You said I couldn't go without it for a whol- — a compl- — a month. A day. An hour. But look at yours truly now.

Got books? I do! And I can walk and walk. So that'll kill a lot of today. And tomorrow. And at night I'll…just say that insomnia is not my problm.

Wow, I'm looking forward to today's snail mail. Not that anything coms that way anymor.

It's important to xtricat 1slf from cybrcultur somtims. This is living lif to th fullst. Or mayb it's th opposit — mor lik a combination fast and colonic.

Hard to say.

squared circle cucumber slice

"One slice?" said Al. "How much for one slice?"

Wendy laughed the first time he did it. "You think of the weirdest things!"

But he didn't stop. Each vegetable seller would hand Al a whole cucumber—"No charge! Take it!"—just to make him go away. His backpack was half-full of free cucumbers.

"Not cool," said Wendy.

They came to a card table squeezed between a honey stand and the guy who sold toasted nuts. "Leave her alone."

The woman smiled at Al. "It's all organic."

"One slice?"

"Oh, samples? I didn't bring a knife. Well, help yourself to a bite! Go on!"

Smiling back at her, Al bit into it.

As an afterthought, the woman offered a cucumber to Wendy, who shook her head at the filthy thing.

A man with a clipboard arrived. "I said leave, not move."

"Okay, fine." The woman started clearing her table.

"What's the problem?" Al asked.

"I'm not 'registered.'"

"To sell cucumbers? Can you believe this dick?" Al's lips were muddy from the cucumber.

Clipboard Man said, "We do need to know where these things have been. Suppose they give you E. coli."

"Yeah, just suppose." Wendy smiled. Clipboard Man was cute.

FICTION. Well, except to the extent that it isn't.

Potato Head - Couch Potato : )

However you cut it, however you cook it, however you season it, I love a potato. The potato is my favorite ingredient in any casserole, stew or spelling bee. You say "potato," and so do I!

In fact, I love potatoes so much that I fail to see the shame in being one. I know that "couch potato" is supposed to be a pejorative, but come on. Comfort food, comfortable viewer: sounds like a win-win situation to me. Couch potato: cool as a couch cucumber. (A more discouraging word might've made a world of difference. Think of what I might have achieved by now to avoid being called a couch cabbage, or a sofa sprout.)