Watching a Lizard

I have been reading too much these last few days. I pick out a good evening book, and go sit out on the porch and read and think, "well, just one more chapter" and read some more, and think, "well, just one more chapter," and so on and so on, and Yippeee! it's 2:30am. I have been doing this with alarming frequency recently. I have also been reading a tremendous amount (last night I read Pete Dexter's Paris Trout, a good book, but could have used some editing).

The problem is, one can only stay up that late so many times a week. You go over your tolerance level and you start to feel a little woozy. You have strange cravings ("Erik, have you seen that large block of chocolate you bought the other day?" well, yes. I saw it. It's not down there. In fact, it's not in the kitchen. Well, actually, it doesn't exist anymore. Sorry). When I have not been sleeping, I get ravenous at about 10 or 11 in the morning. I know from experience that if I simply avoid between meal snacks I can eat whatever I want during my meals and lose weight. So, when I find myself feeling heavy, it means that I am eating between meals. I eat between meals when I am not sleeping enough.

I also lose my legendary immunity to all sorts of bugs.

Sniffle. Sniffle. We all have it. I shouldn't have it. I don't get these things...unless...curses!

So, I will have to switch to duller reading matter. Perhaps a book by the recent Nobel Peace Prize winner! No, nothing that bad.

So, when I am in a daze, sniffling and wondering why I am maddeningly hungry, I like to sit and watch the lizard. The lizard has a great way of moving, of stalking prey, of basking. There are moments when I feel like a lizard, but usually more of a marine monitor than a leopard gecko. I want to fill my belly full of yummy seaweed and then bask on a hot rock, letting the sun cook my greens in my belly. Well, not really, but at times it sounds fun.

I have been meaning to write a post taking down all of these folks who think that it is EVER acceptible to vote for a Mormon. I will do this one, because it is important. However, I have work for a client that comes first, then I can rant about the Mormons. It is a good warmup for my annual meditation on "Why the Mayflower should have smashed up at sea, sending every man, woman and child of those Puritan creeps down into the drink," which is generally followed by my getting misty over Janet Reno's two moments of glory (reuniting that Cuban boy with his father, in spite of the snarling of the pseudo-cons, and scorching the Branch Davidians), and then a good giggle at her post-AG career, if you want to call it that.

But that will have to wait. Just keep in mind, that the Mormons are either stupid or evil. There can be no third position. There can be a mix, a conflict, the sort of fellow that I believe Orson Scott Card is. Stupid on this, while smart on other things. But more and more I think that people who are stupid for this Smithism are being deliberately stupid, and that is evil.

So, no, TSO, you cannot go around voting for Romney. He is a nasty piece of work. I trust him even less than I trust the Dishonorable Adolf von Kennedy, Gubernator of Kalifornia. who, by the way, almost makes me ashamed of my Austrian heritage. Almost. We still are destined to rule the world.

AEIOU.