Nothing anyone does to me can be wrong, because I am a monster.

No big deal, I'm a Jew, we're used to it.

Fun playing Scrabble with my mom, games tend to be very close, pretty much all the way through. Given the strong random element in the game, this seems highly anomalous.

Be glad you have a husband, right? Damn sad.

Scratching Peretz's head makes it hard to type, maybe I'll stop for a bit, typing, that is.

Sounds like all the pine trees by my parents' house are coming down, lot of memories under those pines.

Nice & warm with Peretz.

Pasta's very tasty. Kind of a late supper, but worth it.

Only 8 or 9 tomatoes to go.

Total lack of an adult conception of responsibility, nothing he does is wrong, really something else. Kind of suspected, but not the extent of it, Christ. One less person whose opinion I need to take seriously, I guess. OK.

Had been fretting about getting some stuff of mine back, kind of a relief that it's no longer worth worrying about, might as well have been destroyed by animals.

Glad I'm able to accept that some things are my fault, can try to do better.

Pasta's almost ready.

Making a matriciana sauce. Hearing about how it's all my fault, pathetic, but unsurprising. It's only partly my fault.

Peretz seems to have some sort of digestive disturbance.

Got a note from T, she's back in civilization, more or less (Reno).

Eating more eggplant dip.

Lying awake, not thinking, feeling rather nice actually, nice & empty.

Have taken to sleeping with my cell phone very near at hand again, pointless, still feels better to act like myself, available, reliable, ridiculous.

Pictures passing by, so many of them.

Went & had that beer. Here's to ya.

Listening to music, leaving my body. "She's Lost Control"

Too funny to explain, floating up by the ceiling, enjoying it.

Went to a noise show at Mystery Train, guess Tim sort of talked me into it, dullest sort of noise music, Buddies were supposed to play but didn't, still had a pretty nice time. Managed to arrange a tentative date for skee ball excursion/art project. During one of the particularly boring parts, went across the street for a slice of pizza, three tiny, gawky guys, assume they were UMass freshmen, looked like high school students, had gotten a giant (say 18 x 30) Sicilian pie & were sitting in the window eating it, eyes alive with delight, protruding Adam's apples bobbing gleefully. Made me think of kids at Halloween eating whole bags of candy at one sitting.

There's a going away party for a person named Emily that I barely know happening at a bar down the street right now, can't decide if it would be funnier to go or to be inconspicuous by my absence. A beer might be good.

Finally getting around to eating some of that eggplant/red pepper dip I made the other day, it's quite good. Not actually as much of a fuckup as I sometimes think I am, surprisingly good at all sorts of things, actually. Ah well, back to being sad & unappreciated.

Would put in a little smiley but I hate those fucking things.

Lunching on the last of my soup & little red plums. It's nice. Going to make a hearty borscht later in the week I think.

P's licking the bowl.

Busy morning at work, can't remember half of what I was doing, repairing filesystems, redirecting mail, reconfiguring accounts, re, re, re, again & again. Going to go do some more fun sysadmin activities in Amherst after Peretz has had his walk.

Eat Local Challenge is on, BTW.

Doing fairly well at that without really much trying, think that's better, actually. No real need to make a challenge out of it, unless you're really into the idea of your own virtue, for a month. Anyway, it's hard to think much of a virtue you're only able to indulge in while riding on others' backs.

Still local food, less of a waste of energy, tasty.

Walking through dumping area with Peretz, wondering why anyone who knows me would think bullying me & ordering me about would be a good idea. Would think it was fairly obvious that these are things up with which I will not put, good for eliciting aggressively frustrating behavior, not much else. Asking nicely, on the other hand, most always works. 'Nicely' here means honestly and with a reasonable understanding of what's being asked, of course, not formally and/or politely. Not just how it is, it's good policy.

OK, enough about rich inner life, sorry about that. Hi, Mom.

Peretz is sighing, knows me too well.

Listening to 'Family Dirge' by Noel Coward, always cheers me up.

Now 'Blues in the Bottle' is on, rooster chews tobacco & the hen uses snuff, the baby chickens don't take nothing, but they just strut their stuff.

Music's great.

Coffee, too.

Listening to 'Means to an End', has the quality of a personal anthem, so much does.

Listening to it again.

Just sent my brother an idea for a joke website that would probably get us both lynched.

Went to Stop 'n' Shop, got limes, onions, bread for tomato sandwiches, dog biscuits, pita chips. Just after locating the pita chips, ran into Joel's niece Becky & someone I assume was her Italian boyfriend, so spacy from all the time with my head inside computer, I probably seemed heavily drugged. Should perhaps invest some time working on my impression management skills. Ho ho ho.

In further Jolly Green Giant news, got an email back from old college chum Chris Goodbar who I'd looked up & written to the other day. Sounds like he's doing well, lives in the woods, has a 2 year old kid & another on the way shortly, runs a kung fu school. Nice to hear from him, may try to stop in & see him if I ever get around to driving home for one holiday or another.

Peretz broke another leash. In an exciting twist, this time he broke the line not the retraction mechanism. This one lasted over a year at least (previous incident here), he used to break approximately two a year. Getting old. Giving me sad looks, walk wasn't as long as he'd have liked. Need to go get him more biscuits.

Been playing with last.fm, a bit surprised at how much it seems to break. Get better servers &/or sysadmins, folks.

In keeping with the social networking mood of the day, made slight adjustments to my myspace profile after removing a couple months' accumulation of spam. This last has, as usual, accelerated the arrival of new spam.

Made myself a small salad, will get through these tomatoes somehow.

Look closed early for Labor Day, can't say I blame them, was rather looking forward to burger & pie, got some shots of where sign used to be, had vegetarian chao fan & fortune cookie as happy substitute. Photographing fortune cookie fortunes is quite challenging, anyway, "Should have is a favorite phrase for those looking for excuses."

Went & got farm share, have more tomatoes than I know what to do with, imagine I'll think of something. Decided I wanted fresh fruit to supplement fresh vegetables, went to Bashista, got peaches, little red plums, cooking apples, cranberry apple pie. Not sure what I'm going to do with cooking apples, imagine I'll think of something. Crisp, maybe?