had it not first been translated - Saturday December 08 2001

Gretchen's friend Nina was in town from Long Island and together they went off to see an Edgar Allan Poe performance down at BAM. It was called POEtry, get it? Anyway, I could have accompanied them, of course, but I had doubts that I could sit still for three hours listening to the reading of German translations of 19th Century American poetry that no one would even know about had it not first been translated into French. Before going to POEtry, Nina, Gretchen and I had lunch at La Taqueria. We talked briefly about the wave of muggings sweeping New York and I remarked, "You know, if the police would just stop feeling sorry for themselves and go out and walk the beat, this shit wouldn't be happening."

I made a couple forays around Park Slope in an effort to buy Gretchen a Chanukah present, finally purchasing a pictographic history of our neighborhood.

A cold rain started falling in the late afternoon and kept it up well into the night. While Sally had no interest in going out into the rainy backyard, the cats weren't dissuaded by the weather one bit. Once they went out, however, they tended to stay out in direct proportion to the length of their fur.

Things I've been doing lately include: learning Perl, becoming acquainted with CURL, and reading Rivethead by Ben Hamper. Vicariously experiencing thrills from the drunken hum drum of the 1980s auto assembly line has kindled in me an unexpected urge to write a book about all the crazy things I've seen working for dotcoms.