(no subject)

The path I usually take Milo the Dawg for his walkies has a very magical feeling to it, no? You’d expect the tree trunks to have little doors opening on to the very best in Narnian real estate deals. You'd expect the bunnies, deer and occasional snapping turtles Milo encounters as he ambles along to ask, “Excuse me, Sir, but we're doing a marketing survey: Isn't Postmodernism just another mirror of retro culture?”

RTT is taking an SAT Diagnostic this morning. Don’t know how well he’ll do on it: He insisted on going out partying last night and terrible parent that I am, I just couldn’t bring myself to crack the whip, “No, goddam it, you’re going to sleep at 8:30 pm!!!!” So I let him go partying and I let him stay over at Justin’s. Hey! Ya gotta choose those fights carefully, right? Like if he ever asks permission to go on a tri-state killing spree, then I'll tell him, No!

I’m sure that Ben, who RTT usually stays with over the weekend, would have been far stricter. Now that Ben has backup in the form of a woman who subsidizes him, he can afford to be responsible. Like I say, I’m seriously burned out on this whole Mommy Role-Playing Game thingy. Hey! RTT’s 16 years old, right? He should be capable of making good decisions by now and if he isn’t… Too fucking bad for him.

But Ben, of course, would have hunted RTT down at 9pm, driven him back to Casa Le-Grumble, maybe pinched kid's nostrils till the kid fell unconscious -- that's just as good as sleep, right?.

But sadly Ben was off doing the White Liberal Altruism thang, driving a truck filled with cans and sacks of dried legumes from the local Food Bank of the Southern Tier to the tornado-ravaged state of Virginia -- or maybe it was the tornado-ravaged state of North Carolina.

Personally I think that is just an incredibly stupid and wasteful thing to do – if they want to help tornado-ravaged communities out, they should just give money: there are Food Banks a whole closer to the tornado-ravaged scenes, so as far as I can see this is just a waste of gas designed to help New Yorkers feel noble. But I cheerfully admit I have a dog in this fight: Mizz Jayne LeGro, famous Sewer of Buttons and Scourge of Co-Dependent Relationships, is a big muckety-muck at the Food Bank of the Southern Tier. At the very least Ben will get a couple of high suction blowjobs out of this.

Else? Had coffee yesterday with a woman from the Internet Romance Website. I have no idea why she wanted to meet me – I could have told her she wouldn’t like me – but I thought, woththehell. It was like being on a conveyor belt; she had allocated exactly one hour to meeting me and at the end of that time, rose from her Starbucks chair -- interview over! -- and announced, "I wouldn't be adverse to meeting you a second time."

She was one of those efficient, morbidly humorless women with boundless stores of energy. We talked about her job, her doomed romance with a married man, her dog, the grandchildren she’s helping to raise. She described herself as a "Buddhist," but when she talked about it, it didn't sound like any Buddhism I know

Else?

I told the NPR science reporter as nicely as I could that he was emailing and calling way too often. I think this must have offended him, ‘cause I haven’t heard from him since.

And remember Garrison Keilor Lookalike Guy? Who knows an awful lot about local history and local architecture? Since one of my very favorite things in the world is to walk around small towns deducing the local history from the local architecture, I have started seeing him again, so that I can have a tour guide on these adventures. I’m totally uninterested in anything else about him, but if I had to guess I’d say he’s kind of besotted with me. Poor guy.