I’m clawing my way back to health, one molecule at a time, with a bit of help from the four prescriptions I got from the clinic on Saturday after weeks of suffering alone. That’s the last time I try to self-medicate bronchitis, although I could have sworn I read that the best cure is the twelve bottles of organic chardonnay that is in your basement. Or pie. Pie cures more than those dreaded visible abs.

When I went to that retail fiesta called Rite Aid to pick up my medicine, I saw something funny ha ha. In Baltimore, we have this phenomenon of police substations, where patrolmen have arranged to use the resources of a nearby business if necessary. While waiting in line, I saw some polices had a guy sitting in a chair by the door with his hands cuffed behind his back, interrogating him. This is hardly an unusual sight in this city, but the fun part was watching them book the perp on top of the makeup brush counter, next to the display of that fake hair that women weave into their regular hair when they get dressed up for weddings. I was going to say that it’s not often you see guns next to fake hair, but upon review, I postulate a theory that there is a strong correlation of guns and fake hair in the wider world.

Speaking of the wider world, my friend Faustus came to town for about sixteen consecutive hours this week. I took him for breakfast at the Paper Moon Diner, a place where toys and mannequins from the nineteen seventies go to die. I ate an omelet with thousands of menacing plastic carcasses looming over me. I hate the Paper Moon because they have a whole page full of rules for eating there. The Paper Moon thinks its so great, when it is merely slightly better than satisfactory.