• “Aunt Elisabeth,” the woman who runs the daycare place is roughly our age, rides a motorcycle, has a tattoo, is still in good shape, has a fairly dark tan and is wearing a short white dress.

• And a white bra, and white thong.
• Gamma is a fish of some sort, with blue hair and glitter. No, she tells me, she’s water.
• Some father is looking Beta over way too closely, and for way too long. I resist, barely, the urge to stick his head in a mop bucket and step on the pedal a few times.
• My potato salad went extremely fast. In part because it is just so damn good, in part because Gamma was flogging it to all her friends.
• “Aunt Elisabeth” is still wearing that thong.
• That pervert is still ogling my beautiful 13-year-old daughter. Seriously, where’s the mop bucket? Oh, here comes his wife…
• Gamma’s daycare person, Gabi, divulges to Beta and me where the good desserts are hidden. While everyone else is sitting outside in the hot sun, we sneak inside the house and gorge on stolen desserts.
• I go back outside and discover that, if I only relax and ask a few questions (THANKS FRANCIS), I can make conversation. At one point a mother praises the potato salad. Alpha tells her I made it. She says, “Oh, you can cook!” and I just barely keep from saying, “Yeah, and I can fuck, too.” Later I regret not having said it.
• Aunt Thong walks by again.
• People start drifting out. Gamma is burying some boy in the sand. It will be up to me to talk her into leaving, Alpha says. Gamma, like the rest of us, is usually the last to leave a party.
• I use the America card. I say, in two minutes we are leaving, because you have to tank up on sleep for our trip to see the relatives.
• To my great surprise, when I come back in two minutes, she does not even protest! She goes along with us without incident.
• It turns out to be harder to get Alpha to leave.
• Beta beats up on me for a while, because this is how we show our affection sometimes. I beat up on her a little too.
• We make it home with no tears, although Gamma makes everything blue and glittery.

Clothespins for the Revolution

Okay, so Playboy killed Zona Nuda, but the Shoe Project is still rockin and rollin, with new shoes from Seize the Dave posted today. Send me yours, all the rules are at the Shoe Project.

We’re
hitting
the
road
for a
while.
I may
log on
during
that
time,
but I
hope
to be
having
so
much
fun I
forget
all
about
the
Internet.
See
you in
two
weeks,
until
then,

I kiss you.

After receiving a cease and desist letter from attorneys representing Playboy magazine, attorneys retained by Feral Living have advised us not to proceed with the Zona Nuda Naked Blogger Project.

However, on the slight chance that we will someday go ahead with the project after all, or find a compromise solution, feel free to keep those non-pornographic nude pictures coming!

Bahahahaha. I have two daughters, they both look like me (short grey hair, squinty eyes) so you know it happens. But #2 in the search? I’m flattered.

I’ve been getting the usual interesting search requests. I guess I could do a public service and respond to them, except, eh, that’s been done. But sex between americans and europeans? How weird! Is it even possible? I mean, don’t you need an adapter? Some sort of 120/240 transformer? Some two-prong-into-three-prong thing? PAL/NTSC? Leaded-unleaded?

How should I know? And who cares, ultimately? Sex between americans and europeans, big deal. Nowadays people manage to have sex with anything.

What I find more interesting are arguments between americans and europeans. Especially after more than 20 years. I mean, in the beginning, anyone can argue. And Americans and Europeans have plenty of extra issues. But after 20 years you can either go the dysfunctional circular route, arguing about the same thing over and over and over and over. And over and over.

Or you can metaargue © Feral Living 2002. There are many kinds of metaargument. You can argue about the rules of argument, including fine points of debate, discourse and rhetoric. You can argue about metaphors:

Alpha: I can’t bear catastrophes like that plane crash where so many children our children’s age die.
Miguel: Mm hmm. It’s terrible.
Alpha: They were being rewarded for getting good grades!
Miguel: I know. [blah blah about Swiss air traffic controllers being to blame] But innocent kids die every day.
Alpha: Yes.
Miguel: And it’s everyone’s fault. We’re all involved.
Alpha: ["not again" look]
Miguel: For example, anyone who burns gasoline in their car, or heats with oil contributes to the problems in the middle east, gives incredible power to the oil companies to disrupt things there. We’re ultimately not without guilt.
Alpha: [Looks at yogurt looks at Miguel] So why don’t you take the train to work anymore?
Miguel: I got tired of getting bronchitis in the winter. I’m part of the problem. We all are. We’re all flies caught in the gigantic spiderweb of evil.
Alpha: Uh-uh. We’re the spiderweb. The children are the flies.
Miguel: And George Bush is the spider. Him and the rest. No, we’re all the flies.
Alpha: No, we’re the web, connecting everything. Fly-die, hey it rhymes.
Miguel: Fly.
Alpha: Web.
[etc etc]

Kids: try this at home when you run out of things to argue about.

[ps I also notice FL is #1 in this yahoo search for "cunigulis". Must get spell-checker.]

Adam Blust of lucky8ball web design is now publishing the perfectly-titled Web Common Sense, a down-to-earth newsletter on web design issues. Go subscribe now.

PS HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ADAM.