Fired up...

I had a job interview across the country in March. The interviewers offered to reimburse me for my transportation and lodging (as is the norm in my line of work). They didn't offer me the job, and I still have not been reimbursed. And when I talked to the person responsible today, I realized that I am not capable of speaking to her with the angry tone of voice that she deserves. But I did make myself not say "thank you" at the end of the conversation. Take that!

conversations overheard on my block

A shirtless smoking man, hairy and muscled, talking to his dog: "Brother! Upstairs! Now! Lay down, or I will LAY you down!"

A large woman to her small baby: "Why you crying? I just changed your ass. You clean."

a happy marriage

In the August 20, 2007 issue of the New Yorker, Adam Gopnik in "Blows Against the Empire" surveys the life, times, critical reception, and fiction of Philip K. Dick. I could not have imagined a better match between writer and subject: Dick couldn't write but was a font of interesting ideas, while Gopnik writes like an angel but has nothing interesting to say. In an ideal world Gopnik would have been Dick's editor.