The General Situation

Jennifer Aniston Would Never Hurt Me

What I learned in the New York Times during the month of August....

8/1: "I can't self-destruct if I'm vain." —Grace Jones, during a New York City concert. 8/2: The Army is investigating a claim that one of its employees spent more than two years infiltrating antiwar groups. 8/3: Former tennis star Andrea Jaeger is an Anglican Dominican nun. 8/4: Scientists have discovered that the spleen is a reservoir for huge numbers of immune cells called monocytes, which get disgorged in the event of a serious trauma to the body. 8/5: Russian president Dmitri Medvedev called Barack Obama to wish him a happy birthday. 8/6: Don Imus is treating his Stage 2 prostate cancer holistically, with habanero peppers and Japanese soy supplements. Plus: Squeaky Fromme escaped prison for 36 hours in 1987. 8/7: The drug propofol—a white liquid that doctors call "milk of amnesia"—is not classified as a controlled substance. 8/8: Archaeologists have uncovered a 150,000-square-foot country villa that they believe to be the birthplace of Vespasian, the Roman emperor who built the Colosseum. 8/9: A top Iranian judiciary official acknowledged that some detainees arrested after post-election protests had been tortured while in prison. 8/10: Two hundred and fifty prisoners were hurt during an 11-hour riot in Chino, Calif. 8/11: Brioni is now making a T-shirt; it costs $250. 8/12: Padrón peppers aren't spicy unless they're grown near jalapeños or other hot peppers—cross-pollination produces the occasional hot padrón. Also: Meteor showers are really comet dust. 8/13: An Arizona man was sentenced to pick up trash for 300 hours after he was caught leaving jugs of water for illegal immigrants. 8/14: The Philadelphia Eagles signed Michael Vick, who was convicted after his role in a dogfighting ring. 8/15: In July, average temperatures of water at the ocean's surface were the highest ever recorded. 8/16: The U.S. Army allows women to lead some male troops into combat as officers, but not to serve with them in battle. 8/17: In June, Fox Business Network was watched by an average of 21,000 people from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. 8/18: Pugs are "all the rage" in India. 8/19: Friedrich Engels once listed his motto as "take it easy." 8/20: "Palliative care" is what the medical industry called end-of-life treatment. 8/21: The U.S. and Cuba share hurricane-related information. Plus: For the first time in 30 years, the rich are not getting richer. 8/22: Leaders of the country's largest Lutheran denomination voted to allow gay people in committed relationships to serve as clergy (celibate gays were already allowed). 8/23: Women in India have a 1-in-70 chance of dying in childbirth; the risk in the U.S. is 1 in 4,800; in Ireland, it's 1 in 47,600. 8/24: Public health officials are considering promoting routine circumcision for all babies born in the U.S. to reduce the spread of H.I.V. 8/25: Some airlines are enforcing the F.A.A. rule that personal items may not be stored in seatback pockets during takeoff and landing. 8/26: Lincoln Center's redevelopment is costing $1.2 billion. 8/27: Bob Dylan is releasing a Christmas album. 8/28: According to antivirus software maker McAfee, 40 percent of search results for "Jennifer Aniston screen saver" contained viruses. 8/29: Fruit stands have opened at the Yankees' and Mets' stadiums. 8/30: When she started out, Sophie Tucker sang in blackface, removing her black wig and gloves when she took her bows. 8/31: Roger Federer has no middle name.

That's My Dog

Burning Question

This morning's email exchange with Adam, who just landed in Hong Kong:

Adam: Going to gyn. Will call you when I return.

Me: Is there something I should know?

This Week's Floral Obsession

Love x 20

Yesterday afternoon, I looked in the mirror and noticed a splotch on my upper lip. I made Adam come look at it. Sure enough, I was getting a cold sore—and it has turned gruesome. It's eating my face! I first started getting them about five years ago, when one January 1 my new year kicked off in a highly unpleasant manner. (The holiday was a Friday, so it was a long time before I could be seen by a doctor.) What bums me out isn't that it's caused by the herpes virus; it's that every time I interact with someone I know they're wondering if they're next. The experience makes me empathize deeply with people who have physical abnormalities, though I think it's probably a leap to say I'm a better person for it, because I'm crabby as shit. To perk myself up—the U.S.O. is otherwise engaged—I've written a fresh list of things I love.

1. Valtrex. Thank pug for pharmaceuticals! (As an atheist, I'm uncomfortable paying respect to this "God" fantasy.)

2. Peaches. The fruit. Though I like Peaches the musician, too.

3. The Awl's email newsletter. The Awl a is funny/smart blog Choire Sicha and Alex Balk, but it's their newsletter, written by Choire, that I particularly enjoy—it's like an email from a friend, if you friends wrote long emails instead of status updates and tweets. The newsletter doesn't come daily, as advertised, so I emailed Choire volunteering my services. I think I came off like I was offering to be a better parent to his baby. People don't like that.

4. Redundant words/phrases. Tunafish, hamburger sandwich, French-fried onion rings, beef steak, crack cocaine, cash money, taxicab, hound dog.... I shouldn't like them, because I'm an editor, but the quaintness kills me.

5. French-fried onion rings! Specifically the ones at Clamp's on Route 202 in New Milford, Conn.

6. ATMs that don't require deposit slips. Have you really wrapped your head around the fact that you will never again need to fill out a deposit slip? That it will no longer matter if the bank's pen-on-a-chain doesn't work?

7. Contrails.

8. Leanne Shapton's auction-catalog-as-novel, Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry. At first, the cleverness made me jealous, but I got over it, and now it inspires me. Of course, as Adam would point out if he were reading over your shoulder, I haven't actually read the book yet.

9. Urban Dictionary. The website never fails to make me laugh. Not just the words themselves—coinages like "Wait, Shit" ("Something someone would say after realizing what they just said was idiotic or bad")—but the sample sentences that contributors supply ("Dude, my dick is so big that if I laid it out on a keyboard it would go from A to Z. Wait, shit.").

10. Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang. While Urban Dictionary is great for contemporary slang, sometimes you need to know what "clutch-butt" or "flako" means (copulation and drunk or crazy, respectively), and you might even need citations. Alas, the project ended after two volumes (A-G and H-O), so if the slang begins with P–Z, you're S.O.L.

11. Big bars of L'Occitane soap. As part of our austerity plan, we now use Lever 2000, but back when I wasn't underemployed we bought those huge bars of L'Occitane soap. They smelled nice, sure, but it's the heft that I miss. That's serious soap.

12. This Elizabeth Peyton painting. I crossed this intersection about a million times when I lived next to the ugly white building. Let the cursor drift over it and you'll get the name of the painting—though either Peyton or the New Museum (where I got the name) doesn't know the difference between Greenwich Street and Greenwich Avenue.

13. Kiosk. Kiosk's owners go someplace and buy a lot of wonderfully designed everyday stuff, then sell it in three- or four-month exhibitions. Your souvenirs will pale in comparison.

14. Maxwell. Mr. Smooth.

15. Taking photos of clouds through airplane windows.

16. Hedwig and the Angry Inch. The first half is perfect. It goes downhill—somehow managing to lose speed as it does so—once Hedwig obsesses over what's-his-face. Still, the movie holds up. A classic. I want to see it in a theater, at midnight, in costume.

17. My checkbook. I don't have to write a check very often, but when I do I always feel a little more punk rock than I did before. Some guy outside Tucson makes all sorts of stuff with rattlesnake skins and sells it out of a motorhome in the desert, if I remember correctly.

18. Sandra Bullock. I know, right?

19. Street art. I don't like that I like it, because it's vandalism, but.

20. The Original Mommy-to-Be Doll. I only have the ad. For the love of pug, why did I not buy this doll? Why?

They Wish

I moved out of this apartment building just over six years ago, but my name is still on the roster by the front door. Twice.

Great Name for a Band!

I Once Had a Boss Who...

...passed along a bit of wisdom she learned from someone in Monte Carlo: "Never, for any reason, should you touch the skin under your eyes."

...dictated a letter to his stockbroker that included the line, "Your unspeakable business practices and procedures have well earned you the right to call yourselves the 'maggots of Boca Raton.'" 

...informed me of my bonus while we were standing side-by-side at the urinal.

...said upon seeing me years after we had worked together, "Well, I always thought you were a good hire."

...loaned me $1,000 for a renter's deposit.

...ordered me to "Be a good bunny and apologize."

...shared a harrowing story about how he had recently awakened in the middle of the night with a searing pain in his head, and when he went to the doctor in the morning, he learned that a beetle had crawled inside his ear and was trying to get out.

That's My Dog

Vocab Lesson: Jersey Barrier

Jersey barrier (noun): Low concrete slabs used to divide traffic or stop cars from driving into pedestrians or potential terrorism targets. From the Battery Park Broadsheet: "Caitlin Hurd is one of four artists whose work is currently displayed on canvases that Lower Manhattan has in abundance: jersey barriers and chain-link fences." Wikipedia says they're also known as jersey walls, Pennsylvania Separators, and K-rails.