I am in isolation/recuperation/forcing myself to read Lolita. I am on page 43. The surgery was quick like I wanted, but I was paranoid and kept hearing the hospital staff talk about the last time I was there after they shut the door. When I woke up there were crying babies and the nurse told me drinking water was not an option. "I know," I wanted to say. "I work with children."

Hurray for Adult Liquid Extra Strength Pain Relief!

Walking back from the mailbox half-way down the street, I try to figure out if I could live here again....the scary suburbs....money, money, always on the mind. The gaps are starting to fill and now, hey, I could use the next $1000 I make to go to Spain or New York or wherever and this time I will have memorized the following little segment of Lolita as defense against all of the assholes out there:

You have to be an artist and a madman, a creature of infinite melancholy, with a bubble of hot poison in your loins and a super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in your subtle spine (oh, how you have to cringe and hide!), in order to discern at once, by ineffable signs -- the slightly feline outline of a cheekbone, the slenderness of a downy limb, and other indices which despair and shame and tears of tenderness forbid me to tabulate--the little deadly demon among the wholesome children, she stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power.