It depends.

Later, I wondered whether it was physically possible for anything as large as a burrito not to hit “the spot,” especially since the tortilla, rice, and beans expand when combined with beer. That led me to wonder what “the spot” is, and that short-circuited my tiny brain. Too much philosophizing always gives me a headache.

I don’t work solely for money very often, so it’s not much of a problem. Especially since I don’t take commercial work very seriously.

Today, for example, a client called and gently inquired when I’d complete her project.

“I’m not really able to say,” I replied. “As an artist, I often work with a clock that has no numbers.”

“I appreciate that,” my client replied. “As a creative businessperson, I often work with a checkbook that has no numbers. I’m not overly concerned with worldly numbers if you’re not.”

I delivered the work on time. Sometimes working with numbers pays; sometimes it doesn’t.

I’ve set up my email server to filter my mail and deliver messages to separate addresses. I don’t want to give away too many secrets, but mail with the words “beer,” “wombat,” “burrito,” and “hubba-hubba” is directed to my “read immediately” folder. Most of the mail I receive is unsolicited commercial nonsense from perfidious carpetbaggers; such digital rubbish ends up in my digital rubbish bin.

I provided those tedious technical details as a preface to a silly anecdote.

A friend—anonymous for the usual reasons—recently sent me a transcript of recent correspondence:

In any event, rehashing this ancient history (and in particular, your “interesting” interpretation of events) is all very amusing, but I seriously doubt anyone cares. I don’t. Perhaps we can agree to disagree? Feel free to have the last word—you’ve entered my “delete unread” filter.

And then today, Edward Rothstein inspired me to read the entire review with a brilliant, verb-free introductory sentence in his review of Mark Kurlansky’s most recent tome.

Gout, crying, writing, walking, tobacco, penises, pickles, epidemics, breasts and now salt.

The improbable bread buffet banquet reminded me of my late grandmother Beulah’s folk saying that was popular a century ago. “Everyone brought biscuits to the picnic and wonders why there wasn’t enough fried chicken to go around.”

Even though I don’t consider myself a member of any particular brand of religion, I nevertheless decided to attend the twenty-fourth annual Saint Stupid’s Day parade. I joined hundreds of stupidly-dressed stupid people carrying stupid signs, making stupid remarks, and doing other stupid things. I felt right at home; these are my people.

As Saint Stupid herself said, “So far, so what?”