Something that's funny in "Deus Lo Volt!" is that one of the armaments that the Crusaders carried by ship to the Holy Land was snakes. On a ship! And when the ship was sunk, all the snakes got loose, but then they drowned. I am on page 250 and may finish it. In between putting this book down and picking it up again I finished another book by Stanislaw Lem, for whom my affection is cooling, and picked up again the essays of Montaigne. I am also carrying around "Getting Things Done" again. I listened to Merlin Mann's speech at Xerox PARC, which further impressed upon me that Merlin Mann is the exact same age as me, maybe to the month. Although I knew about email before 1995, thank you very much. But all the same verbal tics.

Another person who is a similar age to me is the writer Allegra Goodman. My mother interviewed her last week for a piece, and said she reminded her of me. Except of course much more succesful, famous and a mother of four, I added silently to myself. I haven't read anything by her but I'll probably have to before my next visit to my parents.