A Pilgrim’s Digression

Tuesdays are not so bad as Mondays. Yet I have come down with a cold overnight, perhaps because I slept with the air conditioner set to “Arctic.” By August I will be sleeping with it set to “Antarctic,” but last night it was just at “Arctic” temperatures. I woke with a sore throat that I thought might pass if I could get some fluids in me, but juice did not help. Now I am at work and my taste is gone and my handkerchief is soaked. Incidentally, pocket handkerchiefs are important accessories, as Bilbo Baggins knew, and they should never have gone out of fashion. Even when I am not sick, I always carry one. I find a handkerchief especially handy for those times in public restrooms when there are no paper towels on which to dry one’s hands after washing up.

Oh, but I was complaining about my sickness. The humidity here in Washington is terrible today. Stepping out of doors is like walking into a damp sheet and sucking it into your nose and mouth. The air is bad anyway, though there have been no Red Alert days yet; all this has no doubt contributed to my cold. I have noticed that I have contracted them much more frequently since moving to the city. When I lived in the mountains, I rarely had colds.

I am rambling today. I recently read a Washington Post story about a D.C. intern who kept a blog in which she recounted her sexual trysts with various congressmen and government officials. I apologize that I cannot supply anything so racy as that. I am quite ugly, for one thing; for another I am married, and so have sex infrequently at the best of times. However, I promise that if an opportunity presents itself to have “relations” with a member of congress, an official at the Department of Homeland Security, or the Attorney General’s Office, or the Office of the President or Vice-President, I will be sure to write about it here. I won’t go so far as to entertain the idea of sex with an employee of the Department of Agriculture or Voice of America, however. The Department of Ag. building is horrifically bland-looking, and both the interior and the exterior of the Voice of America building reminds me vaguely of a plain, gray office building perhaps modeled after the architecture of old Soviet-bloc countries. It is better named the Ministry of Propaganda. So no sex with the Dept. of Ag or VOA people. However, that is the only line I will not cross. I can think of no other reason anyone would want to read such a blog as this if I didn’t at least hold out the hope of erotica some time in the future.