I'm up well before noon for the second day in a row. If you listen closely, you can hear the world's smallest violin playing a lament for me, having to wake up. The thing is, I'm not up because I have to go to work. I'm out of bed before my mid-Pacific sleep schedule usually dictates because I've been charged with greeting the guy who is installing a new furnace in the basement. For the second day in a row. I really don't know anything about furnaces; I've never read anything about them, so all that I know is that they sit in the basement and create heat. The old one didn't create heat, though, at least not enough to fill a standard size suburban house. The old heater produced the fine black sooty substance that, if left unchecked, would eventually build up somewhere in the heating system to the point that heat wouldn't get through anymore. That, and carbon monoxide. Apparently, the threat of cee-oh-one is credible enough to warrant concern. I think it causes brain damage, or something. This might explain the quality of some of my past bloggings. Soot and carbon monoxide- welcome to flavor country.

I feel kind of like Laura in Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, waiting for the geltleman caller. I suppose the big difference in my case would be that I've already had two cups of coffee and watched a rerun of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And I've never had pleurosis. And I'm not preordained by the divine hand of the playwrite to fail dismally and remain alone with no company but a shelf full of glass animals and an aging southern debutante.

Here's an article that I found interesting the other day. The psychology of headphones. It's a quick read, for those of you with precious little time on your hands.