David recommended I read Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates by Tom Robbins when I was last down his way.

I’m in the middle of the fourth book in The Cleric Quintet — The Fallen Fortress by R.A. Salvatore at the moment, but I bought that book as a single bound edition, and so I wasn’t inclined to bring in on the trip (as it is not exactly petite). I had Fierce Invalids on deck (I bought it when I bought Amazon women, The Kentucky Fried Movie, and Still Life with Woodpecker — another Tom Robbins book), and for the purpose of having something to read while traveling, I decided to start Fierce Invalids, and leave the bulky Cleric Quintet at the homestead, despite the fact that I’m really into it.

I’m about two-thirds though Fierce Invalids at this point, and it is proving to be a good book (not that I doubted you, Daivd). There have been several things I’ve enjoyed. In particular there was a parrot who made a brief but impacting appearance in the book before being eaten who would sometimes say “People of zee wurl, relax”. I found this particularly comforting coming off of a major network upgrade, (the “plan” I referred to in one of my previous blog entries). Anyway I thought the maintenance had gone extremely well until around 9am when we started getting reports of people having intermittent trouble across our network access web sites (Yikes!). Anyway this Parrots sagely words proved soothing during the 3 hours or so it took me to sort through and fix the problem. Mind you it would have taken about 15 minutes to fix (I believe) if I hadn’t been up for 30 something hours at that point and my mind being a little addled. Anyway I digress, I just read a section which I found intriguing and is certainly worth a little more scrutiny — “Faites de beaux reves” this would be the French version of “have sweet dreams”, which translated apparently means “make fine dreams”. Obvious, implications indicating controlling vs. spectating in the dreaming foray. I, of course, being a strong proponent of lucid dreaming have taken quite a liking to the French version. It is worth noting this is a work of fiction, and myself not being versed in French am taking this a valid statement in this book of otherwise made up realities. And at any rate it is an interesting notion.

And finally, though I’m not done with the book, the last thing I read and the reason I decided to pull out my laptop and write this blog entry many miles above the earth in route to Albany was this question. “When you were little did you ever wish to be called by something other than your given name?”

I thought about this, and I honestly could not remember ever wanting to be called anything other than Jamie. And according to the book this is supposed to be a common thing for a child to want. Anyway, so I was wondering if anyone else out there had a secret name or otherwise that they were interested in being referred to as during adolescence (i.e. I’m trying to determine if the author is just made that up for the purpose of the book, or if kids really do dislike the name given to them by their parents).

I can say I have had desires over the last year or so for a nickname, but I haven’t come up with anything I like. Also, I feel a good nickname is something that should be bestowed upon a person (earned even), instead of it being dictated by said person. (Sorry Will, but Big Nose isn’t quite what I’m looking for).

This is a sleep deprived, fickle, fuddled Jamie saying, “A big hello to all intelligent lifeforms everywhere…and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys.”

And enjoy this little ditty if you are so inclined.