The depiction of life in the Warsaw Ghetto, the way small details illuminate huge horrors, even the can of pickles-- it was sufficient to rip my heart out of my chest, throw it on the pavement, and beat it with a sledgehammer.

After this experience, it will surprise nobody that I needed a pick-me-up. And that turned out to be: bird shopping. It seemed like the only thing that could possibly counterbalance the pain.

I saw lots of cool parakeets-- white ones! Baby ones! But there was this one bird who kept flying over to me and chirping at me. This bird really seemed to like me! And my parakeet book says that, if possible, you should let your bird choose you. I have been choooseeen. (That was my Toy Story alien voice, couldja tell?)

I kept testing out various possible names for the bird, who is a girl bird (they assure me), including Medea, Minerva, Ooo, Buffy, and Mrs. Butterworth. None of them jumped out at me as the name. Her top half is yellow, but her bottom half has splashes of grass green, which sort of makes her look like a yellow flower. I pondered the name Daffodil for a while, until I realized that I had just found the perfect excuse for naming her Princess Buttercup.

Princess Buttercup it is. I call her B sometimes. And sing the "My Little Buttercup" song from The Three Amigos and she looks frightened. She's got a very lively, curious personality, seems to enjoy hanging upside down, and I think eventually she might like me. We'll have to wait and see.

I keep hearing commercials for the new Dragnet, and they make me laugh.

When I was in high school, my best friend (at the time) and I would write parodies starring a Detective Friday. He had sidekicks named Wednesday, Saturday and Thursday. All the stories started with paragraphs like, "The sky was cloudy on that winter afternoon. Shady characters wandered the streets of Manhattan. I checked my pockets for my cigarettes and found a fifth of vodka-- I assumed it was a clue of some sort. It was a Wednesday, and my name was Friday. Detective Friday."

In our stories, Friday was always having a "cup of Joe" and Joe turned out to be someone that Friday sort of knew, like his barber or his gardener's cousin. Anyway, I can't quite explain it and I don't really have a point. I still have those stories somewhere; I should find them. They were hilarious.

Hmm. What else is there? I've been fighting an annoying cold, working with some new students, dreaming of winning the lottery... oh, I did a nice big submission wave today. It took me forever to get it together, but in the end, I submitted to fifteen different magazines.

I think the last batch I did, I got three acceptances. That's right, they love me. I think the quality of the work I am sending out now is higher, though. It would be nice to be published in a fancy place. I submitted to a couple of fancy places, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

It's getting late, and clearly I've run out of things to say. See you next time. Talk amongst yourselves.