It is one of the great ironies of owning a computer that I have been buying more TYPEWRITERS than ever, now that I am an eBay fanatic. (I'm like Doris Day at the Animal Shelter--they're all so CUTE--I wish I could save them ALL!) Seriously, I have found a few machines that I have been wanting examples of for years--Remington Noiseless office jobs (one is in the mail to me--another has to be paid for) and a neat old L.C.Smith #2. (I arm-wrestled another collector for this one--a beauty!) (The L.C.Smith #2 was actually the first one made--the Smith #1 came out later, with fewer keys. The incomparable Smith Premier--whatever number--is still on my wish list.) This typewriter mania is in a way theraputic--it gets my mind off POLITICS.

I have also been buying dozens of books, and, of course, DRINKING. (I had some Saranac Pilseners last night--what a treat after solacing myself with Saranac Light for weeks. No homage phrased in mere English works could begin to express how highly I esteem the Pilsener. "Golden Nectar of the Gods?" "Mother's Milk?" "Sweet Dew of Heaven Distilled and Made Corporeal Under a Cumulus Head Halo?" All inadequate.) With politics as they are in these United States, I need all the anodynes I can muster.

"'I wondher,' said Mr. Hennessy, 'if us dimmycrats will iver ilict a prisidint again.'"
--Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936) "Mr. Dooley Discusses Party Prospects" (1901)