Professions I will never mock,

for I have either done their work and found it more than I want to deal with, or I have studied the subjects leading up to their work and have no intention of coming any closer, or I have read accounts of their work/spoken to members of the profession and know too much to mock them:

Accountants
Receptionists
Bricklayers
Dentists
Construction workers
Patent attorneys
Dermatologists (to quote That's Incurable!, "anyone who flays warts for a living serves a dark and hungry god")

Further updates as events warrant. But right now it's mostly the receptionists, because I have to substitute for the office receptionist (she has food poisoning) until the temp arrives. I've been at the reception desk before, back when I was temping after college. Didn't mind it all that much then as there weren't that many calls - I was working at a commercial real estate firm, and later at a video production company that consisted of four people plus me. Here, though? The phone rings too often for me to carry one thought coherently through from beginning to end. Grrr.

A little bit of the next part of the Diary

I'm currently working on two subsections of the Diary that need to be written out of sequence. (This is so that they do not burst out of my head and leave skull fragments all over the floor.) I thought that I might put up what I had of the first one for your perusal.

( On Dogs, Part the First )

cadhla status report

As of 4:14 Eastern Daylight Time on 25 Aug 2003, cadhla was safely at La Guardia International Airport in Queens, New York, and phoned me to let me know.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

I KNEW I would remember!

Was with cadhla this Sunday. While we were having lunch @ a Jersey City McDonald's (had forgotten, McD's puts onion bits on burgers - v. annoying), thought crossed my mind: YEARS before my case of Sinophilia erupted, I had somehow inadvertently primed it with something w/o realising. Something to do w/Hong Kong. Had realised this on Friday or Saturday but could not put finger on what. Mentioned this to cadhla & said that brain would retrieve subject within 4 days.

Brain has just done so. Was v. v. V. big fan of William Marshall's Yellowthread Street mysteries in high school - mostly 'cos I began w/one called Sci Fi, as at the time was v. big Trekkie in addition to fan of other sf. Book had nothing science fiction about it - title had to do w/giant SF convention taking place in Hong Kong.

I think I read those books three or four times each, for sheer love of a newly discovered genre - the police procedural mystery (was also big Sherlock Holmes fan at the time; still am). Had COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN about them until, on Friday, I wandered down the mystery shelves @ the library and squinted into the MAR section. There they were. Ah, shiny...

But yes, on top of all the stuff about getting lucky money in red envelope at my birth & mom mistaking me for Asiatic nurse's baby while still on childbirth painkillers, methinks I have found exactly what I primed the ol' Sinophilic, HK-lovin' pump with.

Think I'm gonna see if the used bookstores have any of these babies for sale. I miss Christopher O'Yee, and Harry Feiffer, Auden, Spencer, and all the rest of the Precinct.