We've had a flat-panel hdtv for a couple of years now, and mostly I love it, but when I was watching my dvr recording of Live Earth, I found the clarity distracting, because during the entire Foo Fighters set Dave Grohl had a booger in his nose.

Hey folks, guess what? I'm writing a book. AND, I'm being paid for it. AND, it's being published by a real (i.e., not vanity) publisher.

Look for Living in Northampton and Amherst 2008-2010 in early January.

The Wall Street Journal thinks that blogs have been around for 10 years. I started jotting online in March 1995. Does this make me the first woman blogger?

Groeing Company Needs Help. Indeed.

I am within 100 pages of the end of Gravity's Rainbow. You think I'd be happy about that.

“100 pages? What's the big deal?” Yeah, I know, I hear you, but I'm so over this book, so ready to cast it aside, that the final 100 93 pages are going to be something that's tough — canvas. The last 93 pages are going to be canvas. Ugh.

“You're in The Counterforce?” Monstro asks, nearly rubbing his hands together. “It completely makes no sense anymore. Once you lose Slothrop…” And I Know he loves the book and that it's His book but I can't imagine why. It's best read through a modified Bibliomancy — ask a question in your head, shut thy eyes, open book, point, and interpret.

For a man who writes epic-in-size novels, Pynchon's really stingy as an author. You get catalogs of information but very little heart and soul about the characters. I knew more about Ortho “The Darkness” Stice after 400 pages of Infinite Jest than I do about Slothrop.

I'll tell you though, I'm damn glad to have Monstro guiding me — mostly through questions about things that haven't happened yet, followed by what he intends as a tantalizing tidbit but I interpret as 20 more pounds of bricks on my shoulders.

Gravity's Rainbow is wearing me down, man.

So far the best question I've been able to ask about it is whether anyone has mentioned that the title itself is an oxymoron: Gravity is the law that holds things to earth, while rainbows are the promise that arc above it.

Will Divide? Patrick, sfmike? Monstro hadn't seen that before; what about you?

I performed music in church yesterday — something I've only done once before, and only then because one of my favorite parishoners was leaving to do mission work in Costa Rica. Yesterday we worshipped outdoors, which seemed a good venue for my acoustic guitar and my 'ukulele.

I had planned to play/sing “Morning Has Broken” on the guitar as the opening song but apparently that didn't get passed to the secretary, who had me listed (and misspelled) on the Order of Worship as performing the Offeratory on the guitar.

“How about if I play the guitar for the offeratory and the 'uke for the benediction?” I asked the organist.

“Fine by me,” she said. “Does he know?” She motioned to the pastor. I shrugged.

Monstro and the kid were across the street at the playground so I sang as loudly as I could, hoping they'd hear. I was most concerned about the guitar piece but it went very well — probably the best I've played it to date.

I had hidden the ukulele, a gift customized for me by Avram, and when I pulled it out as the pastor made his way down the aisle (we were in an outdoor tabernacle, complete with stage and altar) the whole place started laughing at me. Many remained standing for my song, “I Can See Clearly Now,” and some even sang along. I was met with applause at the end. The organist was visibly flummoxed.

“I can't follow that. What can I play to follow that?” she asked me. She put her fingers on the keys but took them off again as quickly. “Nope. I'm not doin' it.”

Then, after church we had a picnic, and the kid busied himself by taking a chicken nugget off one woman's plate and then grubbed down on a cookie he'd grabbed from the buffet.

I guess what I'm saying is, a good time was had by all.

Happy birthday to My Favorite Mother (aka MFM), and happy Friday the 13th to the rest of y'all.

Naah, do it yourself.

If anyone knows anyone at The New England Quarterly, please put in a good word for Monstro, who sent a paper titled “Chillingworth's A: Cultural Castigation in The Scarlet Letter” to its editor today. Thanks!

I've been thinking a lot about the number “a billion” recently. Someone once blogged an interesting tidbit about it:

A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
A billion days ago no-one walked on two feet on earth.

How much is the U.S. government spending in Iraq every month? Ten Billion Dollars. Monthly.