A rooster in their midst

A rooster appears to have infiltrated my hens and chicks. No, I haven't invested in an eglu. I'm talking about the succulents in my rock garden. Amidst the sweet little hens and chicks a tumescent protuberance has sprouted which is embarrassingly phallic in appearance. It's probably more appropriately described as funnily phallic, since a number of Dr. Seussian growths are projecting from its head. If there is ever a floral equivalent of the Most Phallic Building contest I believe I may have a winner—as long as performance pressure doesn't turn my phytophallus into a shrinking violet.

The unbearable lightness of being

Near the end of my appointment last week the dentist asked if I'm anemic. “Your gums are pale.” I've certainly been feeling psychologically anemic for the past few years. I was telling Maureen right before we went to Leonard Cohen that I didn't feel excited about seeing him; all my gloating was feigned. I'm not excited about the possibility of getting my own plot of land to farm on Facebook. I'm not even excited about being on holidays next week. I would say that there's a sort of ennui that's entered my existence, except that word brings up images of someone draped languidly over a fainting couch and that's not what it's like. I keep thinking of the unbearable lightness of being. Not the movie: I wasn't really sure what it was about except that I remember being rather transfixed by Daniel Day-Lewis and Juliette Binoche. It's what the phrase means for me, that sense that what I imagine are weighty and substantial things, aren't. It's not the feeling that those things are going to disappear one day, it's the feeling that they don't really exist. But maybe like Nicole Kidman in The Others, it's me who is the ghost.