Paul Scofield has a great poker line in _Quiz Show_: “If you look around the table and you can’t tell who the sucker is, it’s you.” That piece of wisdom often haunts me when observing all the strange people that pass through “Common Grounds”:http://www.commongroundsarlington.com/. The minute I look around and can’t tell who the oddball in the coffee shop is, it’ll be me.

So I had better keep pointing them out while I still can. Yesterday’s exhibit was a husky teenybopper with his beard tied up into one of those long, thin braids down the middle. He was hanging around the tables outside, and as I was leaving, he was taunting traffic. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t drunk, but he was standing in the middle of the right lane, completely blocking it and forcing the cars to go around him. Not too many of them honked, either — probably because he was big and they figured he might be loco enough to try to smash their windshield or something. As I was pulling out he had begun standing right in between the lanes and pretending to step into one or the other as cars were going by, making them stop or slow or swerve. All the while he had a grin on his face, as if to say: “I may not be the funniest guy in the world right now, but I’m pretty close!”

The fact that Beard Braid Boy is still alive (I assume) fills me with hope for our civilization. Think about it: in a lawless society, your basic Mad Max milieu, natural selection would weed the guy right out. One of those drivers would be annoyed enough to swerve toward him instead of away from him, maybe even speed up a tad, and he’d be roadkill. But in our world, even the most road-raged driver wouldn’t dream of such a thing — moral compunctions aside, the driver would know that in all likelihood he’d go to jail for running a guy down. Such is our society that even catastrophically stupid “Darwin Award”:http://www.darwinawards.com/ magnets are protected under the law. Why does that fill me with hope? Because we are all catastrophically stupid, at least some of the time. So taunt away, Beard Braid Boy! Strange as it may seem, we’re lucky to have you around.

Suanna had an ultrasound today; unlike the first time, we were actually able to recognize the stuff we were seeing. I had no idea what a bundle of stress and worry I’d been carrying around until the technician said “Everything looks fine!” and suddenly the universe became incontrovertibly groovy.

But that technician, I must admit, confirmed a theory of mine: I am invisible. Specifically, invisible to all nurses and other support staff working in the field of obstetrics. I noticed it when I joined Suanna for her very first pregnancy checkup — the lady who showed us in smiled broadly at Suanna and touched on on the shoulder. Suanna gestured to me and said “This is my husband,” but the nurse’s eyes barely glazed over me, and she didn’t say anything. The next time, I tested my germinal theory by saying “Hello!” to the nurse and trying to make eye contact — it was a different woman this time, but she deftly ignored me too. I’m considering wearing a beanie and codpiece to the next appointment just to see if I can get any reaction from these people whatsoever.

It’s not that I expect much from them — just one of those brief acknowledgement-of-existence gestures that human beings generally give each other. Why would they deny me even that? All is explained, though, if they can’t actually _see_ me. Maybe all this time, when Suanna’s been talking as if someone else if with her, they’ve just been chalking it up to pregnancy-induced hallucinations. And now that I think of it — mightn’t this be the case for all guys? A case of an occupational blind spot, not invisibility as such? Can anyone else corroborate my findings?

Here are some of the phrases that people entered into a search engine that led them, by hook or by crook, to this site. I plan to keep the world updated with these each month — I don’t care if doing so is a blogosphere cliche. It’s fun. Last month’s are “here”:http://www.polytropos.org/archives/000111.html.

Ordinary Stuff Dept.

getting extra cable channels
people against paintball
blog beer maryland
short poem one paragraph on pussy cat
funeral fee bangkok death traveler
baby gear men will like
classy checkers tut results

Dept. of the Tawdry (in increasingly disturbing order)

seducing females
harry and hermione kissing stories and pictures
erotic everquest stories
erotic pictures of jai from queer eye for the straight guy

Dept. of the Lengthy

actor martin shaw -sussex -professor -university -wine -jazz -trumpet
comparison between portrayals of achilles in epic and in art
ancient chinese printer how it works and wat [sic] it looks like
which province of holland speaks the closest language to old english and how its called
unmeted or sphenozygomatic or clogwood or antepenult or aclidian [what on _earth_ could this person have been looking for?]