The White Peril 白禍

Congratulations to Susanna Cornett, whose Cut on the Bias was three years old yesterday (her time). I don't know that I've been reading Susanna since her first Instapundit link, which is when most of us who don't know her from real life were first likely to have heard of her, but I definitely remember that page. Good for her. She's been occupied with other things lately, but her intermittent posts are still good. She's gone out of her way to be kind to me since our first few contacts, and, of course, I've learned a tremendous amount reading her. Best wishes.

You would think that, being reasonably familiar with the salacious ways of the world, I'd know that using certain words is asking for trouble. Obviously not:




I should have seen what was coming when I tossed off a reference to b---- w---- a month or so back, but...well, maybe I'm only attuned to my own turn-ons. I almost have to feel sorry for anyone who was looking for pictures of b---- w---- and washed up here. Bet it was a surprise!

And, man! Apparently, there are 300 million people in America: one is K---- C------, and the other 299,999,999 want to know whether he's queer. Believe me, what you're seeing above are just the two most common strings. There are plenty more where those came from. It's mind-boggling.

On the bright side, I'll be in great shape to become known to millions if the tabloids ever start linking K---- C------ to b---- w----.

Added on 24 February (barely): It did occur to me that Spanish questions are supposed to have that inverted interrogation mark before them, but since Spanish isn't a language I've studied, much less had reason to type in, I didn't know how to make it. Turns out it's iquest. I mean, that's what you put between the ampersand and semi-colon. ¿ So intuitive I'm sure I'll forget it. Not that I have any reason to have to remember it, anyway.

If you never hear from me again, you can assume that my neighbors decided they couldn't take any more Linda seeping through the walls, broke down my door, and offed me. I've been trying to propitiate them by consistently skipping over that squalling, momentum-killing version of "Dark End of the Street" toward the end of Side 1, but Tokyo is a stressful place, and you never know what will be the last straw for people.

Darn. I slept quite a bit of the day, because when you're sick, you can usually nap for most of the afternoon and still be ready to hit the hay at your regular time.

Well, this seems to have been one of those 24-hour things, which is good; but now I'm wide awake at 1 a.m. which is not, considering I plan to be back in the office tomorrow. Unfortunately, I'm still not quite focused enough to read anything serious until I fall asleep.

I actually passed a pretty interesting day--hardly pleasant, but interesting. Being feverish and suggestible, I was in the mood to read from The Golden Bough. I never would have thought to put the two together before, but I happened to have Heart like a Wheel in the stereo, and it was a strangely inspired accompaniment to Frazer.

Somehow, all those eerie details about ancient bonfires and harvest sacrifices seemed sharper and more electrifying. Maybe it's because, while Linda Ronstadt couldn't convey emotional complexity to save her life, when she's on, she can personify a single emotion very primally, as if she were its prehistoric deity. (Of course, the material they picked for Heart like a Wheel helps. When you have a song whose chorus goes, "You're no good, you're no good, you're no good / Baby, you're no good / I'm gonna say it again / You're no good, you're no good, you're no good / Baby, you're no good," it's kind of hard not to get the point, no matter how obtuse an interpreter you are.)

Ooh, Charlie's Angels just came on! I'm pretty sure my brain has unclouded sufficiently for me to follow that--was there ever a hit show with more fabulously dumb plotlines? Let's hope that by 2:45, all the nailbiting suspense--OMG, Kelly's going into that office to search and she could totally get caught and be, like, killed, or something!--will have worn me out to the point that I can sleep through the rest of the night.

The person this is directed at is not one of the acquaintances I expect to be reading this, but just to contribute to the edification of the world at large:

An e-mail message is not a summons by royal bugle. I don't check every account I have daily, and I often wait until I have a meaningful response before, you know, responding. It doesn't mean I'm dead or ignoring you. Surely you can find something to do for 48 hours of turnaround time.

A client or colleague writing to my work address has a right to expect a prompt response. Additionally, any of the following three people conveying the following three messages can assume I will respond immediately, possibly before I've read to the end:

Hi, Honey.

Accident at the plant. Your father's in the burn unit, but he'll be out in a few weeks. They think. Call me for an update--don't worry about the hour.

Love,
Mom

*******

My love,

The pressure from my boss is too great, and I've finally decided to cave and marry that eligible Todai grad in the HR department. I adore you more than life itself, but I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to be out of the apartment by the end of the month. Feel free to take the Imari, but leave the Bohemian glasses.

Atsushi

*******

Mr. Kinsell,

Word is you're a revelation in the sack. I'm in town to shoot a Toyota commercial; meet me, 11 p.m., Shinjuku Park Hyatt, Room **** to see how much these bagpipes can still blast.

S. Connery

If you're not any of the above, I will write back on my own time--not because I think I'm busier and more important than you are, but because that's all I expect of people I'm corresponding with myself. There's enough pointless hurry in modern life without adding it to shoot-the-breeze private correspondence. Good grief.

I might have known you could trust PennDOT to make on-line processing just as delay-prone and frustrating as an actual trip to the DMV. After all, why let modernization deprive you of the old-fashioned niceties? Thank you, Harrisburg! It's a comfort to know that, even a continent and ocean away, I've got a friend in Pennsylvania.

(No one needs to bother pointing out that if I'd renewed my license as soon as my parents forwarded the form to me, I wouldn't have been in the kind of hurry that makes "connection timed out" messages into major obstacles. That's not the point. What government of a commonwealth of 12 million people, which used to have more paved roads than any other state, has its flippin' DMV site down at 7 a.m. local time on a work day? Pfft!)