this is me having an early morning conference with my friend, the hungarian cat.

enhanced cd's really annoy me. all you want to do is listen to it while you're working on the computer, so you put it in, and it takes over everything and uses all the memory and crashes the computer. great. all for a screen saver that no one would ever want anyway. do us a favor--just put a virus on them, please. that way there will be less confusion.

i went to see a super fancy famous scientist give a talk today. mostly i didn't pay much attention and thought about how my legs were killing me. the little room would hold about thirty fewer people than showed up, so i sat in the back, cross-leg on the top of a table. in front of me was another guy, leaning on the table, and most of my view was the back of his neck. so i ask you this question: what is with guys who wear that little gold necklace? you know--that little gold necklace. i mean really.

osmium at once fascinates and repulses me.

the whole periodic table is here.

there is an underdogism to everything. yes, in history class you know you always sort of liked carthage, even though you never really learn anything about it other than that rome destroyed it. and in chemistry class, you wanted to learn about the weird elements that were ignored to the point of intrigue. like tantalum. or gallium, perhaps the patron metal of josh gallaway, a metal that melts in your hand.

at the end of may, on memorial day weekend, i was in morgantown west virginia for dave and lakha's wedding. dave and i went to college together, and he lived in my apartment in new orleans for a while after he finished medical school.

so well over half the people at the were indian, because lakha is indian. (indian by descent and west virginian by birth.) during the reception, someone must have told the band that the wedding was "indian," because apropos of nothing between two songs the bass player says, "lets all remember, before columbus was even here, there were indians." now, retarded or not, he probably had some sort of good intentions with this retarded statement. but, no one seemed to hear him. it just happened and vanished, and then they were playing some crappy wedding song. perhaps only i was paying attention. i was telling the best man that, and he and i were silent for a moment or two, and he said, "wow, that's so bad i kind of like it."

yeah, i said it. seems i didn't write anything through the month. i think i did my doctoral research proposal in may--la de da, like i care. and now here i type like a man awakened, and the keys feel like a little nubby-tongued kitten licking my fingertips.

mia took this picture of sarah at a job they had for cartier last week.