I'd fully intended for cat.net to stay silent until my return. Life rarely works out the way I planned it, though.

Barbie Dolls Inc. announces the release of models of limited edition Barbie dolls for the Central Arkansas area:

Heights Barbie

This trendy homemaker Barbie is available with your choice of Lexus SUV or Ford Wind star minivan. She gets lost easily west of Reservoir Road and has no full time occupation. Traffic jamming cell phone sold separately. Available with or without tummy tuck and face-lift. Workaholic Ken sold only in conjunction with "augmented" version. Optional matching tennis outfit.

I'd love to tell you where it began, but the truth is that I don't remember. Instead, I have to choose a beginning point, arbitrary though it is, and begin from there.

The speed limit on the Cutoff was 40, but anyone with half a brain knew that the cops never policed that section of road, because there was no place for them to park, and even if there was, Bauxite didn't have cops anyway. The descent to the paved-over area where the railroad track used to be was one such that if you hit it at just the right speed, your car wouldn't go airborne, but you would.

In the days that I first knew Matthew, back in the disillusioned haze of high school, he was good friends with Markus, who lived nearby. I would occasionally stay with Matthew's parents, who were by far the most intelligently daunting twosome I'd ever encountered up until that point in my life. Both of Matthew's parents worked at the nearby university; his father as a professor and his mother in some forever-undefined-to-me role in the foreign studies department. Markus, one of Matthew's closer friends, lived nearby. I had met him, but had never been introduced to his ...

"My friends tend to self-select. A lot of weak people with weak personalities don't become my friends."
- Matthew

(I should note that this entry is being written under the influence of a good deal of caffeine. I'm doing well to make my sentences more than one word long at the moment. Forgive incoherency. I'm currently chemically incapable of doing any significant proofreading. It's pretty pathetic, really.)

For Monica, who was, once upon a time, a high school friend; later, the only college roommate I ever liked; and now - a mother.

Aidan Scott Revor, born Tuesday, July 29. Eight pounds, two ounces. She's home, but he's still hanging out in the NICU until he gets some blood-sugar issues stabilized.