The clouds are moving back in, and the heater is on. Another week has gone by in a blur of work and kids. We have plans to get the house clean before we go to Texas at the end of next week. Will it happen? It seems as if the dirty dishes are breeding in the darkness beneath the sink, and the laundry pile is a cornucopia. Outside, the palm trees maliciously drop bits of themselves all over the walkway, and the other trees spit leaves at the ground, where the rain finishes the job by pasting them down in sodden clumps that defy our attempts to sweep them.

At least we don't have problems like some of the inhabitants of the business complex where I pick up the papers I deliver. Hanging on the wall in the bathroom is a list of instructions for proper use of the facilities. This list includes such no-brainers as "put dirty toilet paper in the toilet, not on the floor", and "don't spit on the floor." Every time I see a list like this, I know that it has been posted because all of the items on it have been disobeyed, probably multiple times. That's ugly. It's hard to raise kids in a world where so many adults show such a lack of respect for bathrooms. I'll bet these people pee on the seat too.

I'll bet George Bush pees on the seat. And he gets away with it too, because he's the damn president. He's getting away with a lot of other things too. We must not forget this. We must not forget that every day more people are dying as a direct result of this man's decisions. He probably lines up those little green army men along the edge of the toilet seat and pees them off into the bowl, while screaming for his aides to bring him more. It's the same thing he's doing with all of the people who have the misfortune to be in Iraq. Peeing them off into the bowl. He has absolutely no respect for humanity.

Sooner or later the pipes are going to get clogged.

cds I listened to while wishing people were more respectful: Hook! "Musik bland stadsmusikanter, krigsfangar och mastertjuvar", Greg Weeks "Slightly West", Kalenda Maya "Norse Ballads", Current 93/Nurse With Wound "Music for the Horse Hospital", and Mari Boine, Inna Zhelannaya, and Sergey Starostin "Winter in Moscow"