After nearly eight years of living here, it's rare now that I feel like a fish out of water, but there's one store left in this town that makes me self-conscious every time I enter it.

I heard that. You, you, and especially you, you dirty-minded little thing—I'll see you after class. Not everything in my life is about that.

Despite everything that's said on television and in those alluring ethnic cookbooks with their come-hither-and-eat-me covers, I've been wondering if I'm the only gaijin hitting up the pan-Oriental markets this side of the Mason-Dixon line. If the stunned and frankly nosy looks of the shopkeepers are any indication, my hair and eye color are either setting off warning bells or I've suddenly started looking like a shoplifter.

It was one of Those Mornings™, the kind that you know are going to find you on one of those days when you aren't looking; the kind that, once fate decrees is yours, is inescapable.I left fifteen minutes earlier than I believed I needed to, but as I crossed the city to reach our compact little downtown, I realized it wasn't going to be enough. Worry caused me to push the accelerator a fraction of an inch closer to the floor before I realized something so odd and so silly that it made me laugh out loud:

What were they going to do to punish me for being late, put me on a jury?

As I made my way through downtown, carefully following the directions to reach the fabled Free Juror Parking, I called the courthouse and apologized. "I'm stuck in traffic," I said, "but I didn't want you to think that I was skipping out on jury duty."

The voice on the other end of the phone chuckled and told me to drive safely.

Feed on Feeds just dished up Chris Petrilli's link to "The Elements of Drama." [worksafe]

This chart can only be described as disturbingly detailed:

Well, according to my computer's clock, we just wrapped up the year 28. That was … eventful.

What's 29 got in store? Anyone got any ideas?

Well, I do: I just took my meds, and they're about to make me tump over, so my first Official Prognostication for my birthday is that I will now sleep. Deeply. Until six a.m., when my evil little Tenzing (who, by the way, the vet says is 14 pounds now) will wake me up because he's huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuungry.

Then he'll eat two bites and go back to sleep.

Obnoxious little twit.

"I always get kinda thinky on this day. Don't mind me; it'll pass. It was just a day picked by my mother's obstetrician, but somewhere along the way, along the years, it became 'my' day.
Birthdays: the one day a year our maudlin reflections are truly excused. Luckily, I'm keeping it short & sweet this year.

There are few things in life funnier than engrish.com, but I've been reading a site for a while now that may just qualify: Hanzi Smatter 一知半解

I quote: "Dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters (Hanzi or Kanji) in Western culture."

Today's phrase is "limitless source of comedy gold."

Let's see if we can't knock out the two most important topics at once here. No point in beating around the bush, really:

1) I am, at last, on vacation.
2) I'm not pregnant.

I am scheduled to catch a flight out of Atlanta tomorrow … uh, okay, in about fifteen hours. (Perhaps I should go sleep.) I'm winging out West for close to a week of enforced peace, quiet, cooking, and shopping. I'll have my cell phone on me, but I'll likely not be allowed near any of the computers in the house where I'm staying.

You want me to get back to #2, don't you?

Hush. I'll get there.