1) PIZZA PALABRA: Ok, so, surrounded by some friends at the school, RBN became a topic of discussion, I forget how. And of course I eventually had to describe, in Spanish, what it means to have a pizza palabra. Needless to say, I had to give an example, because the concept is a little hard to explain in a foreign language. And in the process I realized that, like in an episode of The Twilight Zone, in the very process of explaining what it meant to have a pizza palabra, that I had just, unwittingly, given myself a pizza palabra (in English, of course). In Spanish conversation, pizza word chooses you? Take that, Yakov Puggleoff. So, when I return home folks, fire away.

2) ON FINDING YOUR ARCH NEMESIS: For those of you who know me, the fact that my room is always a mess is hardly a surprise. One prior housemate (from a 10 person house in college, complete with keg-o-rator for beer on tap with your breakfast cereal) nicely said once that I was "domestically disabled", and I´m hardly one to really disagree - Shay would often shove me out of the way when I tried to do dishes because "I didn´t know how." And heck, I know I only feel comfy if there´s some degree of chaos around me, otherwise I get this wierd agoraphobic feeling of there being too much order . . . luckily I have a puggle (my id on a leash) to make sure nothing ever stays too orderly or clean around my house for long.

But now it appears I´ve met my match - Limpiadora. Limpiadora is the word in Spanish for the person who cleans (limpiar), and in this case, we have a cleaning woman in the student residence here. But every time she wants to come into my room, I get all embarassed that my room needs cleaning up before she comes in and cleans. And since I´m already always running late, I spend a lot of time cleaning in preparation for the arrival of the Limpiadora (because you can´t let the cleaning lady see your room a mess, I mean, that´s extra work for her, how inconsiderate!), and much time fretting about her arrivals, and if they will make me later than usual. This morning I forgot to clean up before she arrived, and I told her, ´please, don´t clean my room today, its too messy´´, but she was like "but I´m a cleaning woman, I know mess!" I tried to get her to desist, but she said she had to change the sheets, and I told her I didn´t care, but she said the school would care. So I told her, ok, wait 5 minutes while I pre-clean the room for you. Needless to say, I was late again. Lately, when I suspect she is coming the next morning, as I am pre-cleaning my room I often run around with fist in the air going, "Limipie!"

Far be it from me to become a Seinfeld character of my own making, and maybe I´ve seen too many episodes of The Venture Brothers, but me thinks I should have a discussion with The Guild of Calamitous Intent, because I think she´s actually arching me! That is, if me and my puggle are a force of chaos in the universe (and heck, back in my musician days a friend of mine would call a "Chris-nest" any group of music cables I touched, as if I had a magical power to make them tangle), then Limpiadora is my arch nemesis - a person who´s purpose in life is to undo my life´s work.

Ladies and Gentlemen, no need for cold fusion, we have achieved perpetual motion.