Alan came home reporting he felt “doughy” all day. He had two days of work-at-home (and boy did he — blood all over the keyboard), and found the transition to work-at-work a little rough. I know just how he felt. I’ve been discombobulated all day, distracted and half-there and…doughy.

So, with guard down, I feel like confessing something really, really embarrassing.

I’ve been watching “American Idol.”

Oh, relax. Not from the beginning, but just over the last three weeks or so. I’ve seen it now and then, but this is the first time I’ve watched it enough to be aware of the personalities, or rather, the plug-ins for various musical genres and personality types — the rocker, the sassy chick, the smoove dude, the fat guy, the country girl, etc. And, of course, one judge and two ass-kissers. It’s, oh, irresistible. In a draw-the-blinds, shut-the-door sort of way.

The country girl’s the one who should win. And not just because Simon says so. But you gotta love a guy who tells one of them, “You are the musical equivalent of Ryan Secrest.” Diogenes, call your office.

And that, pretty much, was my doughy day: Writing all morning, coming to terms with my TV id in the afternoon. Aren’t you glad you’re wasting time here? Let’s get to the bloggage:

The St. Petersburg Times is known as a writer’s paper. Here’s a good example of how they got that reputation.

The Columbus Dispatch, er, doesn’t have that reputation, but they have some good writers. Columnist Mike Harden has a knack for writing new lyrics to old tunes. I can’t link to his latest, making fun of the city’s new marketing song, but here’s a verse you can sing to “My Favorite Things” instead:

Cops, never hatless, who ticket jaywalking,
Blue Jackets fans who are forever sulking,
Victoria�s Secret with thongs made of strings,
These are a few of Columbus� things.
Blue hairs on freeways goin� 6 miles an hour,
Weather inversions that turn the air sour,
Six hundred restaurants that sell chicken wings,
These are a few of Columbus� things.
The whole town stews
When the Bucks lose.
Fans are feeling sad.
But then they remember When Woody was coach,
And then they don�t feel
So bad.

I think the Schiavo advocates have jumped the shark. So does Wolcott.

And that’s all my doughy brain has at the moment. Keep your powder dry, and your pope’s nose…whatever.

NYT headline today:

Doctors insert feeding tube through Pope’s nose

In my family, “Pope’s nose” has a very specific meaning, and it doesn’t mean the scent-detecting organ in the middle of the pontiff’s face. Apparently its anatomical name is the pygostyle. Never knew that.

Nall family lore: My mother missed Thanksgiving 1957 because she was still hospitalized after my birth. So my dad and her cousin came to see her after dinner, half-drunk, bearing a lovely velvet jeweler’s box. My mom opened it, expecting to find a necklace honoring her for having given my father a wee daughter. It contained…the pygostyle.

I suppose, with all the pissing and moaning I’ve been doing about the weather lately, I should take note when it turns around. Today we nudged 60, and Kate and I took a bike ride to…the library. Yes, physical and intellectual activity in one activity, multi-tasking mom points with a bonus. I needed it. The points and the activity. After we got home, Alan took her to the lake, and they watched muskrats climb on and off of ice floes.

Of course then I had to take things too far. I suggested we either grill out or eat out, and we went for the latter — a mediocre pasta pile, served at snail-like speed, in a restaurant where the chlorine smell from the lobby fountain penetrated to the dining room.

A big juicy burger on the grill would have been perfect. Another time.

Glad to see so many of you getting on the Flickr train. I have one word for you:

Tags.

This is the meta-data John was talking about on his visit. You don’t have to add a description, but add a few tags. Stuff like “dogs New Jersey riverfront hiking.” Because then you get to the really cool thing about Flickr — the searchability. Go to the Tags page, and just mess around. Search your hometown, your alma mater, your hobbies and, what the hell, why not the fun ones — “nude,” “erotic,” “babies,” “puppies.” You’d be surprised what turns up.

Once you’ve mastered tags, then try Mappr, which is a real mind-blower. Tags make more sense, too.

One reason I love my husband: The way we read the paper together. Long silences, and then, “Jesus Christ! ‘A Child Called “It”‘ has been on the paperback bestseller list for 313 weeks!” Gotta love a guy who thinks that’s a sign of the apocalypse.

When I served on the Allen County Reads committee, one of those everybody-reads-the-same-book community eat-your-peas efforts, we got lots of nominations for “A Child Called ‘It'” One day, feeling punchy, we started pitching a sequel.

“Another Child Called ‘It'”
“Revenge of a Child Called ‘It’: It’s Mommy’s Turn to Cry”
“A Grandchild Called ‘It'”

The real sequel, of course, is “A Man Called Dave.” The Allen County Reads book was “Fahrenheit 451.” That is all.

The other day, while discussing the Schiavo case, my sister asked, “What can normal people do to get the country back from these idiots?” I thought she might be a teensy bit overdramatic — forgive her, she lives in Ohio — and then I saw this WashPost story, about the growing “pharmacists’ rights” movement. What pharmacists’ rights, you ask? Why, the right not to fill your prescription. And why would they do that, you wonder? Why, because they perhaps have a moral objection to the medicine you plan to take — why, it could be a birth-control pill! Or a morning-after pill, which could kill a helpless little zygote by depriving it of a home!

I consider myself an opinionated but essentially tolerant person. If you want to assert these rights as a pharmacist, I figure, I reserve the right to complain loudly to your boss and take my business elsewhere. But no! Ahem: Pharmacists are regulated by state laws and can face disciplinary action from licensing boards. But the only case that has gotten that far involves Neil T. Noesen, who in 2002 refused to fill a University of Wisconsin student’s birth control pill prescription at a Kmart in Menomonie, Wis., or transfer the prescription elsewhere. (emphasis mine) An administrative judge last month recommended Noesen be required to take ethics classes, alert future employers to his beliefs and pay what could be as much as $20,000 to cover the costs of the legal proceedings. The state pharmacy board will decide whether to impose that penalty next month. “He’s a devout Roman Catholic and believes participating in any action that inhibits or prohibits human life is a sin,” said Aden of the Christian Legal Society. “The rights of pharmacists like him should be respected.”

Hello? No they shouldn’t. If Neil T. Noesen wants to live his faith through pharmacy, then he should take his devout Catholic ass down to a devout Catholic hospital and work in the pharmacy there, not in a corner CVS, where a university student should expect to have her Ortho-Evra script filled without a lecture. Or even a scowl. What a jerk.

Andy Maskin’s living will. I think it’ll be mine, too. I like that part about the Bush twins.

You know Pat O’Brien is in rehab, of course. You know why, perhaps. What you may not know about is the presence of I’m Stuck in Rehab With Pat O’Brien, which basically tells the same joke over and over but I’m still laughing:

After dinner we hung around the common room and sang songs. Pat O’Brien had his mandolin. He actually wasn’t that bad. He sang “Eve of Destruction” and “To Sir, With Love.” I just wish he hadn’t taken his shirt off. Nobody wanted to see that.

“Hey, babies: Whitney’s in da house!” she proclaimed.

Note the Flickr Zeitgeist thingie over on the left rail. Join Flickr, make me a contact, and your pictures can cycle through it randomly, too. At the moment it’s just me, J.C. and Zach, so the pond is pretty wide open for now.

And I’m shutting down. Tomorrow, then?

Do you think this loaf of bread was worth $8.50? I don’t, but on the other hand, I’ve spent more on greater foolishness, which didn’t make my little girl giggle, so.

The bread wasn’t bad, either. We had Alan’s mom and sister as our guests this weekend, and they eat Bunny Bread pretty exclusively, so there was the visual-joke thing, too. (Warning on that link: Embedded sound file of a really hokey jingle.)

And that, pretty much, was the weekend — cooking, entertaining, cooking some more, loading and unloading the dishwasher, eating jelly beans. I feel: Tired, chapped-handed, over-sugared. But happy. It’s a good weekend when you can color eggs with extended family, and the dog gets two Reese’s Cups, wrappers and all.

I can’t wait for the morning walk.

So, bloggage:

Ron had an interesting story in yesterday’s News, about the next wave in megachurches: the cool church. Special effects, rock ‘n’ roll, movie clips, the works — it’s been a long time since I’ve been so baffled by religion. Radical Islam is easier for me to understand than the idea of attending a church called Scum of the Earth, but hey, I’m ecumenical. Whatever blows your hair back.

And if, like me, you enjoy gray as opposed to black and white, you might enjoy this profile of Michael Schiavo’s lady in waiting. Not a job I’d want, but hey. See above.

Busy day tomorrow. Wish me luck.

I’m struggling to maintain an air of solemn sadness, but when Ann Coulter is calling for the governor of Florida to send in the troops to save Terri, I figure, oh what the hell. So I say, “Sure, Ann, great idea, but only if you go along and wear this outfit.” Now that’s entertainment.

Feeling better now. (It’s amazing what a little Wallace & Gromit video with one’s child can do for a faltering spirit, not to mention temperatures in the 40s.) Then, while Kate takes her piano lesson, I made the mistake of going online to see what’s up.

I assume Peggy Noonan hit the floor sometime after filing this preposterous piece of crap on the Schiavo case, because certainly she was on her third highball of the morning when she wrote this sentence: I do not understand the emotionalism of the pull-the-tube people. Wha–? I must be watching the wrong cable news. I thought it was the people outside the hospice who were weeping and railing and getting arrested trying to take cups of water to a woman who cannot swallow. I don’t know a single person on the other side who thinks this is anything other than a terrible family tragedy that got absurdly out of control.

Stirring her Jameson’s-and-water with an index finger, she goes on: And why do those who argue for Mrs. Schiavo’s death employ language and imagery that is so violent and aggressive? The chairman of the Democratic National Committee calls Republicans “brain dead.” Michael Schiavo, the husband, calls House Majority Leader Tom DeLay “a slithering snake.”

I guess Peggy slept through the radio show I heard the other day, someone guest-hosting on Dennis Prager, who just dispensed with the “allegedly” stuff altogether and more or less said Michael Schiavo beat his wife into a coma — he kept referring to her heart attack as “a quote-unquote accident” — and has maintained terrible, Terminator-like focus for 15 years, waiting to finish the job.

Crude as it is, I think Norbizness hit it on the head: When you’ve got Randall Terry as a primary spokesperson, and when everyone involved in the case (and a fair number of politicians not involved) has received death threats, I’m not sure that accurately comparing an oily little shitstain to a serpent (sorry, snakes!) represents the pinnacle of aggressive hate speech.

I know the usual style with these things is to go on and on and on, taking the piece apart sentence by sentence, but as we’re reminded this week, life is short and we all have better things to do.

Yesterday our tentative but steady march toward spring was knocked on its ass. The forecast said not to panic, it just wouldn’t be as warm as Tuesday and we might — just might — have “a light dusting” of snow. Do not be alarmed; go on about your business.

I did. At noon I looked out the window. Big fat flakes. At 2, it was a whiteout. The light dusting added up to about three inches.

Is it a coincidence that my throat began to hurt at the same time? That my sinuses swelled, my head began to throb? I think not!

(I love that phrase: “I think not.” It’s like the mark of a windbag, which is why you only see it on the letters to the editor page — “Do the politicians care about the taxpayers of Aboite Township? I think not!” It also needs that exclamation point, that fist on the podium at the town meeting.)

So now I’m sick. Went to bed at 9, slept badly, dragged my butt out of bed at 7:45. And I have three bathrooms to clean, laundry to do and groceries to buy for the holiday weekend. Which is to say, pbbbt on NN.C at the moment. In exchange for boring you to death, I offer bloggage:

When Jon Carroll appreciates you, it almost makes dying seem worth it. If we could ask Bobby Short, I’m sure he’d agree: It was December of 1977, and there was new snow blanketing Manhattan, and my new love and I took a cab cross-town and showed up at the Carlyle, dressed in what was apparently our finest, and they let us in anyway. We sat on the side, stage right, so we had a good view of the keyboard. We ordered champagne, which we had never done before and would never do again.

Afterward, late at night, we danced in the snow on Madison Avenue, just like in the movies. We sang Cole Porter to each other. It was entirely magical, because magic was the whole point. We were not thinking a bit about the end of it; we were not thinking at all. The streetlight illuminated our white footprints as they slowly turned blurry and indistinct.

Richard Cohen makes the obvious point about the Democrats; i.e., that they no longer deserve votes, not that they aren’t trying for them anyway: Say what you will about DeLay, he is not afraid to state his beliefs and fight for them. Say what you will about the Democrats, they are. That’s why DeLay’s called “The Hammer.” What would you call the Democrats? Never mind. When they’re ready, they’ll call you.

And that, children, is all my feeble fingers have the strength for on this cold, cold morning. Laziness? I think not!

I’m an NPR person pretty much all day, but especially in the morning. Not because the reports confirm all my liberal biases, either, but because I’m pretty much constitutionally incapable of tolerating snappy radio banter before I’ve been sufficiently caffienated. I need Carl Kasell. In a pinch, I can handle Don Imus. He always sounds grumpy; suits me fine.

That said, there is some news that just cries out for snappy banter. Moments ago, the local NPR news mentioned how pleased the residents of Holland, Mich., were over a line on “The Simpsons” recently, in which, the newscaster said, “Homer looks at a fully equipped recreational vehicle and says, ‘Wow, I’d like to drive that to the Tulip Festival in Holland, Michigan.'” The episode, he added, has been “the talk of the town.”

Ohhh-kay.

Met Ron downtown for lunch yesterday. He said we’d walk someplace. I needed cash, but figured hell, we’ll be walking through downtown — I’ll just hit an ATM. I’m still getting familiar with the strange, open, brownfield-prairie landscape of downtown Detroit, which in many places resembles the set of a movie about the post-apocalyptic future. Which is to say, we didn’t pass an ATM. We arrived in Corktown and found a perfectly nice, funky place to eat that…didn’t take plastic. And Ron had $11 to his name.

“Will you accept a personal check?” I asked with some desperation. It was a nice day, but I didn’t want to go back out there and look for an ATM, which could easily be a mile away. The waiter said yes. With some evident exasperation.

So we ate our sandwiches and drank our diet Coke, and I wrote my check. The waiter peeked over my shoulder. “I knew it!” he exulted. “I knew you were from Grosse Pointe. People from Grosse Pointe never carry money.”

That’s because restaurants in Grosse Pointe generally take plastic.

I thought of Carol Kane in “Annie Hall,” telling Woody Allen, “That’s OK, I enjoy being reduced to a cultural stereotype.” I wonder how long this is going to bug me. And to think, all I wanted was a functional school system, a manageable commute and proximity to a large body of water.

Bloggage:

Sarah Jessica Parker turns 40, gets dropped by The Gap in favor of a 17-year-old. The WashPost’s advice: Look on the bright side, S.J. — one year of work grossed you $38 million.

Why some stories, like snappy banter, are just made for new media — Slate’s stories on the Jackson trial, with this pithy headline: How scuzzy is the accuser’s family? Answer: Pretty durn scuzzy.

And is that all? It is, for now.

Maureen wants the daily picture back. Says today’s her birthday. Well, OK, it just so happens we have one lying around. Let’s call it “Springtime in Detroit,” a song no one’s written. For good reason.