Let it be known that winter sucks.

The more I get rid of stuff from my house, the more stuff I seem to have. I’m starting to think it’s like using astringent on oily skin–you’re just tempting those cells to produce more out of spite.

I found a cd entitled “Celtic Bagpipes.” It’s good they were clear about that, because I don’t want any damned unCeltic bagpipes. Those things suck.

My ears are cold.

Cat Cuthbert likes to stand in the sink and watch water swirling down the drain. I would like to believe that he is thinking Great Thoughts, but I have a feeling he’s just wondering how hard it would be to Screw That Up and Make Life Difficult. I wouldn’t be surprised to come down one morning and discover he’s shoved an entire cat bed, and possibly Bertram, into the drain.

Someone told me to my face the other day that if he had one of my cats in his possession he would kill it. What’s most remarkable about this is that the person didn’t think I would be shocked by this comment.

The election is Tuesday and I’m a presiding judge. I am not looking forward to this. On the plus side, it’s forcing me to clean my car, possibly leading to such great discoveries as “Martial Marches” and “German Beethoven.” Stay tuned.

Steve was born on October 24, 1960 in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Tomorrow would have been his 50th birthday.

Fifty still feels like such a long way from me. I’m 39. I’ll be 40 when I start law school. Will I, like Steve, spend my 50th birthday as ashes? Will I still remember him in ten and a half years? I ask the questions, but I don’t really want to know. I like my future vague and opaque.

I have given away hundreds if not thousands of books in the past few years, but have set aside a few authors. Those authors, I had said, were my untouchable collection.

It’s only when I start to count those books that I realize I have hundreds of them. I thought there were only two authors, or three, but there are a dozen, and most of them were prolific.

I don’t want to pack and move hundreds of books. I just don’t. So, I’m commencing on the big read. I’m going to read the books in my untouchable collection. If it’s good, I’ll decide then whether I need to keep it. If it’s bad, out it goes to Goodwill.

Maybe I should call it the big re-read, since I’ve read most of them before.

There’s something liberating for me in saying that even my favorite authors aren’t necessary on my shelves. But I might have to make exceptions for MM Kaye, and Patricia Wentworth, and Dick Francis… Oh dear.

Chris yesterday inadvertently created a brilliant word: snowpokes. You know, people who drive slowly because there’s a light dusting of snow on the ground.

Snowpokes. Use it in good health.