"E"

Eggs: are the miracle food of the future. They are capable of amazing culinary wonders. I would like to keep chickens on the roof of our building, but I suspect our neighbors would object. They are none too pleased about the compost bin, either, and also seem to expect it to stink, which it almost never does. Microorganisms are miraculous things, really, turning refuse to soil. By the way, I water our houseplants with the wastewater from the goldfish aquarium, which is full, but not too full, of nitrogen. It's a shame you have to live in a third world town for people not to object to a couple of chickens pecking around the doorstep. Please note I am not arguing that rural Americans can't keep chickens, just that there's no support for urban dwellers to do so. Except in Seattle, apparently. I think Seattle is a pretty cool city.

On the other hand, given bird flu, I guess it's just as well the neighbors wouldn't acquiesce to chickens. A little rabbit hutch instead, then. I love rabbit meat.

Emergency, The Long: Name James Howard Kunstler, cultural critic and minor crackpot, gives to peak oil and its aftermath. In the Long Emergency, the neighbors will not object to my rabbit hutch (see above, Eggs), but they will try to steal my rabbits. Kunstler rails against suburban sprawl and the rise of McMansions. Ever since Max pointed out an interview where Kunstler talks about how, during the Long Emergency, "where there is now one software engineer living in a McMansion outside of Atlanta, eleven years from now there will be twelve families living in that building growing Swiss chard where the lawn used to be," I examine all suburban houses with an eye to their potential for food production. ( The ideal would be a wide and gentle slope descending toward the south, no shadow, good soil and drainage, little or no lead contamination -- a big problem with very old houses is that all the land next to the house is a hazardous waste dump of lead. The best kind of house would be small, with very thick walls, and lots of windows on the south wall for passive solar heating. People living in large, poorly-insulated and cheaply constructed McMansions built on contractor fill -- rubble and dead dirt -- closely surrounded by other houses casting lots of shadows will be so out of luck.


Emigration: to New Zealand is still an option, although it's not like last year when we were convinced we ought to leave, and soon. That's not because we think that things are less dire now than they were before; we don't. But somehow we lost momentum, and are not, right now, at an escape velocity.

Ex-best friends: The other day I found a picture of me with my ex-best friend, when we were still in college, shoved inside a book I hadn't looked at for a long time. It was a hideous picture, in which we both looked as hideous as we possibly could. It's not clear why I kept it. I looked at it for a minute, and felt like crying, and then I quickly shoved the picture into another book. I ought to have thrown it out. I don't know where it is now, and in a few years I will come upon it again, and be upset all over again. But really, my whole household is full of reminders of her, and all the most important events of my life since I was fifteen were things I shared with her. I wonder how she's doing these days, and if she ever thinks of me. Does she sneak here to my blog sometimes? I don't know her ISP, I wouldn't recognize it if she did. Once last summer I thought I saw her in a window. Sometimes I think I see her on the street near my house, but I doubt she ever comes this way. It's just her phantom that I see, the one who also torments me in dreams. I wish her ghost would go away.