I keep wanting to write a proper intrоductory post, but each time I raise my hands above the keyboard, I get sidetracked. Right now, for instance, it's my best friend's old blog that's doing it. Not the most heartening thing one could read before posting, since it tends to inspire deep feelings of broad inferiority. (No disrespect meant to sundry broads.)

Speaking of birdies, as Russians like to say, consider this symbol:



What do you suppose it stands for? Looks rather like every blogger's best friend, the mouse, doesn't it? (Mac's unibuttoned mutants aside.) Well, this is actually one of the old alchemical symbols representing vitriol. Truly, visita interiora terrae rectificando invenies occultum lapidem veram medicinam. Rectify the bowels of the earth and obtain the secreted stone of true medicine. Push button, receive bacon.

Goal for today: to finish Fowles' "A Maggot" while doing laundry.

EDIT: Laundry didn't play out. At some point in the afternoon, I managed to pinch a nerve in my hipbone or do something of the sort. What the hell was I thinking yesterday? I haven't run 4.5 consecutive miles since... hell, since my days in cross-country in 10th grade! Now it hurts to stand and walk. Not all the time, just every fifth step or so. Lugging laundry downstairs was a... variable experience. And then when I got to the laundry basement, it turned out I'd forgotten my wallet. *headdesk*

A muscle relaxant is in order. BRB.

...

Am back, full of vodka and regrets of a day wasted. However! Fowles can still be read. Prefereably in a reclining position.

Ow.