2007-04-16 - 11:53 a.m.

We have a high wind event warning until 2 p.m. tomorrow. What that means is that, driving over the I-95 bridge over Patapsco State Park this morning, the wind coming down the valley almost made it so that my 1994 Toyota pickup said hello to a 2007 Chevy Tahoe.

That bridge is the best part of my drive in the mornings. For four or five seconds, when I look to the right and to the left, I can see trees off into forever. Right now, they've got pointillist leaves that are the lightest green available to things with roots and sap.

I'm trying with Thomas Pynchon. I've started with "The Crying of Lot 49." And I don't know what I expected, but after forty pages it feels like the wackiness of "A Confederacy of Dunces" rammed into the sparseness of Joyce when you can understand him. I'm intrigued by the idea of this kind of postmodernist book having a strong central plot, though. It's like watching your stoned roommate giving someone else's parents a tour of the apartment.

We're going to Maine this summer, and maybe the Canadian maritimes. I've always wanted to go to Acadia National Park and we're using that as our base and doing some driving to other northeast places. She's got a cold. When I ask her how she's feeling, she says, "My face hurts."

She often gives me a hard time over little things. It's her way, how she jokes or chats. As in, if I'd say, "It stopped raining," she's say, without missing a beat, "Your mom stopped raining." This is funny sometimes, but after twenty or thirty-five in a 12-hour period, I get to a full-up point. My response, which has been working lately, is to not say anything after she says the mom stuff. When she stares at me or says, "What?" then I say "I'm SNRing you." SNR means "Selectively Not Responding." And then she says, "Oh, man." It all makes sense if you're in my shoes, I think.

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