I'm back in the saddle for the most part, rolling on a new art project and having a ball reading Middlesex, which Christine, my beautiful and trusted Lit connection, dropped on me a couple weeks ago. I'll probably go to see the dentist tomorrow, but that's ok. I've got checks in the mail!

Perhaps this joviality in the face of all things tragic (see posts below) is related to the 50+ degree weather. Whatever. I'm going outside.

Also, I seems to be one of the fiew, the proud, the ones who has friends who like to troll his site. The first two comments I've gotten were from "Ann Coulter" (read all about her here and "Andrew W.K." who we all know and love. Though the former is almost certainly Slarz, I suspect the latter might be Frank based on the tone.

Well, it seems that lines are being drawn. Both France and Russia are both signalling that they'll veto the war resolution, if it even gets the required nine votes. Powell reiterates that we're going to go alone. War seems evident and the nation is divided. This is not the fault of Mr Hussein -- it is the fault of Mr Bush.

I for one am tense. While I sense that there's value to be had in the political awakening that is happening among people, especially people of my generation, all over the country, I'm sick to death that it's taking a war to do it. I'm also worried that more damage will be done than we can credibly repair in our lifetimes, and that there's nothing I can do to stop that damage from being done. Lately, I have odd urges to smash things, to paint giant anti-war slogans on the faces of buildings, to vent my frustration and anger and shame in highly visible and entropic ways. I don't think this is a good sign.

Where am I going and how did I get into this handbasket!
SAG is worried about balcklisting. A man is arrested for wearing pro-peace shirts (cnn files this under "offbeat"). Republicans are gleefully profiteering off of war.

I feel an intense and stupifying frustration. Focus, Koenig! Focus! My face hurts and itches... the uncomfortable part of the healing process. It seems like there will be war in spite of it being a very bad idea. I have an unbelievable tension between my shoulders. I can't relax. I can't rest my eyes on anything. My neck is sore. I jangle. This is one of the bad mornings. In a few hours I'll be headed up to see Peter. Maybe getting out of the city for 18 hours will help. I don't know. I don't know what to do with myself. I've reached the end of a period of fairly active work and like a junky kicking I'm deep in the throes of sick.

I still have pain. Not as much as yesterday, but still more than I would like. The swelling has gone down some, but my tooth remains somewhat more tender than I'd like it to. Really not relishing the prospect of trying to find a dentist... it's not that I fear or loath the medical establishment, just that a certain part of me always wonders how monkey-man hunter-gatherers dealt with this kind of thing. There's an impulse to let nature take its course, but I suppose that's why not many primitive humans lived past 35.

Worst of all, I have to go out in public today, and I'm really especially not relishing the prospect of having to explain what happened to everyone I see. Maybe I'll stick with the marine fight story; when he first saw my face, I duped Kevin into thinking I got into a rumble with some Jarheads after mouthing off in a bar. I just feel like an idiot telling people that a simple pothole busted me up.

Rambling among the moderately exhibitionist and fair-to-poorly written blogosphere of the more or less beautiful people, I come across this true gem: The New York City Anti-Hipster Forum. True comic life-recording at its best.

Talking about the rent, Frank and I have decided to take a page from the Team Bush playbook and simply repeat the phrase, "we're rich!" until it becomes true. Wealth is a massively concurrent consensual hallucination anyway, so why couldn't the power of suggestion have some effect. It's a faith-based initiative, after all.