Back from hiatus, for the moment. Grad school is killing me; oh, well. It's too damn cold outside, even for the first week of October. Expected to wake up and see snow. At work they want me to not exist, or expect me to be omnipresent; I'm not sure which it is. It can be quite confusing. I wonder how much I'd make as a whaler in the sea near Alaska? I wonder if the hole in the ozone layer can be traced back to the proliferation of McDonald's (tm) franchises throughout the world? Saw Chicago through a haze of beer and smoke a few weeks ago, from a rooftop, 5 a.m., amidst a philosophical discussion of personal responsibility for the fate of the world. And so on.