PARIS HILTON TOPLESS AT WAL-MART

Har, har, har. I wonder how many people have Googled their way here by now? The modern age has its amusements.

I did not have to work today, and I've done my best to profit by it.

(Listening to "Ciao Baby" by The Cult)

I made a breakfast burrito for my wife. I made her tea and sent her off to work with a kiss. I spent some time fiddling with my music library in the computer. I have hundreds of cd's, but I find that when I rip songs into mp3 format, I listen to things that I haven't for a long time. It's like getting new music all over again, without piracy. Having thousands of songs at your fingertips, shuffleable and organizable, is a fun treat. Having ripped some disco and some Ben Harper, I went for a hike.

(Listening to "The Deception of the Thrush" by King Crimson)

William B. Umstead State Park is perhaps ten minutes from my apartment. I live in a suburb of Raleigh, and it's pretty garsh durned white and plastic. Carefully manicured and zoned, almost nonexistent just a few years ago. A petri dish for idiots, like Southern California. Perhaps bright people move here, but their offspring are sure to be soft and dull. No predators. The reason I say this is to underscore the wonder I felt when I first wandered into the aforementioned park. It is a nicely maintained, quiet, sylvan refuge located right next to RDU airport. No Starbucks, no Kinko's, no CVS. Just trees and free maps.

(Listening to "Digging a Ditch" by Dave Matthews Band)

It's Friday, and perhaps that explains why the trails were so blissfully vacant. It was hot but not unpleasant, and the trees' shade ameliorated this. They are mostly hardwoods, and the ground is verdant with all sorts of plants. Enough light gets through the canopy to make things cheery. White rocks, quartzite, I believe, poke out of the ground. A great many exposed tree roots do so also, necessitating a lot of attention to avoid falling on one's face. I saw several deer sprinting away from me, about 40 yards into the woods. I saw toads and dragonflies, and I saw bluegill hovering in the shadows of logs in Crabtree Creek. I saw a girl changing her clothes on the other side of said creek; I guess she and her boyfriend were pretty comfortable. No, I didn't see any goodies.

(Listening to "Punchdrunk Lovesick Singalong" by Radiohead

I hiked at a good pace for two and a half hours. I saw the occasional jogger or cyclist, but I was alone most of the time. It was just me, my Tilley hat (model T4), and my walking stick (it's actually a rake handle that I bought at a hardware store; it works famously). Aside from the outer extremity of my hike being close to the airport, I never would have thought I was so close to Yuppieville. It was nice. It was another one of those times when my mood and my location agreed. Therefore, I continued to enjoy myself by getting in the car and driving to The Back 9 Pub for some beer and journaling.

The Back 9 is a nice, unpretentious townie bar in a very pretentious part of Cary. Jackie is the bartender there. She has empty-glass radar. It's astounding. She's a good bartender, and, being fond of journaling in bars, I've seen a few bartenders. The other guys in the bar were having a lively and completely uninteresting discussion about spraying lawns. I had a couple of $2 Yuenglings and wrote a couple of pages.

"Want another Yuengling?" the bartender asked.
"You know, I think I'd better," I replied, "in case the world ends."
"You never know," she agreed, pouring my beer.