SOMETIMES, THIS STUFF BUGS ME...

"And now, a question of etiquitte: As I pass, do I give you the ass or the crotch?"
- Tyler Durden

I just jumped onto AOL's Instant Messenger a moment ago to see if my sister might be on because, well, she and I are both "a bubble off" and are more likely to be home and quiet on a Friday night than pretty much anyone (my nights to howl being Tuesdays and Thursdays and hers being... much more random, actually).

And she wasn't there but a bunch of my brothers in secularity were. I wasn't in the mood to further discuss the recent rash of pipe bombs in the midwest or the Will Code For Food guy or PUTTING IN BEN WALLACE, so I jumped off very quickly.

But I saw that they were online, so conversely, through the magic of buddy lists, they would have seen that I was on, too.

Should I have hailed them, acknowledged seeing them even though I didn't want to get into a conversation? Was it rude of me to zip in and zip out?

Were this "real" life and I saw them on the street, surely I would at least wave (indeed, in my real life, everyone waves, even to strangers, and woe betide she who does not wave back, because sure 'nuff, the next time she is sitting vulnerable on a bar stool of a tired Tuesday night because the mayor is on a bathroom break and the minister of fun is hitting on a tourist, that's when the person to whom she didn't wave will corner her, accusing her of self-involvement, snobbery, or worse!).

But what's the AIM equivalent of waving?

Does anyone else think about these sorts of things?

OH WAS IT WORTH IT!

While most of you, my gentle readers, were watching TV or pounding away at theses or sitting through meetings or working late or doing whatever it is you poor creatures do when you're not treating yourselves to my golden prose last night, guess what I was doing (after my requisite three or so hours finishing things up at the old apartment, I mean)?

*I* went fishing in my own backyard!

No, I didn't catch anything (as my own dear personal dad likes to say, more often than not, "The fishing was good but the catching was lousy"); the river where it runs past my house does not present an ideal fishing hole as such, but that's not the point.

The point was that it was possible. I had access. I was a mere 15-20 feet from my very own front door, barefoot, in my kick-around-the-house clothes, a mandarin and soda at my side (and I didn't have to hump out a cooler to have ice and refill material) and I had a line in the water! And got to watch a pair of ospreys farting around overhead (many thanks to Obie the Artist [not his real name], without whose company and guidance I would still not know an osprey by sight. To say nothing of his assistance in humping my furniture over to the new place, for which his reward is K8E's own Sicilian pizza this weekend!). And saw a great sunset. And when the sun went down, stars (my old neighborhood had too many trees to permit a view of more than a slice of sky).

Now, I'm not gloating (much), but damn, I'm pretty satisfied.

Except for one little thing.

By rights, I should also have been able to write this little blog entry from said riverfront lawn, and post it. But I could not.

My Local Podunk Phone Company (tm) has not yet hooked up my land line, you see. So I had to compose this article from memory more or less (and actually, you should probably be glad, gentle readers, because I'm pretty sure the original was a lot more smug) from the confines of my office and upload it from my work desk tonight after two very exhausting meetings. Boo!

On the other hand, however, my phone didn't ring once while I was fishing. From my back yard. Ha.