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This is a low point.

Weblog, I had almost forgotten your existence. Over the last two weeks you were becoming a thing recognized but not fully grasped, like a familiar tree whose name you do not know. Therefore (trust me here) it behooves me (from O.E. behofian "to have need of") to gather myself on what I look forward to.

1. Nanowrimo (November 1-30). I've signed up for good old National Novel Writing Month this year, and I've been overtaken by this strange enthusiasm for the project. Normally I wouldn't go near that kind of thing - who wants to type out 1500 words a day for an entire month on top of the rest of your life? - but for some reason it finally seems correct. In past years I've been disgusted by the notion of seeing what comes out of my mind when I'm forced to blather, but this time I'm genuinely curious as to what my brain will make my thoughts look like on paper. I've even got the title picked out: Death in Brownsville. I've never been to Brownsville, but I read an article about migrant workers there once. So I feel well prepared.


2. Safe neutering of your pet (October 31). I never thought I'd look forward to having an animal's testicles removed, but I now recognize it as a common experience among pet owners. Our cat gets more rambuctious every day, morphing in an eyeblink from a sleepy pet to a little fur-clad bullet with testicles. Like the ring of Sauron, those testicles are the source and engine of all that cat's evil. Once we take them and cast them into the fires of Mount Doom I know we'll all feel a lot better. As long as Gollum doesn't get ahold of those things. The wearer of the Black Furry Testicles is endowed with super speed and the ability to knock things from high ledges.


3. Costa Rica. It seems strange that I once wrote a guide to Costa Rica, not knowing that my parents would go all Costa Rica-happy and invite us down there for Christmas vacation, but in retrospect I suppose it was for-too-ee-tus. For to eat us? No, fortituous. Or perhaps I'm being dealt an obscure punishment for writing such a pack of lies about a country with no standing army, where a full 25% of the land is a wildlife preserve. This will be my first real vacation in years. And for those of you who know me, may I say that travelling for work and spending my nights in hotel rooms with a cameraman does not constitute a vacation.