2004-05-15 - 3:05 p.m.

Thanks for your collective offers, but my immediate i-pod needs are being satiated by a willing i-pod mule, who is at this moment scanning the place known as New York City for the bounty in question, and will secrete it in a suitable cavity and into my accepting hands some time next week. But you were all very kind.

My third toes on each foot are forever coming out of their sockets, and always for some reason more frequently with the onset of summer. I like to think it�s some prescient genetic development whose purpose will only become clear in the fullness of time and then I can be posthumously held up (not literally) as the acme of evolution, but more likely I just don�t get enough calcium or something. I can�t think what possible use it could have anyway � there�s only ever been one instance of a useful dislocating extremity, and that was in Lethal Weapon (2?) - the one where Patsy Kensit plays a Sooth Ifrikin with her customary aplomb and when Mel Gibson saves himself from drowning by yanking his shoulder out. I wish my toes were so glamorous, but mostly they just pop out at extremely inconvenient moments, such as when I�m pointing Percy at the porcelain in a public bathroom or diffusing high explosives � stuff like that. In any case, getting them back to their natural, undislocated state is a pretty pressing affair involving hasty shoe removal and not a small amount of physical coaxing. That�s as far as my bodily quirks go, though. I�m not one of these people that can touch their ears with their tongue or bend my knees the wrong way or anything. And since my saliva gland was cruelly ripped out, I can�t even do that under the tongue spraying thing that I used to be able to perform at will to win attention at parties.

Anyway, I�m hauling my non-remarkable frame to Malaysia in a few minutes, so I should go and throw some tings into a bag. And then pack.

Ah, the old ones are the best.