Are modest little single-family homes still being built? These days, it seems like there's no middle ground between erecting large, ugly, faux-everything monuments to money and tastelessnessitude, and factory-like faux-ghettos crammed with the home versions of the office cubicle, desultorily dressed with a smattering of faux-charming architectural rhinestones. Where is the modest bungalow of yesteryear? "Modest" is a word that has been plowed into the muck by the great steamroller of commerce in recent years. Modest implies "not spending as much as you possibly can", which is repellent to the devotees of consumerism, meaning all of us, alas. It's a word that should come back into vogue, although I have ambivalent feelings about it on a strictly personal level, because it will always remind me of "Modess-- because", which was emblazoned on the giant carton I had to balance on the handlebars of my bicycle every month or so as I negotiated a tortuous and, I hoped, unnoticed route home from the grocery store. But I digress. Oh, well, I guess I was done. In order to count as a digression, do you have to return to the original topic? Is there another term for it when it doesn't? Kind of like "peninsula" vs. "island"? And now I see I've created a sub-digression, a symbiotic digression, if you will. I may have opened up a whole new field of grammar or rhetoric here. I hope everyone reading this realizes that I use the term "if you will" ironically. I'm not pedantic and prissy in the least. There, I just picked my nose and wiped it on the backside of my iMac. You'll have to take my word for that, of course, but I believe I've built up enough trust and respect among you lot for my word to be taken. But I digress.

Yesterday in an email, Terry The Canuck, while describing a past medical conference, stated the following:

The best story out of the Infectious Diseases Society of America was about 15 years ago, when a doctor stationed medical students in washrooms at the meeting to observe how many delegates washed their hands after they... you know.

Just this minute got back from Figure Drawing Group. Well, okay...just this minute got back from drinking Tanqueray martinis, slightly dirty, *after* Figure Drawing Group, but this is as up-to-the-minute as I can be. Plus, for some reason, the keyboard is acting up and typing really weird words on its won. There, see what I mean? Anyways, what you see hear is the longest I've ever spent on a single  watercolor. Three freakin hours! This is such a long way from the Laurelines school of watercolor painting it isn't funny. Strictly speaking, however, there is no distance from the Laurelines school of watercolor painting that would be funny. there's just nothing inherently funny about the subject at all. I don't know what I was thining. I still don't know what I'm thining. I don't know what "thining" is. Well, I've learned a lesson here, folks. Tanqueray martinis, slightly diryt, are not conducisve to coherent blogging. So I'm going to cut my losses and sign off for now. Except to say that the model is not chewing her cud nor does she have a goatee. And Bernice just pooped and pawed all her litter out onto the floor, leaving her damn dpoop unsullied by anything that might mask the smell, and let me tell you, the intesne aroma of cat poop dow not mix well with the aftereffects of Tanqueray martinis, slightly dirty. Bye now.

A few miles outside of Pungo, this rich guy has built an airport, and a museum, where he houses a few dozen airplanes from World War II and earlier, plus a few German staff cars and whatnot. Apparently, this rich guy is also an arch-conservative, and this airport is a mandatory stop on the right-wing campaigning and fundraising circuit. So if Catherine had been here to grab my earlobe, I probably wouldn't have been allowed to visit this place. The scary thing is, all the planes are in good working order, so it's not inconceivable that if a coup against President Obama is launched, it'll be from here.

We materialize, we drink our coffee, and then we're gone. The baristas may or may not remember our faces for a day or so, as they write our preferences on the white cups with their markers. Permanent markers.

Frankie's Place is on a semi-industrialized stretch of Indian River Road, probably serving Colonna's shipyard, which is just down the road. It wasn't open on the day we stopped, so I have nothing further to report, you miserable bints.

If I were ever in a situation where I had to chop up a body to dispose of it, I think I would just throw up my hands and say, okay, that's it, folks, I'm throwing in my cards. But that's just me.

Years ago, I got used to sleeping with a "white noise" machine going, and reached the point where it was hard to sleep without it. Eventually, the one I had burned out, and I started leaving iTunes radio on, tuned to an "old-time radio drama" station. Don't know why, I just found it entertaining. So anyways, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with a recently-spoken line from one of these "dramas" repeating in my head, and it makes absolutely no sense to me. Last night it was "Papering the wall is due to his crazed mind!" One night last week it was "As you can guess from my leg, I'm a mutant. My name is Gregory." Sometimes I lie back and meditate on these lines, as if they were koans. And sometimes at the coffee shop, I'll overhear a bit of conversation that will affect me the same way, like the above. Life is like a really silly sitcom that will probably be cancelled before the year's out.

 Fool me once, shame on me; fool me twice, you must be Dr. Research. I swear, he has such a mild-mannered demeanor that he can play me for a sucker with impugnity. Last time, he took me to what was supposed to be Bingo at the Elks Lodge, and it was a snuff movie audition. Today, he told me were going to Pungo to sketch, and like a fool I believed him, until he breezed right through Pungo at 65, pulling a giant "spliff" out of his shirt pocket and putting fire to it. "Sour Diesel," he croaked, holding in the smoke. "Grown indoors, but it'll dissolve your nerve endings into a tarry residue not unlike that found in the heel crack of a biker's boot, if you get my drift." He passed me the reefer. "Toke up, bud," he said. "You'll need it where we're going." "But--isn't this illegal?" I stammered. "Hey, I'm a doctor," he winked. "Haven't you ever heard of medical marijuana?" Before I could answer, we squealed to a halt at the foot of the Currituck ferry. All around us were large tricked-out motorcycles and their scruffy riders. "Toe Bandit!" Doc shouted out the window. "Puffknuckle! Stink-Jello! Cry Baby! Chicken Strips! What's the haps!" One of the bikers sauntered over and leaned in the window. "What's up, Doc?" he queried and eyed me. "What have we got in here, some fresh meat?" "You got it, konky wacker," chuckled Doc. "Wh--what's going on here?" I stammered. "Takin a biker ferry ride, homes," smiled Doc. "Gonna mess with the squares." And with that, he popped out of the car and sauntered up to the burgundy Toyota Camry in front of us. "Hey Pops!" he shouted at the elderly gentleman at the wheel, "let me clean your glasses for you!" He snatched the man's glasses and threw them to the ground, smashing them with his boot heels. "There you go," he said as he handed the broken, twisted glasses back to the stunned old man. "Maybe now you can see what's happening," Doc smirked as he sauntered back to his car. "Ha ha ha ha ha", laughed all the bikers. "D--doc!" I stammered. "What's that?" Doc barked. "Did I hear something from the Peanut Gallery?" "N--no, never mind," I stammered. "That's what I thought," Doc sneered as he sauntered onto the ferry. "Ha ha h

Okay, that's enough, I'm caught in a tangled web of lies. Sure, we went down to the Currituck ferry, and yes, there were bikers on it, but none of the rest is true. Well, Doc did smash an old man's glasses, and he did smoke a joint, and he did call the bikers by their nicknames, but the rest is exaggeration, and I'm very sorry for it.

Oh, and he didn't take me to a snuff movie audition instead of Bingo at the Elks Club. It was just for an ordinary porn movie.

Now there's a catchy headline. The old ad guy hasn't lost his touch. When I logged into Squarespace to post this, I glanced at my stats. There's a chart that lists the most popular keywords that brought people to this blog. They were, in descending order: nude, nude, nude, nude, and liverwurst. How can anyone who's paying the slightest attention to things not conclude that the world is a deeply ridiculous place?