This is the perfect time to test out the commenting software. With the story of how it came to be on the page. I found a cool site that hosts blog commenting. They are free and have a link down there on the right. Their site has an automated cut and paste feature to write the code into your page. I copied. I cut. I pasted. I ran the code and reran it and it just wouldn't work. I checked for bad nesting. I checked, but did not see. I whined to the help desk, with a final question: Am I too blonde to blog? The reply was short and to the point: You nested your code incorrectly. Here's what it should look like. And then they had the correct code. Very sweet.

The short answer to my question was yes. But they were too polite to say it.

So here's a big shout out to the 1 or two people who actually are reading this.....

And then there are days like this. It's warm out, even for Miami. There is a tacky little vendor fair in the park in the middle of the hospital campus. Sunglasses, beads, orchids, cheap cell phones, and food. I am sitting in my office now, with a cold green coconut. It has had its little top punctured and a straw stuck in it. The spanish word for this delight is Coco Frio. Cold coconut. Now, where else could you do that in the middle of December?

I missed out on the steamed pork buns from the Korean guy two tents down.

There was a poll on the front page of Excite.com today asking if people approved of the use of nuclear weapons as an American response to, well, here's the question and the answers:

The United States issued a warning yesterday to Iraq and other hostile countries, saying it is prepared to use ?overwhelming force? ? including nuclear weapons ? in retaliation to any biological or chemical attack on the U.S., its forces abroad or its allies. (AP)

Do you support the use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. in response to a chemical or biological attack?

Yes: 58% => 3405 votes

No: 31% => 1808 votes

I'm not sure: 9% => 547 votes

I don?t care: 0% => 20 votes

Oh, yeah. That's a fucking cheery statistic to look at. FIFTYEIGHT percent of the respondents think that America should use nukes. Who are these people? What fucking planet do they come from? Have they no concept of the repercussions? Political, physical, biological? Who are they? Is this the Christian fundamentalists looking for Armageddon? I, for one, do not wish to go out with a bang or a freaking whimper. Am I the only person who is frightened by our "president" and his gang of war mongering henchmen in Washington?

Oh, I need a cigarette and a stiff fucking martini. And it isn't even noon.

I added a little something to my desktop the other day. Under the section where the web tells me what the weather is like outside here in Miami (where, due to the fact that I work in a bunker, I never see daylight) I also added a few other cities. I added New York, because, as my old pal Jayne's dad used to say: New York is where people live: everywhere else is just camping out. I added Paris because a person has to dream, and even if France is anti-semitic to the nth degree, it's still the center of culture on this planet. Or at least fashion and food. Then I added Iasi, the town in Romania from whence my father's family emigrated. Jesus Christ! No wonder they turned left at Ellis Island and kept going till they hit south Florida. All this week in Iasi it's been hazy, sleety, icy, snowy and with a mean temperature of about 12 degrees Farenheit. Here in Miami it's been cool with a high near, but not quite 80.

In the original Men In Black Linda Fiorentino delivers that line when an EMT leaves her with a dead body and a live cat. It's just so true. And every day, I get more disheartened and jaded, and it becomes truer and truer.

Human beings are highly over-rated as a species. We are blessed with self awareness, and then waste it on an unlimited capacity to be fascinated with ourselves. Our own, petty, individual selves. Why, even this blog is an excuse to find myself entertaining. As if I need an excuse.

People hate the holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas because it forces them to be with their families of origin. Take my family for example. I love my father's side of the family. They are a sprawling, outrageous bunch. Every single one of them can tell a story. And will, whether you ask or not. Being with that side of my family is like being in a Woody Allen movie. My mother's side of the family is very buttoned down. More like being in a Phillip Roth novel. Undercurrents. Witty, but genteel, reparte. I love being with them, too.

There is nothing I like better than being with these people. Either side of the family. Of course, it took about 10 years of heavy therapy for me to be able to embrace them so uncritically.