Sunday, May 11, 2003 - Ambrose Bierce relates “the archangel, Satan, one of the Creator’s lamentable mistakes, was expelled from Heaven, and halfway in his descent he paused, bent his head in thought a moment and at last went back. “There is one favor that I should like to ask,” said he. “Name it.” said the Creator. “Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws.” said Satan. The Creator said “What, wretch! you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn of eternity with hatred of his soul — you ask for the right to make his laws?” Satan said “Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them himself.” It was so ordered. To wit, one cannot stop fools from fulfilling their destiny.

Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - HOMELY HORSES HARASS HAIRDRESSING HYENAS. Speak of the Devil and he will hear about it. Where there’s a will there’s a won’t. What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody else to do it. Here’s the question of the week: In how many days did the Fool complete his Errand? Woody Allen answers “Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?” Winston Churchill suggests “Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.” And Elbert Hubbard observes “These days, a man who says a thing cannot be done is quite apt to be interrupted by some fool doing it.”

Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - In “Mansfield Park,” Jane Austen writes “If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out.” Now what was my point again? Shoot. I forgot. INEDIBLE INSECTS INFLICT INFECTIOUS ILLNESS.

Thursday, May 15, 2003 - JOVIAL JAILBIRDS JUDICIOUSLY JUDGE JITTERBUG JAZZ. Our last meeting, DB told me “I had a car just like this.” Well, I still have a car just like this. Or, if this were a Terry Gilliam animation, someone would say “Excuse me, but is that a car in your ear?” to which I would reply “What did you say? I can’t hear you. I’ve a car in my ear!” Otherwise, the overcast sky foreshadowed the two events of the day: the 10 PM screening of “The Matrix Reloaded” preceded by my yearly barnacle scraping at the dentist. I believe it was Bill Cosby who commented how dentists tell kids to never poke at their teeth with a sharp piece of metal, and yet, that’s the first thing a dentist will do to you.