Cumulus clouds of tobacco smoke fight the still air and jostle each other for a place at the bar. I shake my head at the offering of a hand-rolled cigarette and return my attention to my drink. As I watch, the sickly amber liquid melts away the ice cubes and the promises I made to myself. It gets in the cracks, the weak spots, and splits them wide. Wait but a moment and the angry shards, the last of the resistance, will vanish too. Peace and acceptance pool warmly in my stomach and will remain as long as I dare not look too closely again.

* * *

Keratin, curiousity, and laziness have conspired together to leave me with a bit of hair on my head. Only a bit, but much longer than it has been for several years. My not-quite-flowing locks have revealed another curiousity: grey hair. Only one at first, on my left temple. I entertained a brief hope that I could develop a Reed Richards-style do but that was dashed as I discovered a couple more on the top of my head. I'm not surprised; my mother went grey very early and my scalp has been exposed to the DNA-rending teeth of the sun for many years. I'm still curious so I'll let it grow for now. But I'll be damned before I pay anyone for a haircut.

I don't think I even remember how to comb my hair. Maybe I never knew.

Livescience tells of an article about job satisfaction. Hanging about the top of the list: authors. Seventy-four percent surveyed said they are very satisfied with their job. It's possible, but I rather think many of them were lying. Or not being completely honest. Certainly it is very satisfying to complete a work, but I imagine it's much like sex: All's well that ends well but everything before that point can be a nerve-wracking, surprisingly isolating, messy business during which it's very difficult to judge precisely how much eye-contact is appropriate.

But it must be worth all the trouble if so many people go through it, right?

The Food and Drug Administration has been getting a lot of flak lately for their seeming "incompetence." Sure, a little E. coli got into our spinach, of course cat and dog food has a few deadly chemicals in it, why shouldn't high fructose corn syrup be the foundation of an American diet?

But the liberal teh elites that run the media never take time to acknowledge all the good the FDA is doing. For instance:



My sister and I took the twins to the grocery store yesterday and behold: the FDA has finally decreed that Spam must have its age printed clearly on front of the can. Ender is naysaying my suggestion to purchase the vintage Spam and suggests that he'd rather gnaw off his own hand. His opinion is a bit biased, however; I've been raising him as Druish and he believes that spigs are unclean animals. He is pretty devout for his age; when he eats he won't even use a spork.

Joshua (in the back-background) I've been raising to worship Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent. In his case I yielded to my weakness for the cuddly deities.