Brother Ben, we've got two ledgers, and one smoked-cheese pig. Which one do we burn? And it ain't gonna be my pig.

Well, I'm back. One might ask where I was, but seeing as I have no readers, it's probable to say that no one noticed my absence. Save for me of course. I was well aware I wasn't posting. But I'm back now, as has been established in the first line of this post. Never mind where I was. Know only this, there was a Starbucks and all was well. I'm proposing an study of sorts now that I've returned. Here is how I see it going. I bake about 60 chocolate chip cookies. I put on an apron. After I bake the cookies. That way its still nice and pleasantly clean. Then I traverse the sidewalks of DC. Offering cookies. Do you think I'll get slapped? Do you think people will insult me? How many people do you think will take a cookie? My guess is few. My guess it that I'd get rid of more cookies if I sold them. Isn't that sad.

Black as midnight on a moonless night.

I hung up a sign on my television last night. It says something like, "I am a time-sucking life sucker." The first disturbing part of this is that I assigned my television a persona. I've made it a person. Worse yet, I've made it a person who has the ability to manipulate and discredit me. I say discredit because I obviously ignored the sign and turned it on. Several times. Its on now. Even though I've got my back to the computer and I'm clearly involved in this post. Its on. In the background. Yet, I'm driven insane by the pounding bass from my new neighbor downstairs. Here's the question I pose. Is there a way I can treat the bass downstairs like a source of background noise that I welcome, even control? I suspect the only way to do this is to teeter more towards the edge of reality. To imagine that I control a sound clearly out of my power, sounds like something mumbled by a crazy person on the street. Apparently a crazy person like me. I wonder if my neighbor knows all the time I've spent considering his and my situation. I've imagined him as a heartless criminal. As an evil-doer bound for karmic-disaster. Then I met him on the stairs, and now I'm trying to imagine him as a hard working joe who just likes his bass. I'm straining to cling to this image. We'll see in an hour.

"I've got a lot of cutting and pasting to do, gentlemen, so please, why don't you return to your porch rockers and resume whittling."

As if in a nightmare, or the Tom Hanks movie, "Terminal" which I didn't see, I dashed to and fro, to and fro, through the main terminal of London Heathrow. There must be a Starbucks. There absolutely has to be a Starbucks. To. Fro. I see the word "COFFEE" on the wall opposite me in a font that looks cruelly similar to the Starbucks font. No. It was some crap no name terminal coffee shop. I turn in desperation one last time, wandering hopelessly towards my gate when I spy a man with a Starbucks cup. I move frantically towards him. "Excuse me...did you get that in here?" I whisper pleadingly. He recognizes in me, himself and explains that its further down the terminal than anyone would possibly imagine. As I gratefully thank him and start walking away he yells after me, "It'll all be alright." And so it was. I also discovered on this jaunt to England the "Skinny lemon poppy seed muffin." So along with my venti vanilla skim latte I settled in, muffin, book and sanity to pass the time. Having just downloaded a handful of Dolly Parton songs I felt inspired to post. I don't know why. I downloaded Abba this morning. I think "Take a Chance on Me"may be one of the most compelling songs in the history of music. About 14 or 15 months from now I'll be looking for a job. I wish that I could interview at a place where it would not only okay but encouraged that I enter the interview room to music. And that ABBA would be that music.

I've had I don't know how many cups of coffee in my life, but this is one of the best.

Greetings from distant cups. I will soon by flying back to a location known as "The Home Brew." In my time away, a great many revelations have been made. Among them, I am in fact losing my head. On the upside, I've gained the reminder that life really is who you meet sitting down in a crowded cafeteria. When there is no you, there is only us. For the downside of the single cup brewer is that it is only a single cup. Its sole purpose seeming to be to allay your concerns about its solitary oneness, whispering, "Its okay. I'm not a pot."