Decadent -- my literal minded old dictionary says this means in a state of decay or decline.

Is that all? Heck, I thought it was something bad. I guess my compost pile is always decadent, and for that matter, so is my driveway. It declines very noticeably -- or, wait, is that inclines?

Seems to me "decadent" comes with a lot more freight than that. When someone declaims that our civilization is decadent, it resonates with impending doom. It conjures pictures of opium addicts languishing and famished on tattered fainting couches. I expect buildings falling into disrepair on every hand and giant cockroaches feeding on the rubble.

No, that's not what's going on. Our cities still grow, our technology continues to rise (have you noticed all the advances in mops recently?), and recent economic wobbles are not long enough to be statistically significant. So what, if anything, is in decay or decline in these our United States?

I suspect most of the people who get excited about our decadence have in mind a decline in morals. And reading yesterday about porn revenues did cause a moment's wonder. But I find any moral decline there vastly outweighed by our great improvements in treating all citizens equally. Tolerance trumps sexual repression in my book.

But here is a decline I worry about. I don't like to see fewer and fewer people voting. And the other day in the coffeeshop, I overheard a discussion about the impossibility of trusting any news source. Since you don't know what's going on, the argument ran, there's no point in voting. You can't know if you're doing any good.

So there we are -- a decline in desire to participate in our government.

Wouldn't it be a shame to let this experiment in democracy decay?

Ah, Las Vegas. A week there goes a long ways towards feeding a hunger for diversity and action, and restores the appeal of a quiet life at home.

It was our longest stay yet. We split a timeshare unit with Doug's parents. We find them very easy to travel with. We had two bedrooms and two bathrooms, conveniently separated by a full kitchen with dining area and living room. We didn't cook, but the fridge was handy for collecting leftovers and holding snacks. That moderated our indulgence in food a little.

We also indulged in alcohol, in gambling, in entertainment, in sightseeing, and oh my yes in shopping.

It's not the price that creates an indulgence -- it's the stepping beyond your normal bounds.

I was thinking out loud about how many cultures have had a time when normal rules are set aside -- a feast or carnival, a fair, a holiday -- we seem to have places to go instead. Lois -- Doug's Mom -- very astutely pointed out that those work best when you have a cohesive community. With Americans moving frequently, and many diverse cultures mingled, it's challenging to agree on a period when the rules change. So instead we go somewhere.

To Las Vegas. For example.

Boldly displayed in a hotel gift shop were t-shirts reading "What happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas" -- the logic of carnival captured in a sound bite.

One of the concepts of everyday life that Las Vegas stretches the most is that money is important. When you're there, some things become free and some become more expensive. Money turns into tokens, fast moving and of elastic value. You're enticed to play with money, spend it, tip it, risk it, maybe win it. It's very hard to keep taking it so seriously.

And that's a good thing. Because most of the time, grave stock commentators and stiff business advisors lead us to take money very seriously indeed. But there are things that are more important, aren't there?

Then, when the party begins to tire instead of free, it's time to go home. Back to a steady and moderate life, which sounds better and better -- comforting and nourishing and worthwhile.

And that is my favorite benefit of a vacation in Las Vegas -- that home gains so much glamor when it's time to return.

Well, my life doesn't seem to be completely eaten. I've found time for a few other activities. Made some more bookmarks, cleaned a little, cooked a little. Caught a cold. Stuff like that.

The cold isn't too bad. I'm just going to confine myself, rest and drink fluids in hope of being over it in time for us to leave on vacation Sunday.

I also made a retail display for the bookmarks. Thinking about it, I decided it wasn't impossibly daunting to ask around and see if any local bookstores would be interested in offering them for sale. I may just give it a try. Though at current expenses and time to make them, if they do sell, I'll only make the equivalent of about $3 an hour for them. Well, it would keep me in paper and stickers.

Long time readers will be aware that I have a serious yen for paper. As collecting manias go, it's mild and inexpensive. At least until I decide to go to Japan and buy direct from the source.

It's nice that I will have time for things other than buying online music. It turns out that 200,000 songs, as currently offered by the Apple Music store, still leaves out a lot of music I would be interested in owning. I expect the inventory will continue to grow. And I'm very interested to see if they begin offering more independent musicians. I'd appreciate more local and unusual choices.

I can only think of two problems with adding more music. One is that it may be harder to search and find what you're looking for. But if Google can search the entire web, searching a music database is certainly a solvable problem. The other is having to write more small checks to send royalties to more small record companies. This looks solvable, too. With electronic payments, the added effort of more and smaller payments should not unduly increase costs.

So, online music still has a good chance of eating my life. It's just not there yet.

Well, that's it for my life. The rest of it will be devoted to listening to samples and buying music from the Apple Music Store.

This is almost like first surfing the web. I've listened to online samples before, but it was always a chore. Now I'm learning odd facts like that I like almost all songs with the word Creek in the title. Hmmm...

I am trying to fill my Hoedown playlist. If you have any suggestions for uptempo acoustic dance music such as Cajun, bluegrass, early acoustic rock, traditional Celtic, etc., by all means email me a pointer so I can listen to a sample of it. The usual address, annaparadox@mac.com, applies.

Good luck and good listening, Anna

So, it seems being a soldier is glamourous again.

I shouldn't be surprised. It is a generous and noble thing to risk your life for your country. And historically, soldiers have been admired nearly all the time.

It is only recently, when war became capable of destroying all life on the planet, that we have had mixed feelings about our own soldiers.

And I think it was a mistake to vilify the veterans of the Korean and Vietnam wars. In case of real danger to our country, they were demonstrating the virtues we would need. Better to honor the men and women we need.

But it does seem a little odd, coming off several decades of bad press, to see the military canonized again.

And do we need to proceed to glorifying war? Is it fun and exciting to kill people and destroy property? Are we ready to start counting our enemies as less human than ourselves? Were our efforts towards human rights and tolerance all an illusion?

So, yes, honor the men and women who serve. But war -- war is at best a regrettable necessity.

So... somewhere I had a list of things to blog about. Funny how there are days when I run over with too many ideas to capture, and others when I only run over with silence.

We went into Portland to visit Doug's parents. Two and a half years later, it still feels like going home. I don't have a history of frequent moves and adapting to them.

Always enjoy seeing them. Enjoyed dim sum and Vietnamese beef noodle soup, two cuisines unavailable here, and shopped an Asian market, also unavailable here. I can't remember not being drawn to Asian (or as we said then, Oriental) culture. I once calculated that if reincarnation happened, a significant fraction of everyone must have been Chinese. Of course, maybe those reincarnating souls prefer to stay Chinese.

That's classic me -- calculating the probabilities of a hypothetical premise. Good training for science fiction.

One day, I discovered that someone I thought was intelligent couldn't hear hypotheticals. If I said, "if that money comes in, I'll buy that hardcover", he heard "I will buy that hardcover." And similar misunderstandings. That situation would be bound to cause trouble, wouldn't you say?

Meanwhile, running into the news just makes me feel I've wandered into an absurd theater production. There's nothing useful for me to say about it.

So, I'm back to the small tasks of maintaining a life. Had a tire repaired, took Grandma lunch, checked bank balances online, answered mail. Just treading water until everything makes sense again, or until I have the house and all so under control that -- well, that doesn't happen, does it? No, so I'm treading water, maintaining myself, so that when meaning returns, I can act on it.

And that's what's going on when I don't seem to have anything to say.

Here is a historical public service announcement: To do lists are a new development.

There, don't you feel better?

It's true. Universal literacy only has a couple centuries history. Widespread timepieces are no older than the 19th century. Time management only developed in the last half of the last century, and only in the last quarter of it did anyone start thinking everyone should do it. That's what managers were for -- to figure out what the workers should do when.

Before that, humans basicly responded to external signals when deciding what to do. It's warming up? Time to plant. Might check where the shadow of that big rock is hitting for confirmation, or the phase of the moon. Things are ripe? Harvest them. Roof leaks? Fix it. Planning meant doing things in their own time.

Even agriculture is only a few tens of thousands of years old. Before that, it was: hungry? go find food.

Now, millions of people schedule by the hour. They make to do lists and schedule meetings and arrive to the minute. This is what they mean by the accelerating pace of modern life. It's happened over decades, which is slowly enough that it seldom draws our attention. But over decades, in the history of humanity, is astonishly fast. And it's amazing how many people have moved along with it.

Now every man and every woman is an autonomous planning unit. Any single person can look ahead, choose a goal, and begin the step by step process that leads to a new community center, a novel, a new business, a piece of legislation. Smaller goals like creating a garden or redecorating a room or saving for a vacation are almost routine.

Some of us do, some of us don't. And that's fine.

But think how much stronger an economy is when every person can create -- when each point can begin an expansion, and not only the the top.

That is why power to the people, and not only the leaders, is good business. And that is why, over time, the apparent chaos of a democracy outproduces the apparent efficiency of a dictatorship.

And that is why my patriotism applauds diversity.

Today I caught some of my hair in the top of the car door. They lay in a long collection of strands draping from the top of the window. Already separated from my head, they seemed -- useful. I gathered them up, twined them around my finger to make a neat loop, tucked them in my purse. What I'll do with them, I don't know.

In 1993, I had short hair. Somewhere in the following years, I decided to let it grow out. Once in a while, someone asks me how long I plan to let it get. I usually answer "The full Princess Leia" or "Well, I'll see how it goes."

Do you think long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, they had good hair care products? Or did Leia oil her hair like the dynastic Egyptians? Perhaps (since they really must not have been human) they had hair that was livelier and simpler to care for.

There are various landmarks in length of hair. Short seems to mean less than chin length, medium, down to collar, long, shoulder length or below. Then there's waist length and long enough to sit on. The full Princess Leia is ankle length. Long enough to step on could be a problem. Perhaps even those with heroicly well-behaved hair and daily assistance in dressing it draw the line at hair they could step on.

One useful landmark -- not immediately visible -- is hair that is long enough to put up easily. When you have enough hair to twist it around itself and loop it through, you can put it up even in the absence of tools. If it's also short enough, that when you have done this the ends don't stick up, you have reached a length of grace. For a while, your hair will make updoes easy.

A later landmark, of less utility, is when your hair gets long enough to get stuck under your arms. I'm wondering if it outgrows that stage now.

So that's all the hair landmarks I know.

I don't really expect to embroider with my hair. It was done on occasion in the medieval period. It is long enough to usefully thread a needle, but it's been a long time since embroidery held my attention. I like to think that if birds pick it up it will make superior nests. There's enough length to weave around and around, and, as hair diameters go, it's thick and should have the strength to hold well.

So I like to shed outdoors when I can. But the freed hairs largely fall indoors, where, when my housekeeping falls behind, they make superior dust bunnies.

That will have to do, I guess. That will have to do.

I am feeling much better. Several days of paying attention to the basics have done the trick. As usual. When all else fails -- when no activity brings pleasure -- try scut work. You'll appreciate it later.

I've been considering the pleasures of cosmetics. I don't wear any. I watched Legally Blonde again yesterday. It's an excellent text against discrimination against the blonde and fashion conscious. There are a few subcultures where there is discrimination against the beautiful, after all. And all those blonde jokes show it might have been spreading to the wider culture. Good thing Legally Blonde came along to nip it in the bud.

It's the kind of film I like. Unexpected, funny, well-crafted, smart. I enjoyed spending a couple hours watching it with Grandma yesterday, and she laughed too.

So let's consider the message that fashion and intelligence can coexist in a single woman.

First response -- of course they can. Second response -- where did the idea that this is unlikely come from?

It seems many people have run into women who have beautiful surfaces and not much else going on. We've seen plenty of them in the movies too -- it's a well-worn video fiction type. And in the seventies -- my own formative years, the decade of truth -- a nation suffering from Vietnam and Watergate rejected appearances, in search of something more substantive. Perhaps it was television as well that brought the realization of how easily appearance could differ from reality. And so an aesthetic of natural, untampered faces accompanied much of the women's movement.

There are real advantages to not using make-up. You save time in the morning and money at the market. Your face advertises your attachment to the contingent that avoids false appearances. Quite important in my case, you are much less likely to have skin reactions to allergens. And I like the feel of uncoated skin better too.

Subtly and crucially, leaving my face as it is affirms that I am good enough as is. I do not require outside aid to be acceptable -- and it's rare enough that I run into a circumstance where I feel pressured for that choice now. (Not shaving my legs is a different story. For another blog.)

On the other hand, where would the world be if no one tried to create beauty? And that is what wearing make-up is for many women -- creating beauty. I cannot fault that.

For others, it is a way of caring for themselves -- a pleasant luxury that leaves them feeling better about themselves. And I cannot fault that either.

So once again, diversity and tolerance are the best policies. Anyone surprised?

All right. When things aren't working, go back to the basics.

Hygiene -- check. I haven't fallen far enough to stop washing, dressing, and brushing my teeth.

Sobriety -- check. I am not regularly ingesting any mood altering substances, and by grace, I've never failed this checkpoint. Unless you count chocolate.

Home care -- check. The house is a little less clean and orderly than I prefer, but there are no leaks or holes. We have clean clothes and clean dishes. All within the normal range.

Diet -- hmmm. Getting a bit too many prepared foods and too much dairy, too few vegetables. Slight loss of balance here. I'll see what I can do about that.

Exercise -- better than usual. We joined a health club, and have actually improved the frequency and quality of our exercise. This should help in the long run, though it may be a stress in the short term.

Sleep -- getting enough hours, but not waking as rested and energetic as I'd like. Hmmm.

That seems to cover the physical needs. A couple things to work on, no huge red flags.

So, where's Maslow when you need him? What's next?

Ah, Google. Thanks.

The next level is security needs.

Safety -- check. I do not feel threatened in health, life, or ability to meet my physical needs. Although there is a war on, I'm reasonably certain that I will not be attacked. And although the economy is poor, I'm reasonably certain I will still be able to afford food and shelter.

Ah, the next level is the emotional/social level. Now here is where it all breaks down. I have my husband, who is unbelievably great, my best friend, my daily support, my fellow adventurer. I have my family, and we enjoy seeing each other now and then and would absolutely come to each other's aid in times of trouble. But I haven't got a single person I can call to go out for lunch. I know no one that I feel would actually care to listen to my problems. I don't belong to a group that shares my interests and appreciates me for who I am. And this is a sore point. (poke, poke, ouch.) I have joined a couple groups since moving here -- I just haven't felt as included as I did in the ones I left behind.

The next level is esteem. I've already written about my difficulties telling whether my creations are any good. I very often have no confidence in the quality of my writing, my singing, my homemaking and all the other things I do. Sometimes I think I've done something good, and the next day, it looks like trash. Some days I think I'm fairly competent, and others I wonder why no one has shot me yet for being such a burden on the planet.

I hear a lot of writers suffer those ups and downs.

Strangely, some days, I feel I've made it to the top level. I've had hours of clarity, when I feel I am becoming the best person I can be and improving the world with the gifts that were mine alone to offer. I remember a few of those moments.

Meanwhile, I'm not sure what to do about not having a local friend or group. I've tried several avenues, so far without success, and at the moment, I can't think of any more to try.

So back I go to the basics. Home, food, sleep. And maybe tomorrow I'll wake up with a solution, or I'll learn of another group to try, or I'll connect suddenly with someone who shares my interests.

And I do feel better, just for taking the inventory.

Best wishes to all. Anna Paradox.
annaparadox@mac.com

I've just watched the Oscars. There, the glitter of America dresses up and shows its human side.

The Oscars make me feel better. They're a beautiful celebration of art. And beauty and art are tonics. They strengthen the spirit.

And more than that, they celebrate the diversity and vision of our country. Discrete pins and word choices map out political divisions. Disagreements may bring boos -- but boo is a word, and words are the forum I like to see our differences worked out in.

We have learned compassion. Even those protesting the war speak appreciation for our soldiers. It is brave and noble to put your life on the line for your country. And where did we learn to honor the service, even when we cannot honor the cause? From movies. And where did we learn that the other side is people too? From movies.

So I salute Nicole Kidman, for saying the movies matter. I salute the wearers of the dove pin, and Michael Moore, who can be counted on to stir things up. I salute freedom of speech.

And I salute our soldiers. May they come home soon.

Thoreau wrote that most people lead lives of quiet desperation.

I seldom do. I have a life. In fact, most of the people I know, to all appearances, lead good enough lives and spend relatively little time in the self-torture of quiet desperation. They do their work and have their relationships and worry more about meeting the deadline, having their calls returned, and getting dinner on the table than reaching grand goals. Like Voltaire's Candide, who finally decided the sum of wisdom was to cultivate one's own garden, we largely pick a little corner of the world and do what we can there.

But....

For about three weeks, I have not been well. A little cold put me out of the game I had been playing, and it seems that without it, I am uncomfortable in my life. I have not yet found friendships to replace those I left in Portland. I still feel out of step with the smaller town we've been living in for the last two and a half years. I've made some efforts to become connected. I joined a service organization and a writer's group and a health club. I took a class. None of it has brought me again to a place where I feel again that I belong.

I'm tired. I'm tired of pouring myself out, offering the hand of friendship and receiving no return. I'm tired of receiving the critical glances that my mild eccentricities elicit where everyone is so alike. I'm tired of being in the far fringe of the local bell curve, when I was well within tolerance in the larger city. I am homesick, and I thought I was more adaptable than this.

Well, maybe that's quiet desperation. And maybe most people are suffering it.

But I have literature more useful than that.

In issue 8 of Sandman, Neil Gaiman has the very wise Death cuss out her brother Dream for "Feeling all sorry for yourself because your little game is over, and you haven't got the -- the balls to go and find a new one!"

I belong to the most adaptable species on a hugely diverse planet. There are choices available to me that generation after generation succeeded without -- a galaxy, an infinity of new games.

And tomorrow, or even this afternoon, I will find one.

If you haven't already, do check out Neil Gaiman's journal.

I am in pain today.

It hurts me to know, my country, which I love, is causing death and destruction today. My stomach clenches thinking of our troops and their troops and their people suffering and dieing.

I have not seen sufficient evidence to believe this war is necessary. I do not believe diplomacy had been exhausted. I do not believe that removing Saddam Hussein will make our country more secure.

In fact, I believe this show of American aggression will lead to more hatred of us world wide and more terrorists who will be willing to give their lives to do us damage. To defend against terrorism, we should be improving world harmony -- helping others to feel secure. If they did not fear us, why would they want to harm us?

I looked up the quote "America is great because she is good. If ever she ceases to be good, she will cease to be great." Although attributed to Alexis de Toqueville, this statement belongs to the folk process -- first documented in an Eisenhower speech. Its widespread adoption shows that we recognize an essential truth in it. It is our acceptance of diversity that has driven our creativity. It was the moral high ground we held in WWII that rallied the strongest society-wide war effort ever seen and united our country behind our government.

We hold no high ground here. We are punishing our own diversity with the Patriot Act.

And President Bush, elected by the narrowest of margins under questionable circumstances, can not expect to gain the whole-hearted support of Americans in such a dubious war.

"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

I don't even know who to attribute this to. Maybe one of Newton's laws of motion? I was wondering this morning how people got along without the concept "fractal". "Reaction" is even more basic. Try thinking without it for a while.

Today I had the snow tires changed off the car. They are showing only light wear after three season's use. I'm hoping, by the law of action and reaction, that this also means they have inflicted light wear upon the local roads. The evenness of our Subaru's all wheel drive seems to reduce the wear on them.

I always feel vaguely guilty using the studded tires when there is no snow. We had only light coats on three occasions this winter -- uncommonly mild for the region. So I'm reassured to see their light wear. Maybe I haven't done more harm than I received value. Good.

I also remembered to put on gloves to unload them from the car today. The last two years, I have given myself a bleeding gouge when the tire slipped and pulled a stud across some tender portion of my hand. So I'm learning, bit by bit.

It does appear I over-reacted to Google finding me. Just because people can find me with it, doesn't mean they will. I've noticed no particular increase in traffic here. So I can write on in comfortable obscurity.

(Suddenly glances around uneasily. However, no reaction from cosmic forces to the words "comfortable obscurity" bolts from the sky.)

All right, everything's in order. Back to household tasks -- because "entropy" is a concept I have to deal with everyday.

I have 503 reasons poker is more rewarding than writing.

The first reason is immediate feedback. I've had success as a writer to the limit of getting personalized instead of form rejections on occasion. I seldom hear back in less than six weeks. Plus, of course, there's the time it takes to write.

In poker, on the other hand, one hand takes a few minutes. You win or you lose. No waiting. Or play a session of a few hours, and then count your chips. You'll be up or down a numerical amount. Right away, you have your score, in nice numerical form. And you can spend your winnings if you want. Immediate gratification -- or mortification, but at least you don't have to wait for it.

I hate waiting.

Next, poker is a fun process. I have yet to stare at a poker table like a blank white page and dread getting near it. Sometimes writing is fun. Sometimes it's something I push through for the distant reward of having something completed. I look at a poker table and gather clues as to whether I have a good chance there. If not, I don't play. No anguish because I'm blocked at poker. Instead, there's jokes around the table, or intense silence. It's friendly or competitive, always social. It's intriguing to see what cards will come and what the other players will do with them. Notice how people don't play writing?

Third, I have better odds at poker. With thousands of manuscripts coming in for every one my markets are publishing, I have better odds of holding a pair of aces than of selling a story. In fact, I even have a better chance of winning a pot with 7-2 unsuited as my pocket cards in Hold'Em. (For the unfamiliar, that's Hold'Em's worst starting hand.)

I'll limit my other reasons to the 500 dollars I have won in the last month. More are coming to mind. They could get as tiresome as bad beat stories, so I'll skip them.

I'm not giving up writing -- though my poker time is eating into my writing time. Unlike poker, writing creates something new -- and possibly lasting. And I suspect my characters would rise up with knives in their hands if I ignored their stories too long.

But there is a certain attraction to spending my time in a way that has actually been profitable.

Just been over to neilgaiman.com. More evidence for my suspicions that all good things come to his readers -- see the Cthulhu Springtime lyrics portion in February 18th's journal entry.

Meanwhile, Google has purchased Blogger. Both Google and Blogger offer services that made little sense before the internet, and work fabulously with it. Consider how they are both reshaping my experience. I now almost take it for granted that if I want to know something, there's a very good chance that I can use Google to search the Internet for it. And I spend a significant portion of my reading time on public journals, a previously non-existent form of literature.

Here is the illusion of intimacy -- the kind of daily details I seldom hear from my friends. I know more about the lives of certain web diarists than of the lives of any of my family who don't live with me.

There are two critical differences. First, the information exchange is one way. They are not learning equal amounts about me -- and they wouldn't have time to keep up with all their readers. And there is a certain randomness of information in what I know about my family. I might, for example, learn about the embarrassing incident with the lipstick tube and the Pinto at a family wedding. Or the escaped mule and the patch of not-entirely-corn.

But a blogger need never tell if such an event happened to her or him. Everything published in a web journal is there by the author's choice. They have a certain control over the view they offer the world of themselves.

That view might actually be larger than the one offered by knowing someone in the flesh. Especially if you are more interested in others' thoughts than their actions. Nor is it necessarily less true. The bloggers I follow strike me as truthful, or they'd stop interesting me.

I wonder how web journalling will develop. Will we have new celebrities? Some have followings in the tens or hundreds of thousands already. As far as I know, some other sort of celebrity attracted the initial interest in these cases, so far. Will we have new words for the relationship between journaller and reader?

The whole area of a single person being known to very many is relatively modern. The printing press made it possible, but broadcast images seem to have strengthened the effect many times over. And now we have nearly democratic access to a world-wide medium, so that much of the world's population could potentially send messages to the rest.

A web journal conveniently presents more personal information to a wider audience than has ever been practical before.

Yes, I really want to see where this leads.

Two nights of poor sleep leave me feeling brittle and strange. Unusually vulnerable to communication -- and to stomach upset. I went into the world today with strange hair, drank mocha slowly, browsed Barnes and Noble.

The books I touched on today were Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics and Food and Loathing by Betsy Lerner. They strike me with equal force -- both pressing truth into the world, projecting personal story. No matter that one is an argument for the value of comics as a medium, and the other the story of overcoming depression and compulsive eating. Both personal, both true.

My hair doesn't look that bad to me, coming home and looking in the mirror. This morning, I twisted it into three locks -- faster and more chaotic than braiding, each lock two strands twisted then countertwisted against each other. I don't have enough practice to make them even and regular as I imagine them ideally. But if I saw them on someone else, I'd probably think "Cool." Asymmetry, order, chaos.

Still, wearing them outside, I felt exposed, too strange, an outsider. I went to a coffee shop I never frequent for the steamed soy that seemed like it would settle my stomach, not wanting to encounter people I knew. Fortified by the impulse additions of chocolate and coffee, I braved my frequented bookstore. The pointing and laughing I half-expected never materialized. I guess I managed to pass.

Then I encountered Scott McCloud and Betsy Lerner -- both in their way outsiders -- from the marginalized art of comics and the sensation of self as unaccepted when overweight. How many of us feel normal and popular, anyway?

Never mind. My empathy to Scott, to Betsy, and to me -- three outsiders trying, at least, to say something true and personal.

Lost another post. Hit the wrong button this time. Well, I do keep learning. I hope.

We are making progress on exercising more often. It has even been somewhat pleasant.

We've made the tour of local health clubs, more or less proceeding from least expensive to most. Tonight we used the first of three passes to try the most expensive.

This is what more than doubling the monthly fee and more than quadrupling the initiation fee gets you in our area:

Showers with both soap and shampoo dispensers. Racquetball courts. Impeccable cleanliness and complimentary use of towels. Higher ceilings and reduced noise. An indoor pool and jacuzzi. Seasonal outdoor pool and jacuzzi. Outdoor track. Three aerobics rooms, and water fitness classes as well. An attached restaurant and snack bar. And all the prestige of knowing you belong to a club so exclusive it has a two month waiting list.

There are actually fewer weight machines, and no more cardio machines than at the next most expensive place. All in all, we need the extra cash more than the extra amenities.

But we're savoring our passes while we have them. Hmmm... so this is what it's like to be rich.

Yes, it's indulgent. And it's more than we need.

Google has found me.

Suddenly, I may not be writing into a void any more. Suddenly, I may have listeners.

It's a strange feeling. I felt almost protected, if a little lonely, writing my thoughts onto the web. Someone could see them, but -- it seemed a bit unlikely. Now, I will turn up when someone searches for Anna Paradox. Whether anyone will search for that phrase is another question, still a bit unlikely. But I have moved several levels of likelihood farther into the public view.

My strongest reaction, however, is that I had better give you guys something. I haven't been updating very frequently. If you find this, why bother to come back? Nothing's happening.

So, I am resolving again to write more often. I want to put some time into the Nanowrimo area, and complete the logs. I'm considering posting the whole novel, suitably tagged as adult material.

And if you have any feedback, by all means write me at:
annaparadox@mac.com