Happy Birthday, Wil! I bought you several exciting presents. See you at Das Otto Cats practice.

I just finished reading Emma Forrest�s Namedropper. It reminded me of a darker Francesca Lia Block, only set in London (most of the time) and with less anorexia and more pop stars/Liz Taylor. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Thanks to my lovely Jezebel, who handed it to me over sea-creatures and asparagus at Legal Seafood last Saturday.

I�ve been on a voracious reading kick lately. At least my avoidance is a literary one (albeit modern) and less NBC�s Passions centered. I�ve done it both ways.

Must ingest more David Sedaris. I can�t believe I only just read Naked for the first time last week. �They birdied and eagled and double-bogeyed with an urgency that failed to capture our imagination. Seeing the pros in person was no more interesting than eating an ice-cold hamburger�� That�s not even a great quote. The book is hilarious. Yeah, yeah� I can see the madly modly hip well-dressed peanut gallery snearing down at me over their horn-rims with nasal sarcasm, �She�s just read her first David Sedaris. Bravaaaaaa�. Now she�s going to go and BROADcast it. How DARE.�

Brent got a red T-shirt from some guy at work for free yesterday that says, �Dickerns is real� on the back. Isn�t that brilliant?!

I�m sorry this is less than entertaining. I�ll go do some crimes and tell you about it tomorrow, k?

Word of the Day for Thursday August 15, 2002:

puissant PWISS-uhnt; PYOO-uh-suhnt; pyoo-ISS-uhnt,

adjective: Powerful; strong; mighty; as, a puissant prince or empire.

As an upcoming young corporate lawyer in San Francisco in the 1930's, Crum tended the interests of some of California's most puissant businesses, starting with William Randolph Hearst's newspaper empire. --Richard Lingeman, "The Last Party," [1]New York Times, April 27, 1997

If we are to believe that country's literary pundits, "irreparable damage to a great British institution" may soon be done by an invading army more puissant than Hannibal's or Alexander's, an army marching out of the creative writing schools of American universities, leaving Will Shakespeare's sceptred isle "smothered amid a landslide of books from the US". --Jonathan Yardley, "Bring on the Yanks," [2]The Guardian, June 5, 2002

Puissant is from Old French puissant, "powerful," ultimately from (assumed) Vulgar Latin potere, alteration of Latin posse, "to be able." The noun form is puissance.