Reading: Invisible Man

Not yet given up on: John Milton, Paradise Lost

On deck: Don Quijote

Moving: skied three hours, hard

1 April 2002: A good idea at the time

I really don't like people spelling names deliberately yet thoughtlessly weirdly. I saw that a college basketball player's name is Dahntay. Who in their right mind thinks that is as aesthetically or intellectually appealing as Dante? I don't get it. But it gave me an idea.

PSA and his wife just had a baby boy whose name means something, as Japanese names seem to; ASZ and his wife just had a baby girl whom they named after wisdom and I am going to buy the baby The Wanderer so that she can read it in twelve years, by which time I'll have given her Walk Two Moons too. (Apologies to my nephews, but after picture books, what do boys read? The Great Brain and The Outsiders? Maniac McGee?) I just wrote to my mother, carefully spelling PSA's son's name and its meaning. I left her a message after I received his arrival email, and she sent me one of her rare little notes, in which she referred to my friend PSA, my first boyfriend, whom I have known since 1985 and whom she even met and had in her house for a weekend, as Carl. Carl? So anyway, I figured that if P--- was such a difficult name, I'd better put the baby's name in writing.

I don't want to inspire false hope in my mother, but this whole misspelling fad makes me think I should have a baby just so I can name it Sohbrikkay.