Dude with a tuba

Walking toward me while I headed for BART tonight was a tall, lanky guy wearing a big, shiny tuba. He looked a little self-conscious but pleased with himself.

There's also been a bagpiper at the corner of Sansome and California all week during the evening rush hour, in full Scottish regalia. So every time I pass by, it's like I'm graduating from high school again.

Spectacular times for shopping at IKEA

1. Friday, 7:30 p.m. (except holiday weekends)
2. Saturday, 7:30 p.m. (except holiday weekends)
3. The day before Thanksgiving, 4:30 p.m.

If you know what you're looking for, you'll be in and out in less than 20 minutes. No lie. Plus you'll get a killer parking space near the entrance.

In other, more hypothetical news: I may or may not have bought the Sexiest Man Alive issue of People, with Matt Damon on the cover, from the impulse rack at Safeway.

If perhaps I possibly did, rest assured it's strictly for research—k2 asked the other day who would be on my celebrity list, and I couldn't think of anyone except Mos Def, Clive Owen, and the character of Josh Lyman on West Wing. So it's clear that I'm out of touch on the critical issue of celebrity sexiness.

School me, People. Hypothetically. Ahem.

The little town that reads

Two posts in one day! Unprecedented. But I have to give props to my hometown (and home valley), featured today in the New York Times for being the readingest spot in the land.

If you click on the slideshow to the left of the article, you'll see nice shots of the Odyssey Bookshop, my childhood bookstore down the street from my dad's house; and the Montague Book Mill, one of my favorite places on the East Coast. Broadside Bookshop, also mentioned in the piece, is another long-time family staple about a mile from my mom's house.

Born in the "Valley of the Literate" . . . that probably explains why it's taken me a week to pack just the books in my living room.

Snaps, sir

If you think copyeditors are reserved, formal, heady creatures permanently chained to our desks, you're a little bit right, but we can also kick some ass. Um, verbally.

Case in point, this recent excerpt from The Chicago Manual of Style's hilarious (if you're in my line of work) Q&A section:

Q. About two spaces after a period. As a U.S. Marine, I know that what’s right is right and you are wrong. I declare it once and for all aesthetically more appealing to have two spaces after a period. If you refuse to alter your bullheadedness, I will petition the commandant to allow me to take one Marine detail to conquer your organization and impose my rule. Thou shalt place two spaces after a period. Period. Semper Fidelis.

A. As a U.S. Marine, you’re probably an expert at something, but I’m afraid it’s not this. Status quo.

Newfangled

Walking home today, I saw a middle-aged guy careening down the sidewalk on what appeared to be wheels. But he wasn't riding a skateboard or wearing Rollerblades. Did he have wheels attached to the bottom of his regular shoes?

No. He had two mini skateboards, one for each foot. They were squarish and silver, and they looked hard to manage. His legs kept shooting away from each other, since he basically had to face forward and sideways at the same time to stay balanced.

It was all kind of ridiculous, but he seemed to be having a blast. What will they think up next?

Comfort zone

What comfort food has meant to me since as far back as my memory goes: mashed bananas on toast, cream of mushroom soup, and Domino's pizza. Don't worry, not in one repulsive three-course meal. It's situational.

English mother + any kind of ailment = mashed bananas on toast. I don't know if it was an honored Yorkshire tradition or an early parenting inspiration (can't leave the house, the kid's too sick...those bananas are about to go off...hey, here's a loaf of bread), but it stars in all my childhood sickbed memories. During a holy trinity of illnesses in spring 2005—flu, strep throat, double ear infection—it was the only thing I could stand to eat, once I could swallow. But if you offered it to me on a normal day, I'd be nauseated. Seriously, I don't even like bananas.

From seventh grade onward, staying home sick from school meant ordering Domino's pizza (terrible) and watching Dead Poets Society (fantastic). Every. single. time. Then I saw the Congo, creeping through the black, cutting through the forest with a golden track....

Following a round of jaw surgery when I was 15, I couldn't eat anything but protein milkshakes and soup for six weeks. "Eat" is the wrong word, really, since my teeth were busy being wired shut. It was a dark, dark time that turned me into a weepy pile of teenage angst but somehow didn't spoil my taste for milkshakes. I couldn't touch soup for about three years afterward, though.

That exciting anecdote doesn't explain why cream of mushroom soup is one of my comfort foods. It just is. It's warm and filling and doesn't require any real effort to make. Even so, I almost never get a craving for it unless I'm upset or diseased.

The end. Tra la la.

The sweetest words ever spoken by an automated phone system

"Your jury duty is complete for one year, and we thank you for your service."

Since it's ship week and there are piles of paper the size of an overgrown toddler waiting in my inbox, this means justice has been served.

And I didn't even have to leave my desk.