I guess that’s why he is a boss at a ministry, guy knows EVERYTHING.

Also, the staff member is KEVIN BACON.

Or something.

A red cat rubs up against his pantleg, covering it with hair. Edgar Allan Poe opens the door and lets out the cat.  In accordance with the Law of Preservation of Red Cats, the other red cat comes in and demands food. Edgar Allan Poe goes back into the kitchen to get cat food because even though it’s too early if he gives the cat food it might let him sleep. If he doesn’t, it won’t.

In the kitchen, he steps into the tortoise dish.

These are the facts of the tortoise dish: it is too warm for the tortoise to hibernate, but too cold for the tortoise to spend all day outside. So the tortoise lives in the kitchen. That’s why there is a tortoise dish in the kitchen. The tortoise dish is full of water. The tortoise drinks from the dish, and walks through it before having a bowel movement.

Of the three nasty things you can do with the tortoise dish, stepping into it turns out to be the least nasty, as it spills the least water. The second-worst is to kick it by accident, which spills more water. The worst is to step on the side, which flips it over and empties it out, throwing algae-and-worse-filled-water a long distance.

Edgar Allan Poe goes back to bed, but the cat he let out is meowing so he lets it back in.

In this manner, he fails to fall back to sleep.

His alarm goes off at 4.30. He gets up, feeds the cats, eats breakfast, makes a cup of coffee and his wife asks him to take out the garbage.

He goes around the house gathering  the residual waste from all the half-filled garbage cans into a single garbage can. When he empties out the bathroom garbage can, something remains stuck to the rim of the bin. He looks closer. It is a sanitary napkin.

He sighs, and reaches to take it, but his wife is walking past and plucks it off and drops it into the other garbage can.

Edgar Allan Poe gathers residual waste from the rest of the bins in the house. He goes outside and empties it all into the large garbage can. The sanitary napkin is stuck to the rim of the small garbage can again. Edgar Allan Poe says, It’s the Tell-Tale Sanitary Napkin, or something. He plucks it off, and throws it away and returns to the house.

He opens the cabinet to get cat treats to lure a cat out of the living room, and kicks the tortoise dish.

Edgar Allan Poe drives his daughter to town on his way to work.

It’s beautiful isn’t it, he says. The weather. Like a new season. Too warm to be winter, too crisp in the mornings to be summer. They should invent a new season.

Dad, dad, dad, says his daughter.

Young woman: Yes, that would be cool.

Man: Think so?

Young woman: Yeah. And you could tattoo a rock on your bicep, so that when you flexed your arm it would look like the tortoise was fucking the rock.

Man: [blink] Totally.

Tortoise: You’re a little close to my rock, you’re making me nervous.

Man: Sorry. [Steps away from rock]

Tortoise: Hey, nice shoes!

Man: I… carry on, don’t let me distract you.

Tortoise: You have any more of that lettuce? For once I finish here? What’s up, you look down in the dumps.

Man: No, nah. I’m fine. I have time on my hands, is all. Just not infinite time, so I’m forced to prioritize my goof-off agenda, which re-stresses me.

Tortoise: Have you vaccuumed?

Man: Yep.

Tortoise: Mopped?

Man: Just finished.

Tortoise: Made the bed?

Man: Eh, yeah, sure I made the bed.

Tortoise: Decided what to cook on Sunday and done the shopping?

Man: I’ll do that tomorrow.

Tortoise: [Nods]

Man: I mean, should I play the cello, fire up the theremin, try to compose something, record something, write something?

Tortoise: Have you weeded the vegetable garden?

Man: I did that last week.

Tortoise: It grows back, you know. Mowed?

Man: I’m putting that off until tomorrow, in the hopes that it rains and gives me an excuse not to.

Tortoise: Respect.  [Stares at man]

Man: What?

Tortoise: Did you really make the bed?

Man: Mostly.

Tortoise: If I were you, I would write an erotic novel entitled Transit of Venus.

Man: I think that’s been done.

Tortoise: Can’t copyright titles, dude.

Man: Plus, aren’t you supposed to write what you know?

Tortoise: I would totally write it, but I’m busy.

Man: Maybe I will try to come up with a name for the musical genre in which I compose. Unfortunately creepcore is taken.

Tortoise: Crashcreep?

Man: Hrm. Nice.

Tortoise: Don’t mention it.

Also, he will be happy to be reunited with his stone, I imagine.

My interpretation was that he was just, you know, c’mon baby, who cares about a little storm!!?!

My wife’s was that he was protecting his stone from the elements.

I put both of them into his house.

This morning, after I finish my coffee, I’ll put his rock back in its usual spot. I’m afraid he’d never come back out of his house if I didn’t (he = tortoise, not rock).

(Apparently the rock = female).

She never gives up. I reiterate, I know. She is one of the lucky ones. We all are. Thanks to a long – infinitely long, or at least immeasurably long series of highly unlikely occurrences, we are here. In all likelihood we shouldn’t be. According to the laws of probability. But we are. Because we were lucky. We call it lucky. We here at the tip of the long tail. Because luck got us here, we believe in it. We worship it every week in line for our lottery tickets. We have ceremonies and riguals to guarantee it, like baptisms, weddings, and funerals.

When the tortoise runs her circles, though, something else is going through her mind. Science.  She is thinking about science. Through her millions of years of evolution she has learned to make her luck. She doesn’t sit in a shady spot, or in a sunbeam wishing for it. She, usually (unless she is resting or digesting, or fucking her rock (she might not be female, in fact)) walks the perimeters of her existence, seeking an exit. The exit will not come to her, it has to be found.  She has to go to it. And she is seeking, not trying to work magic. Because she knows that this amazing series of accidents that is our universe will at some point create a situation she can seize to get what she wants. A door will be left open, a section of fence will fall over, a plant will grow bushy enough to support her weight, and she will climb out.

And although highly unlikely, these possibilities are less unlikely at the perimeter than at the safe center. A tortoise does not believe in fairy godmothers. It believes in pellets of food, lettuce, a water dish, a little house, daytime and night time, hot and cold, hiding and seeking, marching the perimeter, finding a hole and climbing out. It believes in what it has observed and experienced, not in what it wants.

Tortoises invented science, science defined as observing without prejudice and using what is real and what works. Tortoises don’t disbelieve in God but they don’t pray either.

Present company excepted, of course.

A couple days ago I wore my new suit. It differs from my old suits in several aspects. One, it is new and they are old. Two, it is not black. Three, it fits. I… sometimes you just reach the point where you say, you know, fuck it and buy clothes that fit and not that are the size you want to be to motivate you to get to that size. Boy, it was comfortable not feeling like a bumble bee squeezed into a wasp outfit.

Looking back on your life, it is like badly-made Swiss cheese, I was thinking just now, out strolling around the neighborhood. Mostly solid cheese, with a few giant holes in it so when you slice it to make a sandwich, you’re all, WTF is with this big hole?

And the ham is looking through, and the structural integrity of the sandwich is compromised, and a thick layer of mayonnaise and mustard is trapped in the hole, unless you fill it with a slice of pickle or tomato.

Also: my tortoise escaped. We’re going to hang posters around the neighborhood. We’re more concerned and upset than I had expected. The fact that it escaped was not exactly surprising – it’s been trying to tunnel out for the past five years – but it’s still a shock to see that it has gone over the wall.

Also: the kids are in the United States now. Hi, kids. Hope all is well.