This is not good.

The ceiling in the bathroom is going to collapse. Water is leaking from a pipe in the apartment above onto what is probably sheetrock and definitely sagging. It sounds like rain. I've eyed the ceiling with suspicion for at least a year, but this is the first, and maybe last, alarming sign from it.

I really don't want the ceiling to come down.

A section of the ceiling in my bay window fell a couple of years ago. It was a mess. Water and plaster everywhere, narrowly missing my dining table, which is dark wood and from the 1920s or so and to which I'm unreasonably attached. The bathroom will be harder to clean up. I wonder how much time I have. I'm on a mid-morning plane to Los Angeles on Friday (family wedding, back next Wednesday), but one of the few perks of renting -- as opposed to owning -- is that the plumbers can let themselves in and fix the problem before I get back. This is of course providing that the ceiling doesn't fall first.

Morbid thoughts. I was in a morbid mindset, anyway. I was watching a video of a gymnast named Gina Gogean falling off the balance beam at the 1994 World championships. Her head hit the beam very hard, with a clang. It's one of the scariest things I've ever seen. But the ceiling in my bathroom scares me too.

Keith's family made me welcome for Christmas. They do Christmas in grand style, with lots of food and gifts and relatives and kids and pets. One of Keith's gifts to me was a yo-yo, which I have been playing with constantly. Simple minds, simple pleasures...

"If things aren't funny then they're exactly what they are; and then they're like a long dental appointment."

- Jason Robards in "A Thousand Clowns"

Rest in peace, Mr. Robards.