Head Rattle

I.
I get that a lot: "Are you related to Bill?" "Did anyone ever tell you that you look like William Macy?" "Have you written anything?" "Is that like 'Books on Tape'?" "Can you tell me how to get to ______ Street?"

II.
The empty, boarded-up apartment building next door is apparently being gut-rehabbed, which means someone has finally purchased it. (So maybe my house will be worth something again!) There's been a huge dumpster in front of the building for several days now, repeatedly filled with broken furniture, old toys, pre-digital TV sets, miscellaneous lumber, plumbing fixtures, and other detritus -- the sad castoffs of temporary lives abandoned.

III.
Someone reminded me today that this warm, snowless winter we've been having means that many more blood-sucking insect offspring than usual will survive and hatch this coming summer. Since I live about a block away from what the local townsfolk call (informally) Mosquito Park, this could be a real botheration come June and July. Just thinking about it makes me itch.

~~~

Meanwhile....

Madonna's Satanic ritual disguised in the NFL Half Time Show