Sixteen stories below my office window is the elevated rail system known as MetroRail. There is a station there. There is a train in the station. Below the train is a body. Whether she jumped or was, as speculated by the guards, "sucked under" the train is anybody's guess.

Train service has been halted. The news helicopters circled for half an hour or so, making a racket and hoping for a glimpse of body, of blood, for the early news.

The train doors are open. The guards and police and EMTs are wandering up and down the platform. The fire rescue vehicle is long gone. The rubber neckers are not.

Because my window overlooks this scene, the guys from the offices across the hall have been coming in all afternoon, offering opinions, watching for any movement or body bags.

Vultures against the glass, alas.

I woke this morning to a general feeling of unease. Malaise. Free floating anxiety. I'm waiting for my phone to ring with bad news.

I don't know why this is, but I've been off balance since last weekend when I went to visit the 'rents. My father is disappearing, but my mother has already left the building.

She denied ever being "that woman's mother." That woman being me.

She knows that my father is "the man who takes care of [her]" but not what his relationship is.

She is blind in one eye and can't see out of the other.

She barely remembers how to eat, or walk. She can't follow a simple order, like "pick up your foot."

I have to go back this weekend. Do I know how to show myself a good time, or what.

BlogMadness

I won the first round, and the excellent SeaDoc is in the runoffs. I begged shamelessly and repeatedly for votes in the first round, and although, to judge by the other division scores, I wasn't the worst offender, the judges made bad tsking sounds over that. I feel guilty, and I don't even know if the rant was directed at me. But, well, it's a cultural thing. Guilt? I got it.

Nevertheless, I will note that I'm in an elimination round, and would deeply appreciate any and all votes I might get that would allow me to keep playing. Again, I'm #18, the entry is Back Home, and I'm up against an Open Letter To Atari.

Thank you. And if you can't feel it in your heart to vote for me, would you just sign the guest map?

Sounds like a Monty Python skit, a little bit, doesn't it? Sort of a cross between the Spam skit and the Gammy Leg/Eat Me First skit.

But it isn't. I was used to seeing Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen's names in my in-box because I'm subscribed to Sony's music service, and whenever there's another "essential" release, they let me know. I hate to break this to them, but I have all the essentials, just not on one CD... except for the one I cut myself out of my collected works. But I digress.

I've given up all hope that one day one of those sent-by Bruce or Bob messages will actually be from one of them, but I still get a little fantasy thrill when their names pop up.

Madonna, on the other hand, has no business knowing my e-mail address. So imagine my surprise when she wrote me (personally, I'm sure) to tell me why she's supporting Gen. Wesley Clark. Her rather imaginative capitalization and punctuation aside, there was nothing there for me to see. I read the missive from morbid curiosity, and then sighed, thinking "THAT ought to just be another nail in his political coffin." and sent her note to the trash.

But celebrity spam seems to becoming a trend. The past two weeks have seen me get a note from Michael Douglas (he's against guns and for joining the NRA Blacklist -- and a little too late on that one, Mikey, I signed up months ago), and William H. Macy & Felicity Huffman (who appear to be married and sharing an e-mail addy) suggesting that I do more to support Roe v Wade. How does Bill know what I've been doing, anyway? And why is my contribution up for debate?

Celebrity e-mails, another curse of the computer age.

Came into the office today to discover 155 messages in my blind "Webmaster" inbox. They were all (except for one, written in Spanglish, asking information about a patient that would be a HIPAA violation to give out) variations of the newest e-mail virus.

You know the one. The one that has a subject line of test, and an attachment of about 30K? You have to open the attachment and unzip a file, then run the exe file to infect yourself.

I guess there are people using computers who do just that (asshats). Christ, even my 86-year old father, who has never in his life even turned a computer on, knows better than that. Even he knows about computer viruses and how one gets them and how one never opens e-mail attachments.

But there's 154 virus e-mails in my in box. My personal e-mail is crawling at a salted slug's pace today, because the servers are clogged with virus-laden e-mail.

I swear, how do these people live? How do they operate heavy machinery, or even lap tops, huh? Even Oprah must have talked about computer viruses at some point. Even the Star or the Weekly World News has to have covered the issue.

So why, in the name of all that is holy, do people insist on opening bogus e-mail, and launching the bogus attachments? Surely by now, they know that when the body of the mail says something like "This my first game. I hope you like it." or "Testing." or "You first to see new thing. Open fast and enjoy!" that nothing good is going to come from opening the files.

Well, you'd think that, but you'd be wrong. I've gotten 157 (they're still coming in, even as I type) messages to prove you wrong.

PS-- Voting is still open in BlogMadness, and I still need your votes. Please? I'm down on my knees, I'm begging you please. I'm number #18, Back Home.

Despite the title of this entry and the fact that the New Hampshire primary is tomorrow, there is nothing political here. At least, not on the presidential scale. On the scale of BlogMadness, this is national, and meaningful. To me and about fifty other bloggers who don't get out much.

The voting is open, and I'm seeded 18th in the Bills division, against #15, the fabulous SeaDoc, who is also shamelessly whoring for votes. Seeding and division placement is random, they say, and I should just hope so, seeing as I'm from Miami and those damned Bills have a special place in hell for Dolphins fans. Unless the Bills is just like, you know, bills to pay. In which case I have a lot of experience.

Either way, gentle readers, I'm begging here: please don't let me lose in the first round. I'll write about reality tv and Paris Hilton if it'll get you to vote for my entry. Or not write about them, if you prefer.

I was out of pocket over the weekend, and just discovered that the voting opened on Sunday. There's only 34 hours left to keep me from shameful dismissal.

My self esteem is in your hands.

Oh Captain, my Captain.

Captain Kangaroo, dead at 76. So he looked like a kindly grandfather when he was, uh, thirty? No way.

I remember the white braid on his black jacket, and how large his pockets were. I remember that nobody made fun of his hair, but when the Beatles tried the same style they were lampooned. I remember that it was the first "must-see TV" of my life. I realize that I thought he'd been dead for years.

Yep. I knew it this morning. It was going to be a sucky day in my neighborhood.

Goodbye, Captain. You were the first, and the best.