It will come as no surprise to frequent flyers that I haven't gotten off my butt and gone to the market yet. The fact that there is virtually nothing edible in the apartment should serve as a driving force tonight, though (one hopes). And since the building management replaced the hot water pump, I can once again indulge in the Shower Cure, which works particularly well when I'm feeling cold, bloblike, and lazy.

Good music is the other half of that equation.

After some confused back-and-forth e-mailing with the registrar at my college, I finally have my PIN to go with my student ID (unchanged since 1996, how strange and funny is that?) and was able to log in today. My advisor enrolled me in some classes; I can pick what I want and drop the rest for now. I e-mailed the schedule to my mother. We both had the same thought -- "It feels real now" -- but her spin was considerably more cheerful than mine. I just have to grit my teeth and get through it.

See, the problem with college -- as I see it, anyway -- is that you do so much work and yet you neither (1) get paid nor (2) change anything in the world. I have a problem with working for no pay and no world change. This is why I've never liked school. But I need my resume to get past the first round, so I need that degree. Sigh.

I've been typing up my adventures in Italy, though not quickly enough. I need to buckle down and get it done, preferably this weekend. Instead, I've been making idle conversation on assorted message boards, where I show an impressive record of killing threads. I'm happy about one thread I killed; ending it was the point. But for the others, I shall be known by the name of Threadkiller, the Conversational Black Hole. What happened to me? I used to be funny.

Rest in peace, Roone Arledge, and fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.