11.12.02 - 9:19 p.m.

I swear, as this diary is my witness, the first thing I'm putting on my registry is a set of good knives. W�sthof or Henckels, I'm not picky, but anything is better than that Wal-Mart shit I've been chopping my veggies with since college. Poor carrots and leeks, being manhandled by an inferior blade.

I am having a laundry crisis of sorts. See, I went downstairs to throw a load in. The washer was off so I figured whoever had been doing it earlier had come and gone. I put my quarters in, the water started running, I lifted up the lid to throw clothes and detergent in, and gah! There was a rogue load of whites still in the washer! I couldn't put the lid down because the water would start again - I couldn't just abandon my precious money - so I fished the strange clothes out and left them on the dryer while I put mine in. But there's also strange clothes in the dryer. Meaning there's nowhere else to put them once my clothes are out of the washer. I've put this complicated game of musical laundry in motion and I have to see it to its end. And I don't want to go knocking on doors asking whose laundry I moved in the first place. Their own damn fault for being so lax, I guess.

And I forgot to mention this about Friday night, but it is worth remembering: After I finally made it onto the subway Friday, after all the bus issues and problems and horrible day, I glanced up and saw on the Poetry in Motion billboard my favorite poem by William Carlos Williams, "This is Just to Say:"

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Now is that not the best? And a total night-maker?

I'm sorry, Ralphie. You were a shit, but you were great comic relief. And now your head and hands are in a bowling bag. Oh, but your toupe is in there too.