We've gotta work on this truth-in-advertising thing. Sure, who hasn't heard that chocolate is bad for you? Rots your teeth, fattens your ass, puts the thunder in your thighs? Sure, we've got it. We ignore it every time we buy a candy bar.

However, in all those PSAs, parental lectures, and root canals, has anyone ever said to you "Stay away from that nasty chocolate or you'll get a one-inch gash on your left thumb?" Don't think so.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am the only person I know who has shed blood over a Sunday morning chocolate craving.I have also, however, managed to prove yet again that the severity of my injuries can be determined by the amount and hue of my swearing just after the injury is sustained. Torrents of colorful and inventive invective can mean only one thing: paper cut.

For some reason, the breaking of bones or the flagrant spouting of blood makes me completely forget how to swear.

Since I have received my official notification from the Federal Office of the Executive Cluebat (motto: "We can beat sense into anyone") that the actual beginning of this war means that the purpose of most anti-war statements - "don't go to war!" - has been rendered null and void, it seems that we must find something else to talk about.

Failing that, this is what you get.

Death does not take reservations; it comes and goes of its own free will, leaving the living to tend to the resulting disruption.

I am still tending.

So it's been one year. I can look at my watch and remember where I was. A year ago by the tickings of this watch, I was at Colter's. I showered. I had been instructed to get some rest. While I slept on Colter's bed, Jeff worked on Colter's computer.

The future hung over us, shadowy and low. We knew my father's death was imminent; the oxygen saturation of his blood had begun to drop the day before. Previously, his mask had provided him with eighty percent oxygen. We knew that moving him to 100% oxygen would not save him - nothing would - but if it kept him comfortable, that is what we would do.

But - no. That is not the way to remember.

Atlanta. Three-point-five hours of driving to get to the geek farm, where newborn goats were cuddled and cooed over, and dragon*con staff meeting was attended.

It rained. Of course.
I managed to get lost in Atlanta. Of course.

My friend Heather took her camera to Saturday's massive antiwar demonstration in Washington, D.C. Her site, gravitylens.org, contains 124 (so far) of the photos she shot that day, as part of a growing series entitled "This Is Democracy."

This is good stuff. Whether or not you agree with the politics being shown, you need to see these photos for yourself.

When we pulled up at the restaurant to meet the crew for Sean's dinner, everyone who was already there ran toward my car. "PLEASE tell us you brought your camera. We all forgot ours. You've GOT to see this Saturn."

"Uh-oh," I said. "Where's the car?" They pointed me off to the left. Before I even saw the car, I saw the glow.Glow is a bad sign. It's the ricer equivalent of a cancer symptom. The appearance of a glow indicates severe ricer issues - ones that, as we well know, can only be dealt with by liberal usage of a digital camera.

Flickr