Dang! It seems just the other day my hit counter crossed the 700 threshold. When it was at 695 or so, I planned to do an entry about how now all of us constitute the 700 club. But by the time I got around to doing that, the hit counter was at 734. Now, we're at 796, about to leave the 700s behind forever.

Thanks again, Lolita.

Amazon.com deliverd new books for me: Learning Web Design by Jennifer Niederst, Web Design in a Nutshell by Jennifer Niederst, and The Blankd Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker. Slow progress in the book I've been reading for a month now, From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 Years of Western Cultural Life by Jacques Barzun. I'm only at 1848. Don't get me wrong, it's wonderful to read. Dense and well-written. The problem is crossword puzzles. I don't usually have any period during the day when I'm sitting in my comfy chair taking in a good book. I read when I'm on the train going to and from work, or sitting in a coffee place having a latte. And lately, I've been doing crossword puzzles during these times.

Doing a crossword is a unique and wonderful experience always. If it's a good puzzle, it goes like this: you get stuck. half of the blocks are filled with letters, and half aren't. You read through the clues several times. Nothing is coming. So you put the puzzle aside. Later, you pick it up and read "12. Talked monotonously" for an eight letter word, and without having to think about it, you write D-R-O-N-E-D-O-N. And then you go on a tear. While you're doing other things, the puzzle is clunking oaround in your pre-conscious mind. I love that. It teaches one to rely on that which is mysterious. To put the problem aside for a while, to sleep on it, to let your mind wander. Like when I used to write poetry. Words would alight in my mind like birds on a branch.