Someone out there, and you know who you are, has linked to my site from the Data Lounge. Whether you linked to a shoe photo or to something I wrote, I cannot tell from backtracking my logs.

I know that the link came out of the Gossip forum, but sweeties, I am just stumped as to what it was that ya'll found amusing. Well, of course, everything, I'm sure. But.

Was it my lame list of things about myself where I tell about the time my girlfriend and I were mistaken for drag queens at White Party? Granted it was dark, and the gentleman who asked was old, but we still think that women being mistaken for drag queens is a fantastic compliment. I mean, how fabulous DID we look?

Was it my photo essay from Dining by Design?

Please, just tell me.

I just checked the Dylan site and saw the set lists from the other side of the country (without the Dead, thankyewverymuch) and just about died. He's hauled out some old stuff that he hasn't performed in years. Like, Desolation Row. Like, Visions of Johanna. I suppose it's just too much to hope for that he'd play either of those again in such a short span of time, but hope I will.

I also see that he's being billed as the opening act for the Dead. Oh, puh-leeze. Bob? Opening for ANYBODY?

Of course, there's this little teaser, which I'm sure is just to keep people like me in our seats, once The Bob leaves the stage: Bob will be sitting in with the Dead on part of their set.

And big deal. I'm there for the Bob, and nothing else. Christ, do I sound crabby today or what...

Going to see The Bob tomorrow night, even though he's on a bill with the (remaining) Grateful Dead. I've never been a huge Dead fan, and early on decided that I really dislike Deadheads. In fact, it was the prospect of being in a room full of them (albeit a very, very, large room) that had me hemming and hawing about actually going to the show.

Then I realized how old that made me feel and sound, and immediately got on line and bought the tickets.

It was my experience in college that Deadheads always had the very best audio equipment, but all they ever played was the Dead. They universally wore plaid flannel shirts, hiking boots and too much patchouli. Men or women, it made no difference. They tended to be pasty, ill-looking vegetarians, too. I have never had reason to update this opinion of Deadheads, either.

And, worst of all faults, aside from the tragic fashion sense, was their obsession with all things Dead.

As someone with a healthy obsession for all things Bob, one could easily assume that their obsession would only endear them to me. It did not. It does not. There is a fine line between obsessed and crazy, and for me, Deadheads tend to fall to the other side of that line.

Case in point: a vacation many years ago to the island of Nantucket. The host was an old-money preppie. He had two suitcases. One contained his Izod shirts and khaki shorts, and the other contained nothing but Dead bootlegs. This was all he brought for a long weekend house party. Nothing but Dead bootlegs, and he wanted us all to listen to the various drum solos from a pair of shows in Dusselburg, to compare and contrast the 15 minute solo on each tape. I thought I'd have to push pencils through my eardrums to escape.

I, yes even I, will pack something other than Bob or Bruce for an extended weekend with guests who might not share my obsession. And that's the difference between obsessed and crazy.

I wrote the following as a comment on The Tart Speaks' site. But maybe it bears repeating. Sheila was talking about the beach and in passing said something like if you don't get the beach, skip this part.

Well boy howdee, I get the beach. I spent major chunks of my life, sitting on it staring out into the distance wishing I were elsewhere. I spent other major chunks listening to Jimmy Buffett, an artist who definitely gets the beach.

I understand the beach. I grew up on the coast. When you face the ocean the world you know is behind you and the rest of the world (that is to say, infinite possibility) lies before you. I would stare at the Atlantic and think about what was across the water. I imagined Paris, but it was really the Ivory Coast. Does it matter? Periodically flotsam would wash up to toy with me. A champagne cork overgrown with barnacles. A glass globe from a fishing net. A wine bottle from Portugal. A piece of lava from some unknown and unseen underwater volcano. Fragile purple mollusks that only appeared after a hurricane, brought from some great depth or distance.

And you, gentle reader, do you understand what draws us to the shore?

Our correspondent in New York fills us in on la Reina's funeral. Complete with photos. It is a much better story than the one that ran in the Miami Herald. Check it out. But then, Ms. Jodi is one of my favorite bloggers.

So there I am, Friday afternoon. I'm leaving the office and I think I look pretty sharp: wearing a silk dress, matte gold sandals and carrying my briefcase. I walk up to the turnstile at the train station and I see that one of the three 'stiles is wrapped in yellow and black police tape. It is clearly out of order. But the spider web of yellow tape is interesting to me, so I slip my pass into the slot, enter the station through another turnstile and then turn my trusty Nikon to the yellow web.

HOLD IT! You can't take pictures here. Put the camera away.

You gotta be kidding me. I look up to see the elite Wackenhut guard looking at me. He repeats his orders. There is no photography allowed on the trains, the Metromovers, the platforms or the stations.

I ask since when? And he gives me a look of pity, as though I am the simplest of the simple and smirks, "Since (and then there is a long pause, as he cannot recall the exact date of what he is about to cite) since 2001, when they had the September Nine One One terrorism."

And taking a photo of a broken turnstile is a security risk? I'M a security risk? Is this a new law, part of the Patriot Act? I ask him.

And he says, that no, it isn't a LAW, it's a POLICY.

Well, fair enough, I say. Where is it posted? Or printed? Or publicly noticed?

And that's when he threatened to call the Metro Dade Police to "explain it" to me better.

Gentle readers, you know me. A challenge like that? To call in the police to do what, arrest me? For violating a policy? I checked my watch. Too late, the husband is already on his way to pick me up from the station and I really don't want to get into it with him: No, honey, don't pick me up at the train, come and spring me from the slammer, I was taking photos of broken turnstiles and it turned into a dangerous breach of national security.

So I let the snaggle toothed Good Ole Boy win that round. But I'm still steamed.