Sorry for the lack of activity around here. I feel like a deflated balloon these days. The hours are empty, and yet strangely purposeful: Find the next thing. Only the next thing is like something in Tony Soprano’s half-hour dream sequence last night — in the firm grasp of someone I’ve whacked. No, that’s not quite it. Still.

I start the day making a list: 1) Exercise. 2) Find the next thing. With the weather finally warm, the first is easy. Number 2 gives me problems.

Don’t read anything into that last sentence.

We opened the lake cottage yesterday, and got the usual early-season bad news — who’s bought what, etc.. A nearby shack, unoccupied for years but on a nice lot, finally sold for a preposterous price, which means we’ll likely have a new whiny rich neighbor building a horrible huge house nearby. I wonder what he’ll do when he discovers he has about six inches of water going out 50 feet or more — dredge, probably. Or try to. Then, when the DNR denies his permits, whine about his property rights.

Can you tell I’m feeling peevish?

The brown drake mayflies are hatching with a vengeace, in numbers not seen in years. A simple walk across the lawn kicks up clouds of them, which then land in your hair, on your nose, on your glasses. Houses and trees are covered with them. It’s really kind of cool. Years ago a friend of mine in the U.P. invented the Cedarville Sling — gin and Squirt with a hexagenia mayfly on the rim of the glass.

Speaking of peevish, I’ve been wondering what the reaction was to the Catholic bishop who said parishioners who vote for pro-choice politicians should not receive communion until they repent, although, God knows, that probably won’t be enough: “It might take a public recantation,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press. “There is no sin that is unforgivable” but Catholics shouldn’t vote for candidates who support abortion rights and “then slip off into the confessional.”

Oh, and that’s not just abortion rights, by the way. He also singled out euthanasia, stem-cell research and gay marriage. I’d imagine birth contol is on the list, too, but he didn’t say anything about it, so never mind.

From reading Amy’s blog I know the conservative Catholic reaction, but I was interested in the rank and file. So I asked cradle Catholic Dave:

I can’t believe there are still any Catholics with minds of their own left.� I can’t understand why anybody is still taking communion from these creeps.� I don’t understand why anybody even sets foot inside a Catholic church anymore.� I can’t imagine how that bishop can have the gall to speak as though he has any moral authority left and I can’t imagine how anyone in his diocese keeps from laughing in his face.

I don’t know how many other Catholics feel the way I do, but our church is full every Sunday.� I’m guessing that a lot of the men are there for the same reason I am, to make their wives happy, to present a united front for the kids.� But I don’t know.� I see a lot of guys who look like they’re really praying.� My wife won’t talk about it with me, other than to say that the priests don’t represent the church.� But if they don’t, then what’s the church?� The ladies in the Rosary Society?� They’d love that.� Power hungry harpies!

Glad to know I’m not the only peevish one around here lately. Off to the bike lane and the iPod — anything to get Diane Rehm off the soundtrack, which will no doubt help my mood.