Notes:

* I can't get out as much these days, and when I do I feel like I'm doing the same old shit. Wish I had some sort of teleportation device, because I could use a change of scenery for the afternoon. San Francisco would be nice.

* One of the chief lessons I learned in hapkido was a sense of place in my surroundings. Most people really don't have this, which is beautifully illustrated the first night they take a class—right and left become alien concepts, and falling on your ass is as easy as, well, falling on your ass. I suspect most folks walk around like floating eyes, forgetting they have arms, legs, and torsos, and end up colliding with objects and each other more often than they should. Really, it's pathetic to see people so out of touch with their own bodies. Grown men and women look like toddlers to me. No grace. No rhyme or reason to their personal transportation. Perambulation is a series of lunges, bumbles, and screeching halts.

* My latest hate is for douchebags in suits. The 6'2 tie-wearing bastards who stomp through crowds with the idea that we 5'X untermenschens should all step aside. The nosepickers and crotch-scratchers who stretch out across the subway seats. The scum who push past pregnant women and old folks because they know Darwin had them in mind when he thought of survival of the fittest. The breath of life is wasted on these stumbling human sandbags.

* My dad is having back surgery tomorrow. He'll be fine, but it still sucks. We're sending him flowers, which makes me wonder if anyone has ever given him flowers before. He's an old-school gent. Knowing him, he'd appreciate la difference, secure as he is in his masculinity. I picked up an original Swamp Thing collection (digest format) too, so he'll have something to peruse while recuperating. Think good thoughts for him, please.

* My calmness about impending fatherhood is startling to me. I honestly can't think of a reason to be panicky. Of course, that's how I am in general. I've learned, as I've explained to Mike, that it is better to be concerned than to be worried. Worry is unproductive fretting about what might happen. Concern encourages creative preparation for what will happen. I used to worry all the time. Then I gave it up. Like smoking, no matter how much you try to convince yourself otherwise, worrying is an dangerous exercise in purposelessness. Am intimidated? Hell yeah. Am I aware of the challenge? Hell yeah. Am I freaking out? Hell no. As I told Mike, "Eskimos and Bedouins have babies. I think I can keep one alive in Chicago."

* That said, I'm maintaining libraries of information on child-raising and child-pleasing. The child-pleasing binder currently holds several pages worth of info on Western-style paper folding. Cootie catchers, pop guns, paper airplanes, and the nigh-forgotten pressman's cap. Can anyone think of similar projects, or were you all poisoned by TV and Chinese plastic shit?

Lisa is wondering why I haven't been posting more often. Me too.

Actually, it feels like things are winding down on LJ. Has Time magazine declared blogging over? Because I always do whatever Time tells me to do.

Ask me a question. I'm bored.

Give me three subjects that you'd like to see me write about.

The subjects I've chosen so far...

Books from your childhood that you believe seriously influenced you as a writer and/or influenced your general outlook on life.

Suburban sprawl

Fucking in the streets

Robotic monkeys