My favorite annual writing contest, the Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest, has announced this year's winners. While the winner is, in fact, kind of humorous, the runner-up's entry had me on the floor.

The 2006 runner-up, Stuart Vasepuru from Scotland, played with one of the most famous pieces of dialogue from the Clint Eastwood movie "Dirty Harry."

"I know what you're thinking, punk," hissed Wordy Harry to his new editor, "you're thinking, 'Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only five?' -- and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel loquacious?' -- well do you, punk?"

Oh, come on. You know you want to laugh and you know that you're jealous that you didn't write that first.

At least I am.

Yeah.

Syd Barrett, R.I.P.

Sigh.

So I get an e-mail yesterday from another stenodrone telling me that her micromanaging boss has given her such and such information for me. She ends by saying that the info comes "straight from the horse's mouth."

I reply that she obviously deals with the other end of the horse than I do.

(bada boom)

One of my very favorite sci-fi titles ever was "What Entropy Means to Me".

The bottom line on the estate issue is that the old childhood home, to which I planned on retiring and living out my dottage, will be sold. The insurance company has forced our hand by refusing to insure an empty home, and I can't buy it now.

Many years ago, my professional portfolio was stolen out of the trunk of my car*. It was simultaneously the most frightening and the most liberating thing that ever happened to me, career-wise. This is sort of the same.

I don't want to give up the house, but the RLA and I will be able to retire wherever we wish, and if our wish turns out to be my home town, then we can find our own dream house, and not my parents'.

Still, this is the third or fourth family home that we've had to close, and had to say goodbye to, when we really would rather have lived in it.

If there is one thing of which I am sure beyond all doubts, it is that the universe will unfold as the universe will unfold and no amount of wishing, dreaming or planning can change the course of time.

So. What can I do instead of trying to change the universe? I can appreciate the universe as it reveals itself to me.
I was so enamoured of this guy's hoodie that I actually asked him permisssion to photograph it. I usually just take pictures, figuring if someone is out in public looking like that, or doing that, then it should be no skin off their nose(s) if I take a picture.



Those shiny studs? It took me a minute to figure out what they were: the metal guards from the tops of bic cigarette lighters. Removed. Attached. Voila. Art.

How cool is this?



* from the trunk of my car as it sat in the parking lot at Tobacco Road. Figures.

Well. after eleven whole days of indolence, today I go back to work.

I have a list as long as my arm of things I need to do that isn't even remotely related to my day job, and I can only imagine what a pile of paper I'll have waiting for me on that desk.

But like Nixon, I'm tanned, rested and ready. And that, dear readers, is the ONLY way in which I am like unto Richard Milhouse Nixon.

The year is half over? Or there is still another half of a year to go through.

Anyway, it wouldn't be the Fourth of July here at the Casita de Zapatas if we didn't crank up the old hi-fi and blast Springsteen's "Sandy" through the entire battery of speakers.

Today is the last day of my vacation. I was able to smooth the old brain wrinkles out to a marble for a while, but tomorrow I go back to the real world, which includes a major issue with the 'rent's estate.

Biggus Dickus (he has a wife, you know) and I are co-executors of said estate, and can do nothing independent of each other regarding same. This works out in real life to Biggus Dickus (he has a wife, you know) turfing everything to me to figure out.

The current issue came to light while I was on vacation. When I got home, there was a message on the answering machine from someone who said that they had discussed this with Biggus Dickus (he has a wife, you know) and that he told them that they had to speak to me about the issue. I now have less than 30 days to find a solution to this mess and Biggus Dickus (he has a wife, you know) still hasn't had the courtesy to give me a heads up.

But then, if he understood the situation, he wouldn't have turfed it to me. And I have an underlying and uneasy suspicion that it was his incompetence that brought this newest crisis to bear.

Have I ever mentioned that he's the older child? By six years and ten months, which has always been shorthanded in the family to seven years. His wife, Incontinentia Buttocks, very pertly corrected me about this matter the last time anyone mentioned it. "SIX YEARS older, really. He was born in '48 and you in '54."

Whatever. He's still the big brother (no holding company) but you'd never know it by the way things are around here.

Fuck it. I'm off to listen to Bruce, and tomorrow?

Well, tomorrow is another day, and I'll think about everything then.