I do, according to the guy in the parking lot booth today. His observation occurred as I was handing him my ticket.

Are you from West Virginia? Well, I just moved from DC, so my accent might be kind of the same sometimes. No, no, did you ever live in West Virginia? Are you from there? What, you mean the car? (It hasn't been washed in a while; maybe he thinks the mountains got to it.) No, you just look like you're from there. I used to live up there. You kinda look like you're from there. No, can't say that I am. Beautiful state, though, always love to visit there. Oh, okay. That's all right! You have a good day.

Thanks. I think.

On the way to the supermarket recently, I was flipping through the radio presets and came across Michael Jackson's "Black or White." Normally I continue past any post-"Bad" Michael, but this time I let the song ride it out.

Because leaving the house that afternoon, I had noticed a neighbor's trash across the street. There were two bins of recycling by the curb and a microphone stand behind them. With a microphone and an amp, someone could have stood on that curb and rocked the whole block.

It is a quiet block, lined with quiet houses. Not many people drive down the street, and there's a tall and leafy tree cover. But put Michael Jackson curbside in front of that microphone stand. Imagine him with a microphone and an amp too. I bet Jackson, for all his faults, could dance and sing right there until the suburb shook.

You can't rip anyone all the way down and still be right.

So how are you spending your weekend? Washing the car, mowing the lawn, going to the dry cleaners, stuff like that?

So writes my mother, the e-mailing humorist. She jokes because today is my Saturday; tomorrow will be my Sunday; and Friday morning will be my Monday morning. Which is all pretty funny, for the time being.

It will stop being funny Friday morning, when I wake at 4:30 a.m. to find that "TGIF" has lost all meaning. Welcome to my new schedule. My hours have shifted at work, so I'm now on the job from 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Friday through Tuesday. The shift is a good thing job-wise. Socially, it so far has introduced me to a plethora of early morning television offerings.

I heartily recommend the Zumba infomerical. Video clips are available here. If you need a friend, folks, you've got a friend in Alberto "Beto" Perez.

Elisa and Ray got married this weekend, making them the first people to get married in my generation. I'm sure my generation has others who have tied the knot, but I do not know them. It's crazy! Crazy, I tells ya.

I talked to them on the phone Sunday. They sounded the same, which surprised me. I figured they would sound different — higher voices or something. They're a funny couple, Elisa and Ray. Perfect for each other, yes. But who figures an Vancouver bicycle racer is gonna end up with a Bahamian hula dancer? I guess college brings different people together. Life is just amazing that way, especially for Elisa and Ray. You've got to wonder: What if? What if they never met? What if she had gotten into Brown? His years at Oral Roberts wouldn't have been the same.

But here we are, and the "what ifs" mean nothing. Beautiful things happen.

It's been a joy to see them begin to build a life together. Knowing them both before they even met, I've had the chance to see lives change.

I met Elisa on the first day at Roberts. As I had just finished unloading the Dodge Caravan in front of the dorm, she and her parents pulled up in that pink jeep, bright as a flamingo high on neon fumes. She hopped out, grass skirt, coconut bra and all. Jaws dropped in a hundred-foot radius. But she just went about her business of unloading, oblivious to it all.

Later that night, at the local watering/dancing hole, she showed up. This time the boys made themselves impossible to ignore. They would leave disappointed. She was there to dance that night, but not with them. Because, you see, unlike most hula dancers, she used an actual hula hoop. And every time a boy would dance near, she'd twist her hips and give him a whack with that hula hoop.

And night after night, it continued. She'd dance with that hoop, and it made college a little less stressing for her. She grew up with the hoop, and that look in her eyes made one think she'd die with it, a century or two down the road. Until she met Ray.

Ray and I went way back, long before college ever began. We were a couple of New Orleans bar flies, but we didn't know each other for a while. He was a character you'd see in the bars. Cracking-wise, et cetera. Always talking about his bicycle racing.

Now most people in New Orleans don't take well to a Canadian talking about a contraption so ridiculous to have less than the standard amount of wheelization (four). But I'd never been bothered much by the obscure and less than standard, so we got to talking here and there.

We hit the same spots, and there were worse people to talk to. He turned out to be an okay guy, despite the bicycles. Everytime he'd get drunk with me, he'd sing a song. Pat Cooper! How come you dance so good? Pat Cooper! Just like Pat Cooper should! I got a kick out of it. He was a fish on a bicycle out of water, and I was his only friend in the city. So when I decided to go to college, he did too.

At Oral Roberts, the bicycling drew even deeper frowns than in New Orleans. Intracampus transportation was by foot and by vehicle. Ray didn't like it much, but he kept the bike in his dorm room. He would pedal around the room in small circles after his roommate fell asleep.

One night, after flying over the handlebars into his desk, he took the bicycle outside. It was dark, but the street lights did their job. He pedaled hard, imagining a ride through the litter-free streets of his youth. As he rounded a corner, fate had Elisa walk out of the watering/dancing hole. The last to leave, she was holding her hula hoop.

He flew on by, but she saw those circles spinning into a blur. She called out to him: "Hey!"

Halfway down the block, he slammed on the hand brakes and spun around to face her. She was smiling at him and his bicycle and he didn't know what to think. "Eh?" he said.

She laughed and so did he, and they lived happily ever after. The end.

A site worth visiting is Peppermint Palace, the retro candy store. You remember Wax Lips? You want some? They got 'em. Read their FAQ for more details, including the answer to the question, "How do you not eat all the candy?"

Stained Apron

This site devoted to food servers' has some quality stories, including a full page on celebrity tipping. The highlights are many. On serving The Rock: This guy is not a "Rock" to me, just a cheap pebble. On serving Keanu Reeves: A little confused by the menu but 20%. On serving Walter Cronkite: "That voice" ordering a cheeseburger is a bit surreal.

Traficant's mug shot

Con toupee.

More on the Twinkie

I addressed the Twinkie's horribleness a few weeks ago. According to the St. Petersburg Times, the horribleness has now gone upscale.

Muppets in-depth

The Kermitage makes one consider buying those Muppet Show videos from Time Life.

There's something about corporate parking lots that I don't like. Sure, they get the job done. But they leave much to be desired. It's like the companies have already spent so much money on the workspace that the parking space becomes an afterthought.

Think about amusement parks and their parking lots. Wide rows, areas distinguished by color (blue — "You are in the Papa Smurf lot"), perhaps some guided walkways. There's no way you can get lost in these places. The parks don't want you having a bad end to your day of amusement.

Employers, however, could care less. You've probably had a bad day at work anyway. Why try to cheer you up before an inevitably worse tomorrow?

So, I blame Corporate America for my difficulty finding my car every afternoon. After eight hours in CNN Center, including lunch in the atrium's faux outdoors, my day concludes with searching the parking lot. Luckily, I park in the same row every day, so that makes my task easier. But God help me the day I forget the row.

You gotta wonder about spam testamonials. Who are these people? Are they real? Maybe they're friends or relatives of the spammers. Maybe they owe the spammers mad cash. They could be made up as the e-mail's claim, of course, but isn't that risky?

Take my most recent spam. What if a Pam Hedland really does live in Fort Lee, N.J.? (She made $610,470.00 in 21 weeks.) And Susan De Suza of New York, are you out there? ($490,000 is all right, but you're no Pam Hedland.)

Or Mitchell Wolf, a C.P.A. from Chicago. Let's talk about Mitchell. Through the e-mailed direct marketing message, we know only a little about him. But if we try hard, with a little thought and a little caring, we can discover the true Mitchell.

"My name is Mitchell. My wife, Jody and I live in Chicago. I am an accountant with a major U.S. Corporation and I make pretty good money. When I received this program I grumbled to Jody about receiving "junk mail". I made fun of the whole thing, spouting my knowledge of the population and percentages involved. I "knew" it wouldn't work. Jody totally ignored my supposed intelligence and few days later she jumped in with both feet. I made merciless fun of her, and was ready to lay the old "I told you so" on her when the thing didn't work. Well, the laugh was on me! Within 3 weeks she had received 50 responses. Within the next 45 days she had received total $ 147,200.00 ……….. all cash! I was shocked. I have joined Jody in her "hobby".

Can you hear Mitchell's cries? I can. Arthur Andersen's a tough place to work these days.

Lindsey Blackledge, 19 was arrested July 31 for possession of a stolen, 14-ounce tri-tip steak. My speculation on her thoughts:

I need a steak. I need it bad. I had a quarter-pounder with cheese for lunch, and it didn't do the job. Now it's up to me. But I know how to handle my hunger for beef. I got connections, you know? Freddy, he does the t-bones. If you want slices, you know, for sandwiches, like if you're going uptown to do a little entertainment, see Crazy Lady Sue. And Fat James, he's got the Slim Jim's. He's funny like that. Characters are characters, you know?

I thought you would, you fool. 'Cause if you're talking to yourself, you already know a lot of the answers. But you know what you don't have? Beef. Steak. Charred gold. Texas steer.

For this dealie, I got a call in with The Man. He comes through with primo cuts. Word is he's got a genuine, 14-ounce tri-tip steak heading down his pike. I want in. I want it mine. Something of this high quality merchandise-material, it's gonna be hot like a broiler, but I got the steam in my veins, baby, I can take it like an engine on the meat locomotive if one were to exist.

But if the cops get The Man over the spit and he moos, I got plans of my own. I got this spot, you know? Right underneath the sink in the bathroom. It's a quality spot. I cleared away the bathtub scrubber and my bucket of hotel soaps. Now the steak'll fit right in. If it's smelling too much, I'll spray some of my perfumes around in the air and the boys in blue will take me for a frou-frou girl. The vegetarians, they make it so easy.

With the meat inside, I'll shut the little door and play it cool. Once the cops come and go, me and my knife will have some work to do. Don't worry about us. Me and the knife, we got it all figured out. Things'll be just fine in Nation Marination.

From today's Washington Post, an opinion piece about Atlanta:

"Atlanta isn't likely to be confused with municipal beauties like San Francisco or centers of power and history like Washington. It's a transportation hub and convention center designed to move people in, accommodate them, help them make a buck, maybe have a naked lady dance on their table, and send them on their way."

A woman walks out of the ladies room the other day, and she says,"Nice to meet you," to someone else still in there.

Who meets co-workers in the bathroom? Can't there be some polite ignoring for the time being? I mean, you can always meet again later and say, "Oh yeah, you're the one from the bathroom , how 'bout that?" That works well enough, at least in my opinion.

It just seems so much simpler. Say these two women met at the sinks. While introducing, they've got match each other, cleanliness for cleanliness. Don't you forget to soap, or you blew it. And what about the towels? If two people go to get the towels at once, then you're all crammed up in a corner of the bathroom. That's no good.

I guess I'm looking for more coordination in the world. Right now, we do stuff and some of it comes out right and the rest comes out screwed up. Like those guys trying to fix the water main broken on my route to work. Been broken since Wednesday with the block still cut off from traffic. Maybe they're getting there, but I bet they're screwing up a lot along the way. Why else would it take that long?

Whatever it is, it's getting me lost. Every day I come home from work now, I get lost. And I don't even get lost the same way either. Different ways, every day. Too many one way streets in this city and too many u-turns needed to get back to the way you were going. That all might be symbolic if it weren't such a pain.

I called an answering machine the other day, or at least I thought I did. Turned out to be a beeper. All the talking was for nothing and even then I didn't type in any numbers, so nothing counted.

It was like the first time I tried to gas up my car here in Atlanta. Eight-thirty in the morning, already late for work. Pulled into the gas station, popped the unleaded nozzle in the tank, but the numbers didn't move. I go up to the store in the gas station. I try to open the door, and it doesn't budge. I look in the window — lights off, some stuff but nobody inside. It's an abandoned gas station.

I drive around for fifteen minutes and find one that's actually still a functioning gas station. I'm half an hour late to work that day, and for what? I wonder how long the gas station had been closed. Months? Years? I'd like to wonder how many suckers drive in there for a fill-up. I bet most figure it out before trying the door.

But that's me in Atlanta. People saying stuff to other people, and I talk to machines that aren't even listening. I drive around like a halfway-grown Family Circus kid, and even that doesn't matter because, tell me, where do I have be? Freedom's no good when you're living your life as the third person singular. Drive on by, folks, gas station's still closed. Glad I could confirm that for y'all.