I've been lying to you.  Sort of.  Pseudonyms.  I'm pretty much the only person in these pages who doesn't have one.  Before I started this journal I did some thinking about what I had a right to disclose to whom and all that sort of thing and I concluded that it would be easiest to give everybody a fake name.  Not unusual, no biggie.  Recently, however, a monkey wrench got thrown into my perfectly laid out grid of personae.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  First I have to explain the element of romantic intrigue I mentioned last time.

I'll just come right out and say it -- one of the couples in our little world of cul-de-sacs and moonbeams has broken up.  My neighbor Iris and her boyfriend Adam are splitsville and, given the amount of time they, we, all of us have spent together, we're in a bit of an awkward spell about it.  Good long friendships were made with him and the break-up itself can't dissolve them. 

I've weighed the "It's None Of My Business" factor (it's tiny and so I'm ignoring it) and have concluded that the best thing to do here is to point you to his new online journal where he has taken to calling himself by his real name, Allen.  I have been, apparently, a bad influence on the man and, in his romantic turmoil, he has gone and done the diary deed.  While I'm no stranger to being a presence in another online journal, the potential for havoc and incendiary rumor has just been kicked up a notch or twelve around here.  

My immediate neighborhood contains several of my readers, and each knows the others' pseudonyms.  This has caused me to apply some filters, filters similar to those in place due to the heavy readership I enjoy at Viv's place of employment.  Modesty and propriety are tops with me, so I'm sure you can understand why I choose never to talk about the pneumatic sexual practices of the folks across the street or how the mention of my name among many of Viv's female co-workers sends an undulating wave of moist fondness through their cubicles. 

Instead of layering my home with a network of razor wire and motion detectors, I have chosen to steer clear of most of the minefields in my friends' and neighbors' lives.  None of us here is without his or her troubles but, even though much of my world rotates on this domestic axis, I've found there's enough stuff going on in my tiny head without having to drag the peccadilloes of others into cyberspace with me.

Unless they do something truly worthy of reportage, like naked lawn mowing.  And for that there will be pictures, I promise.

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Another element I mentioned in the previous entry was transformation.  I did something two weeks ago that I've been wanting to do for decades.  I bought myself a pair of denim bib overalls.  I am one step closer to bein' that feller up thar in the picher.

Folks who know me might tell you that bib overalls are so not me.  And that may be true.  Perhaps this flame of urbane sophistication burns so bright and hot that my subconscious yearns for the unguent of camouflage.  Yes, I'm sure that's it.

And, just to make sure you leave here today with more information than you wanted, also on the theme of transformation, I can tell you that the "Cool Shower" fragrance of Arrid XX Extra Extra Dry Anti-Perspirant & Deodorant Solid makes me smell like Pez.  You're welcome.

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This is a sin writing like this, all flowery and full of darlings.  But frequently the urge to do it will just bubble up and it'll amuse the heck out of me.

Online journal, you know.  Ego valve.  Toy.

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