Random Pics.

First of all, if you still even look at this URL, thank you. I apologize for not delivering much lately. That's a whole separate UncMo.

A side benefit of needing to have bloodwork done at the Quest Diagnostics lab on Connecticut Avenue in Washington is that you will leave feeling better about your life than you did when you walked in, especially after being exposed to the staff there. You may not be thrilled to watch multiple vials fill up with your own blood, but your phlebotomist is even less thrilled. I can't remember the last time I saw people looking so miserable in their jobs. Maybe it's just too many babies and specimens being loaded onto their counters.

A few years ago, I visited a friend and his wife, who is a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills. While we were sitting at the dinner table, the surgeon looked at me and at her husband. "You both have placid face," she said. Placid face? My friend's wife pointed to her forehead, where she had a crease in the center, which drove her crazy. "Your foreheads are perfectly smooth," she said wistfully. "Placid face."

It's true that my forehead has always been a great, vast expanse of smoothness, which frankly never in my life occurred to me as an asset until then. After that, whenever I had a moment of grieving over my fivehead, I would console myself with the idea that someone out there actually thought there was something enviable about it.

Then I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of an Amtrak train window and realized that that vestige of comfort is gone. I have a big stress-induced pock mark on the side of my forehead. Aging is a sneaky motherfucker.

I found this attempt at distraction in my new lady-doctor's office pretty amusing at first. Did these people really think that something looking like the worst travel agency poster ever, taped up on tile ceiling over flourescent lighting, was going to enhance my experience in the stirrups?

I reconsidered my stance while I was involuntarily learning the meaning of the term vasovagal reaction during a biopsy (I'm OK) and becoming suddenly intensely invested in the idea of being on a seashore. I focused on that poster like there was no tomorrow as my insides were being scraped out. Thanks guys!


I could not stop staring at this man's hair while at the DMV trying to get Maryland license plates for my car (an astonishingly difficult feat, as it turned out). In the back (the party), his hair undulated in soft, impeccable waves. In the front (business), it was very spiky and filled with product. This picture really doesn't do justice to the textures involved. He also sat in his DMV seat with complete discipline, seemingly out of respect for his hair and/or for those who would admire it. I think the DMV should have been paying him to sit there, just to remind all of us hopeless souls waiting endlessly that true greatness is possible.

Music: "Private Eyes"