2003-03-26 | 11:26 p.m.

while staying at a hotel, corduroy licorice had trouble finding a place to plug in his hair dryer. he finally discoverd the power behind the throne. why someone would install an electrical outlet behind a toilet was beyond him.

***

this terrific newsweek article gives a helpful rundown on the men and u.s. policy that led to this iraq attack. it's pretty scary that a handful of "mayberry machiavellians" (as one white house staff member nicknamed them) could twist and torture world history like this. my favorite line in the article:

"the bush administration is not known as a hotbed of intellectualism..."

and a sobering portion:

"as historian walter russell mead points out, 'since the vietnam war, taken by some as opening a new era of reluctance in the exercise of military power, the united states has deployed combat forces in, or used deadly force over, cambodia, iran, grenada, panama, lebanon, libya, saudi arabia, kuwait, iraq, turkey, somalia, haiti, bosnia, sudan, afghanistan, the south china sea, liberia, macedonia, albania and yugoslavia. this is a record that no other country comes close to matching.'�

***

i have a new neighbor. i think of him as my kramer, except he's not as funny and hasn't mastered the art of the dramatic entrance. he likes to talk a lot. he likes to complain a lot. he likes to go outside to smoke several times a night.

unfortunately, since his door faces mine, he can hear when i leave to take out the trash or go to the laundry room, etc., so on a regular basis he will "happen" to come out to smoke when he knows we'll cross paths. this alternates between being annoying and creepy. he seems basically non-threatening, but the less time i spend with him the better.

one night i got to hear about how he almost got hit by a forklift at work that day. this would be the second close-brush-with-a-forklift incident in his life. while he told his tale from his open doorway, i eyed his incredibly fat cat who sat and stared at us from the livingroom floor like a lumpy, stoned trapezoid.

tonight kramer-lite told me that he is about to turn 47, which is a bit intimidating he explained because: "that's the oldest i've ever been." he smirked after his little joke and took a drag off his cigarette. then he asked me if i did yoga every day and didn't it worry me to park under a palm tree that drops its fronds without ceremony and was it tough to put my theft-deterring "club" lock on my steering wheel since he had observed me putting up a struggle with it just moments ago?

i try to be neighborly, but let's just say it's lucky for him i don't drive a forklift.

***

a little bit of country-fried inspiration for the day:

"find out who you are and do it on purpose." -dolly parton

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