole on the brain because I read that the coworker "swanned," as in "performed a swashbuckling maneuver ala the great Alan Swann".

Rookie! A glass of seltz-ah!

Man walking down Telegraph with a large pet rat on his shoulder. My skin is still crawling.

Driving home just now, I passed a field where own of my townsfolk grazes several cows and a bull. The bull had mounted the front end of one of the cows and was humping her head. Dude.

He's just very progressive, for a bull I mean.

Stand back!

I dunno. When I hear about a guy humping some chick's face, I automatically think “regressive.” But I'm funny that way.

last night i got back from iceland, overtired from the long day, and was walking home from the subway with my bags. a block away from my apartment there is an unusually large group of people standing on the street. and a con-ed truck with its lights flashing. uh oh. no, the laundromat in this building is still running, so what is it? i get closer and i look down. there is a body on the ground, completely wrapped in an old blanket, it looks like; small, it couldn't have been an adult. there is a police car coming, driving slowly. a con-ed truck? what's that about -- was someone electrocuted? and the old blanket, what's up with that? i crossed the street away and went around it, and went home to a quick dinner and bed.

this morning i walked by, barely remembering this. against a tree there was a picture of a dog on which someone had laid flowers.

One of my students is a female high school sophomore whose favorite movie is A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Kids grow up fast these days.

Is that how they make head cheese?

Finding myself beneath a shower of military parachutists descending on a hill-top in Santiago, adjacent to the Monument des Heros, in celebration of a public holiday. Boy do they come down fast. The surreal element entered when one of them reversed direction at the last moment and slammed into a chimichurri van. Not funny for him, but the juxtaposition of military solemnity with farcical catastrophe was sidesplittingly funny. A bit like colliding with Ronald McDonald.

but had he been drinking his own beer?

If you saw that 80s Val Kilmer movie (Top Secret) you will know the costume I mean, but there were two people, curbside, at the departures level at JFK airport yesterday dressed as a cow. I am not sure if it was some sort of protest, political statement or what, and I was too tired to ask as I got into a car and left.

sign on PLUMS at a local fruit stand said instead "PRUMES".

sign on window of fish monger advertised "PORGES" rather than PORGIES. PORGES is my mother's maiden name.

Cool! Now I can access your online banking!

this makes perfect sense - tonight my WF cashier had a hard time while searching for my PRUNE PLUMS in her produce book.

nope -- i don't use that question.
(everyone in my family knows the answer)

I have just received the following query via an MRI list server.



I'd like to believe that the Japanese sender is too trusting of translation software but I think 'extraceller' (= 'extracellular', I assume) can only be human generated.

In the matter of automatic of translation word missing maybe was

the phone rings. i pick it up. an excited woman shrieks, "i'm korean! i'm korean!"

it is, of course, mrs. jones' aunt, 95% of whose conversations with me consist of her telling me that she is korean and doesn't know much english.

What do you yell back?

i felt like shouting back, "no, you're crazy! you're crazy!" but instead i just gave the phone to mrs. jones.

So what does she say to mrs. jones?

well, the two of them chatter away happily in korean.

Probably talking about how crazy you are.

hair salon near world tong seafood restaurant in brooklyn advertises



not to mention the barber shop that welcomes computers



and there's always fresh bagels across the street. (i did not tilt the color balance on this one)



if you need a rest when you are done you can always

I'm 95% certain that the woman in the row ahead of me on the bus achieved, um, herself, right before we entered the Lincoln Tunnel.

Well, bus rides can be so boring.

well, you know 95% of women's "achievements" are independent of tunnel entry.