We’ve only just begun.

Let’s see, I have maybe thirty-thousand songs, almost four thousand of these notebook entries, and perhaps a few thousand letters. Even with lots of programs and a rather convoluted operating system, that leaves maybe eighty-percent of the files unaccounted for.

I shall have to investigate this; perhaps I’ve been somnambulantly creative?

How strange; I think Williams has way too much money. After all, I don’t need a publicist to let everyone I know when I’ve had too much to drink.

I hope Williams finds some balance between famine and feast. After all, rehab really is for quitters.

As is so often the case, I thought wrong. In response to my mail, Margaret sent me a terse, three-word reply: “This upset me.”

I was upset that I’d upset a dear friend, so I called Margaret to terminate the spiral of upsetness.

“I’m sorry you didn’t like Jeff’s stories,” I began, “but since you grew up on a Montana ranch, I thought you’d be familiar with such carnage.”

“My father was a sensitive person,” Margaret replied, “and always took us on vacation at slaughter time. It didn’t always work, though. One time when I was twelve or so I came back to discover a new trampoline.”

“Do tell,” I said.

“Well, I was jumping up and down on my new, bouncy, blue-grey-purple trampoline, only to discover that I was playing on a pile of cows’ stomachs,” she explained, adding, “Cows have lots of them, you know, just like your computers have lots of hard drives.”

“Margaret, your story is most upsetting,” I lied.

Now that my faux perturbation offset Margaret’s genuine dismay, we can return to our delightful equilibrium. Meanwhile, I keep wondering how difficult it would be to make a film of a ranch girl frolicking on a mound of bovine innards.

What a great idea! Turns out that I’ve been enjoying palliative care for decades without knowing the proper name.

I long ago stopped investing more than a minute of time to discover what an alleged artist was trying to do or say, after repeatedly discovering that complexity usually masked stupidity, ineptitude, or worse.

Feh!

A pox on the International Symposium of Electronic Art. From now on, when it comes to ISEA, I’m going to explore the International Safety Equipment Association, the International Society of Exposure Analysis, the Iowa State Education Association, the International Sports Engineering Association, the Institute of Social and Ethical Accountability, et cetera.

Or maybe not; I think I’ll avoid anything with the ISEA acronym, unless it’s something spectacularly useful like Intentionally Seductive Evasive Action.