In case you hadn’t already figured it out, I’m an inveterate people watcher.

I mean, I guess we all are to some extent, but over the years, I’ve come to realize how much I enjoy watching others just going about their lives—and not like a creeper, just an offshoot of my curiosity. (I do have a track record in that regard.) And there’s no better place to creep … er, watch folks that than in a coffee house, especially if you’re stuck there for a few hours on a rainy Saturday morning.

As I’m typing this sentence, it’s Saturday, March 3, 2012, at 11:13 a.m., and I’m sitting in Koffee in New Haven, Connecticut …

[Before I go too far—one of the things I love about writing is that no matter when that previous sentence is read, be it tomorrow, next week, next year or a century from now by the beings from Zeta Reticuli, it will always be March 3, Koffee will always be open, and I will always be alive and sitting here pecking away at my keyboard. It’s an amazing state of existence. If something from a book bothers you, say like [spoiler alert!] how Snape kills Dumbledore, all you have to do is go back to page one of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Dumbledore lives again. Every fiction book on every shelf is packed with characters in suspended animation, and all you have to do is pick up the book and start reading to bring them to life. Just cool!]

… and I’m surreptitiously watching the world go by.

Koffee is one of my favorite spots, ironic since I don’t drink coffee under any circumstances—I sate my caffeine addiction with Coke, the most healthy way of going about it. [*lalalalalala I can’t hear you*] Nonetheless, I have ruined the Koffee experience a bit for myself in another way.

For the past few years, I’ve whiled away many Saturday mornings here, waiting as my son has attended his theater class down the street. Aside from being a nice two-hour block of reasonably quiet time to enjoy my own thoughts (a rarity, as anyone with children knows), and a wonderful people-watching perch, I like to treat myself to one of their ginormous chocolate chip muffins, which are decadently loaded with chips.

It’s become one of my guiltiest pleasures—trying not to consume a muffin in under five minutes, but always failing miserably. In my appreciation, during one of our “Best of Connecticut” meetings at Connecticut Magazine, I suggested that Koffee’s muffins be considered best in the state. The editorial staff agreed and Koffee was awarded “Best Muffin” for 2011.

And I screwed myself.

I used to drool just standing in line, looking at a bunch of them sitting in the glass case, wondering which one was going to be picked for my ravenous consumption. But once they were proclaimed “best” by a magazine that reaches over 300,000 state residents a month, a (not-so-) funny thing happened: People started eating them. Which meant by the time I showed up on Saturday mornings, the case was almost always devoid of them.

The cruelest cut happened about a month ago—after weeks of going without, I got to Koffee and saw there was a single chocolate chip muffin sitting there. I looked at the line in front of me—one woman, who had already ordered, and one guy. I started to smile. I was going to score!

The guy in front of me gets to the register. “Give me a large coffee, black,” he says, and I start to exhale—

“… Oh, and that last chocolate chip muffin.”

DRATS! DRATS! AND DOUBLE DRATS!

My wife remedied this for me on Valentines Day, going to Koffee early and buying every chocolate chip muffin in the place. She brought them home, and even though we froze them, they were gone quickly—what I get for sharing with the kids!

Stupid kids, always eating and growing and stuff …

Anyway, after the muffins, my next enjoyment is to just sit here and observe while I write. As New Haven is a college town and college students enjoy the java, there’s always a lot of them here. Even though I’m about three times their age, I almost fit in with my shiny MacBook Pro—a quick glance around and it seems as though everyone under the age of 30 has one. And an iPhone, of course.

[*insert harp version of the marimba tone as Steve Jobs looks down from iHeaven*]

There’s a distinguished looking gentleman and his tween son that I’ve seen in here numerous times over the past few years, and I always try to imagine their lives at home. I picture them sitting around, sipping iced tea, playing chess and enjoying intellectually stimulating discussions—you know, the direct opposite of my relationship with my sons, which involves lots of bodily noises, chaos and smart alecky comments. “Hey Dad, how long was it before your family finally got fire?”

Sigh.

I also often see two scholarly looking gentlemen whom I assume are professors—they doodle what look to be complex formulas on notebooks, and students approach them respectfully from time to time to chat. I would bet these guys have been going to coffee houses since Bob Dylan used to play them, and I would also bet their students have no idea who Bob Dylan is, other than maybe “the father of that guy who used to sing ‘One Headlight.'”

Around are also parents of other children who are in the same theater class as my son. If I wasn’t so shy, I’d try to strike up a conversation; instead I sort of give a smile and nod when we make eye contact. You know, which isn’t any more creepy than the average middle-aged white guy trying to give candy to kids at the playground….

Speaking of eye contact, I really try to avoid it while people watching—I’ve sort of mastered the art of looking at someone, and if they look up, pretending that I was lost in thought and looking off in another direction….

Yeah, smooooooth. Like gravel.

Obviously, a lot of the students here are doing homework, something that would have never worked for me back in the day. Not that I had ADD, but I was easily distracted back in the day and it was amazing that I was even able to earn a degree (although it was in communications, the basket-weaving of academia). Even now, I can barely concentrate on my laptop long enough to string together three—

Sorry, had to check on The Bloggess. And Twitter. And Facebook. And the Jets Blog. What was I typing about again?

Oh yeah, watching people. I guess some might think it’s an invasion of privacy, but is it my fault that that they’re sitting right out here in public? Fair game, I say. You know, like those who leave their curtains open at night practically begging you to look in …

Okay, that’s more than borderline creeper. But I learned the hard way to be careful what you ask for.

Like every single heterosexual adolescent boy—from the kids in Porky’s to Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window—I always dreamed of “accidentally” catching a glimpse of a sultry female neighbor in the act of getting changed. Of course, I never actively pursued it, just thought it’d be cool if I ever got to see it somehow. The details were vague, just a fantasy, right?

It was a cold winter night a few years ago. I was crunching through the snow down the darkened street to retrieve my young sons from their friends’ house, when suddenly I was bathed in light from the house I was passing. I turned to look at the source, which was my neighbor’s bedroom window, and there, standing completely nekkid, was my neighbor!

I froze for a second, and in that second, my damned eyes recorded much more detail than I wanted. Although I know she couldn’t see me (it was still much darker outside than it was inside, and the window was closed, so all she would’ve seen was a reflection of herself) and I know I was doing nothing wrong—I was standing in a public street, the window was unfettered and the light was on—I nonetheless turned and ran before I saw anything else.

For the record, there’s nothing wrong with the neighbor, it’s just for my personal fantasy to be fulfilled, she would have been about 40 years younger and about 100 pounds lighter. Simply, I dreamed of Phoebe Cates, and instead got Kathy Bates. The perils of people watching.

The universe isn’t completely capricious, however. I did snag the last chocolate chip muffin at Koffee this morning.

When it comes to my marriage, my wife has heard me often repeat the words of the immortal Al Bundy: “Till death do us part … and then we’re free to date again.”

Sue has also repeatedly endured my other thought on this particular subject—that if anything should happen to her, once the kids are big enough to fend on their own, I’m off to a Unabomber shack in the woods.

(One a side note: As some of you know, when we were visiting Washington, D.C., last year, I was almost apoplectic when I discovered that being displayed in the Newseum—a museum I cannot recommend highly enough—was the actual Unabomber’s shack!

Needs a little work—and indoor plumbing—but hey, it’ll do …)

Anyway, as you all know, I tend to think about my death (a bit), and in those imaginings, I’ve always figured/hoped that once my ashes have been shot out of the cannon, Sue, being an attractive, intelligent, successful and amazing woman, would move on, and probably somewhat quickly. Not Bobby Brown quickly, but you know, maybe in a month or two. I know I’ve teased her that she’ll have a young pool boy (or maybe Mark Sanchez) ready to go, yet I’ve never really thought about exactly who might replace me in her life …

Until now.

Now, I know that from beyond the grave, my control over the situation will be, uh, limited. And trust me, the last thing I’d want to do is put any restrictions on her. I also would never tell her exactly who should she go after because she would never do anything I told her to do when I was alive, so why would I expect anything different afterward?

Plus, let’s be honest: Who really wants to be the act that follows me? I suppose Justin Timberlake could pull it off, but what can’t J.T. do?

Again, I know I have absolutely no say in the matter, but Sue will admit (without even needing to finish an entire glass of wine) that we’ve had a great life together, and out of respect for that, she would most likely consider some suggestions as to my replacement. I don’t have anyone specific in mind, but I do have some ideas to the contrary. As a matter of fact, here are—

The Top 14 People Whom I Prefer My Wife *NOT* Marry After I’m Dead

14. Carrot Top – We’re all agreed, this doesn’t really need an explanation, right?

… Except my wife has an inexplicable crush on Conan O’Brien, so the ginger thing can’t be totally dismissed (speaking of which, Senior Smoke better keep back, too). And even though ‘Top’s nearly as ripped as I am, it appears he does wax a bit more.

13. Al Gore – Okay, I know he’s a former Vice President of the United States, an ardent environmentalist, a best-selling author, inventor the interwebz, a terrific dancer and possibly the only person more liberal than Sue herself…

… Except he’s also willingly slept with Tipper Gore. A lot. And doesn’t seem to be at all uncomfortable with the whole world knowing.

12. Rex Ryan – Look, Rex is pretty much my all-time favorite head coach of the New York Jets, and someone I think I’d have at my table for the “Four People You’d Love to Have Dinner With” (as long as someone else was picking up the tab). From all accounts, he seems like a really good guy, entertaining, loyal, outgoing, has an open mind when it comes to love …

… The mental image is just … crushing. I’ll leave it like that.

11. George Clooney – Sure, he seems like the perfect guy—handsome, intelligent, charming, great sense of humor …

… From all accounts he is perfect, and then some. Which is exactly why I don’t want her marrying him. (Yes, I’m that jealous and petty.)

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I hate politics, and I hate politicians more than politics. But really, the thing I hate the most is Hate.

Allow me a moment to clarify.

The other day, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a same-sex marriage bill that had been passed by the New Jersey state legislature. You may have missed it in the news cycle because a.) he had promised to do it from the outset, so it wasn’t a real surprise; and b.) he did it on a Friday night, an old public relations trick to help slip it under the radar so that it will be forgotten quickly.

I can go on a rant here as to why I am in favor of same-sex marriage, but I think I’ll leave it Washington State representative Maureen Walsh, who recently spoke in her legislature during a debate on the subject.

As Rep. Walsh says in the clip about gay marriage, “It isn’t the popular thing to do, it is the right thing to do.” I also like the bit about the majority protecting the rights of the minority. Nice.

If you haven’t been following along, the Washington State legislature has passed the bill and the governor signed it last week. Of course, the haters—led by presidential candidate Rick Santorum—are vowing to do everything they can to prevent it from taking effect.

For the record, Walsh is a Republican, like Santorum and Christie.

Christie, in helping to perpetuate the hate in his veto, not surprisingly, took the cowardly way out, stating, “I am adhering to what I’ve said since this bill was first introduced—an issue of this magnitude and importance, which requires a constitutional amendment, should be left to the people of New Jersey to decide.”

In other words: “I want all the power and acclaim that goes with being a leader, but I really don’t want to lead if it involves taking a stand on a potentially divisive issue that could be thrown back in my face later, so I’ll pass the buck and let someone else take the blame and do my dirty work. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I hate *those* people, but I’m governor of New Jersey, so I can’t say that out loud.”

I can’t underscore how loathsome Gov. Christie’s words and actions are to me. The reason we elect leaders and legislatures is to represent us, guide us and make rules for us to follow. If we wanted to have everyone vote on everything, why do we need any legislatures—or governors—in the first place?

Of course, Gov. Christie knows this. He’s just stepping back so that the pro-hate anti-gay forces can rally and do his bidding. “Let the people decide.” Please. As I’ve stated previously, the people can’t even pick a proper American Idol (sorry Taylor!), let alone be trusted to do the right thing when it comes to human rights. He knows that with the Catholic church’s support, the seemingly non-Christian haters are better organized than the pro-same-sex forces, and thus, more likely to be able to defeat the law. Makes me so freakin’ aggy*!

[*My 12-year-old son says this is the new slang for “aggravated.” Just trying to keep it phresh, yo!]

To put a little (overly) dramatic emphasis on something Rep. Walsh also said in the clip above: If over the past two hundred years, the majority of “The People”—i.e. white guys—were left to make the rules, women would still be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen and African-Americans would still be in chains.

In conjunction with that thought, this week we’ll celebrating President’s Day, a day to honor a man who didn’t let his personal feelings get in the way of what he knew was the right thing.

I’ve been (slowly) reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Abraham Lincoln biography Team of Rivals, which, although not nearly as entertaining as Seth Grahame-Smith’s Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Killer, has nonetheless been very enlightening.

In Team of Rivals, Kearns chronicles the renowned debates during the 1858 campaign for Senate between Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, throughout which Douglas constantly promoted the notion that Lincoln was “a Negro-loving agitator bent on debasing white society.” (Sound vaguely familiar?)

From the book:

In response, Lincoln avowed that he had “no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races.” He had never been in favor “of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry.” He acknowledged “a physical difference between the two” that would “probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality.” But “notwithstanding all this,” he said, taking direct aim at the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dred Scott case, “there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence …. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects—certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral and intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man.”

This is why there’s a monument to Lincoln in our nation’s capitol, something I feel comfortable in saying will never be the case with Santorum or Christie.

Oh, by the way, Lincoln was also an original Republican, and is surely not spinning in his grave over what his party has become … you know, what with having to be entombed in cement to thwart grave robbers.

Then again, just maybe Santorum, Christie and the rest are right. I mean, Connecticut legalized same sex marriage in November 2008 and since then, it’s been one harrowing disaster after another—all the children have turned gay, there’s been social anarchy, every marriage and family in the state has dissolved, not to mention the constant tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, plagues of fire and frogs (and fire-breathing frogs), cats and dogs living in sin, all of which has made for a never-ending nightmare that we’ll never wake from ….

Or it absolutely made no difference in anyone’s daily lives, except a few people who now are treated just like everyone else and get to be as incredibly happy (or as miserable) as the rest of us married folk.

As we enjoy a long weekend in honor of Mr. Lincoln, it makes me sad to think that Rick Santorum and Chris Christie—men who hide behind facades of being “Good Christians” but are more interested in doing the “right thing” for their careers versus the right thing for their fellow brothers and sisters—may some day share the same title as him, a truly great human who was murdered for putting his personal prejudices aside to do the right thing.

So the other day I picked up my 12-year-old son from school. He gets in the car, and before I can start the engine, he turns to me and says, “Hey, I have some news.”

“Okay,” I say, thinking he’s going to tell me something about making the honor roll with his sterling report card or something about an art project of his.

“I have a girlfriend.”

To say that I was flabbergasted wouldn’t do justice to the proud history of the word “flabbergasted.” Shocked. Stunned. Gobsmacked. Insert your favorite synonym for “more surprised than Maria Shriver after intercepting a Father’s Day card from the maid’s son.” Luckily, the car wasn’t in motion, or I would have inadvertently driven across traffic and through the front of the local grocery store.

Not that there’s anything wrong with his announcement. It all seems fairly innocent, it’s just that I wasn’t prepared to hear it. He’s never really talked about the fairer sex, so I just always assumed he wasn’t quite there yet. For what it’s worth, he says he’s still more excited about fixing his old Dreamcast video game console by himself than this event, so there’s that. (For now.)

Of course, I immediately called his mother. “Are you sitting down?” I asked. She said she was in an elevator, which was close enough. When I told her, she didn’t scream “MY BABY!” and freak out, but by the time my son and I had gotten home, she had already scoured his Facebook page in search of “the brazen hussy who is coming between a boy and his mama.” Or something like that. I may be paraphrasing.

So wanting to be a good father, I thought that I should be supportive of the newest phase of my son’s life. Despite being married for 17 years—and having dated a bit before that—I don’t feel that I’m exactly qualified to give advice about love and relationships to anyone.

After a lifetime of being around women (grew up in a house with a mother and two sisters, worked in multiple women-heavy environments), however, I *do* feel that I can offer a few personal, general “observations” about the females of our species that may be of some practical use for navigating the deep waters of heterosexual relationships.

All just in time for Valentine’s Day!

Women, on the whole, are smarter than men. Sure, all the IQ tests demonstrate that when it comes down to intelligence, the sexes are evenly matched, but having watched them in action for decades, I can attest to the fact that although men may be adept at certain mechanical-type reasoning, women are often light years ahead of men in terms of navigating life, including social interaction, which is what it’s all really about when you get down to it.

Women enjoy having nice things said about them. See above.

Women remember everything. Not like all-the-lines-to-Monty-Python-and-the-Holy-Grail everything, but everything like the date you first met, where she first saw you, what you were wearing, what shoes she was wearing and if she was having a good hair day or not—and if she asks you if you remember, you dang well better have a pretty good handle on the details. As you move on deeper into your relationship, she will also recall (often years later) seeming innocuous things like, “Well, you liked this perfume when that little blonde waitress at the waffle house we stopped at on our honeymoon wore it.”

*Girls* like dangerous guys, jocks and jerks. Take a look at any high school—who gets the majority feminine attention? The captain of the football team, the “bad boy,” the spoiled rich jerk. These are the personalities and traits are ones that appeal to young females, maybe it’s that overdeveloped sense of confidence. Don’t ask me why—I’m not a psychologist, nor do I play one on TV.

*Women* like funny, nice guys. The good news is that girls grow up, and when they do, their tastes change. Call it “revenge of the nerds,” but the majority of women also realize the shallow qualities they found appealing when they were young suddenly aren’t all that attractive when later in life. Sure, they may watch movies and still fantasize about the bad boys, but they all almost prefer to hook up long-term with a regular guy with a great sense of humor. Speaking of—

Women have a different sense of humor. Exhibit A—

Guaranteed, the women reading this post skipped over this while the guys hit “play.” Seriously, I don’t understand why women don’t think the Stooges are funny, I just accept that they don’t.

To wit: Women will not always laugh at things that you think are funny—for example, while in college, my then-future wife was participating in a charity auction where they were “raffling off” RAs to be personal assistants for a day, and suggested that I should bid for her, to which I (somewhat jokingly) responded, “Why should I buy the cow when I can get the milk for free?” It took me a few chilly hours to explain the alleged humor in that one.

Don’t get between sisters. Fortunately, I learned this one watching others. Growing up, my sisters fought more viciously than anyone I have ever witnessed; in fact, I was in college before I realized that knock-down, drag-out fist fights between female siblings were not normal occurrences. Still, they might have beaten the brains out of each other on a regular basis, but that paled in comparison to what would happen to a hapless soul who crossed one of them and incurred their combined wrath. That pretty much extends to all sisters.

When it comes to gift-giving occasions, be prepared to be outdone. When celebrating his first Christmas with his new girlfriend, my friend John gave her a sweater; she gave him a VCR. This inequality stems from the reality that they are always a few step ahead of us, both in terms of where they think a relationship is and life in general (see “Women are smarter than men,” above).

The answer to any “Does this make me look fat?” type question is … There is no right answer, so don’t try to provide one under any circumstance. Just like Star Trek’s Kobayashi Maru, this is a no-win scenario designed to test a mate’s reactions and decision-making skills under extreme duress. The best one can hope to do is to determine what the deeper issue of the moment is and respond to that. To put it in practical terms, answering any question like this is akin to the moments immediately after Indiana Jones swapped in the bag of sand for the golden idol: fraught with life-threatening peril, chaos and the potential of being crushed—metaphorically and literally—by a giant boulder.

Women talk … a lot. Hey, as we all know, I was voted “Most Talkative” my senior year of high school, and even I can’t get in a word edgewise when my wife and her sister are engaged in conversation. The offshoot of this is that while filling up all that chatting time, women will talk about everything, including men. And believe it or not, it’s not always about how great we are. (No, really.) The daunting trick is being able to filter out the fluff parts of the conversation from the parts you may be required to know later. (See “Women remember everything,” above.)

Women really like cute things. Again, I don’t profess to get it, I just know that they’ll truly be more taken with a cat hugging its kitten than a last-second game-winning touchdown pass. Go figure.

Women are more competitive than men. Don’t mistake a general lack of interest in professional sports as not having strong competitive nature—most of them will tell you that they don’t dress up to impress men, but to impress other women. Some studies suggest that this is more than anecdotal evidence, and that women are more concerned with besting other women. In short, that short black dress isn’t to turn your head, but to turn her friends’ heads, so don’t flatter yourself.

Know how to … ring the bell. Let’s just say that women like to be made … really happy. Pay attention, learn what it takes, and when it comes time, ring her bell, ring it well and ring it often, if possible. You’ll be surprised at how many of your flaws may be overlooked.

Good luck!

Okay, if you’re like me, you’re probably sick of hearing about the Giants and Patriots, so let’s do some counter programming and talk about something else more interesting: My impending death.

First off, I should say that I’m *not* terminally ill with a few weeks to live (as best as I know), nor am I about to kill myself or bring about some other premature end to my life. I just say “impending death” because when you think about it in the grand scale of time and the universe, all our deaths are “impending.”

Speaking of thinking about things, I think about my own death. A lot. Like every day a lot.

I suppose that means technically I *may* be obsessed with my death, you know, if you call having spent years trying to picture it in every single way imaginable—although I like to think that I just don’t like surprises, and want to know when it’s coming. I guess that’s kind of hardcore. Or disturbing.

I have actually had this pillow talk conversation with my wife:

Me: “Hey, can I ask you a favor?”

Sue: “Sure. What?”

Me: “So we’ve had a pretty good life together, right? Lots of good times.”

Sue [*wincing in dread of where this is going*]: “Uh, yeah….”

Me: “So out of respect for all that good stuff, can I ask that when you kill me—and let me say, when you do, nobody will blame you—that you don’t do it in my sleep. You know, if you want to push me down the stair, poison me, that’s all okay. Just not while I’m sleeping. I just don’t like the idea going to bed one night and never waking up. Okay?”

Sue: “Oh honey, don’t be silly. If *I* kill you myself, then I can’t collect the insurance.”

Me: “Oh yeah, right. So—HEY, what’s that supposed to mean?”

Sue [*smiling and looking off into the distance*]: “Oh nothing. Don’t worry about it at all.”

Another insight into how my mind works—when I’m sitting in the stall of the men’s room at work, my mind always goes to 9/11. What, you naturally ask, does a trip to the can have to do with the most heinous terrorist attack in the history of the United States? Good question. When I’m sitting there, all I can think about is that on that fateful Tuesday morning, some poor bastard was sitting in a stall up on the 90th floor of World Trade Center, reading the New York Daily News, looking over the box scores, when suddenly he hears an enormous crash, looks up and thinks for a split-second, “Hey, is that a PLANE?!” before everything goes black.

So yeah, death. I used to always say that I didn’t want to live forever, that I just planned on not dying. See how that works? Yeah, neither does the universe. Sure as I typing this, I’ll be dead some day. I accept that now, although I’m still hoping that before my time is up, they figure out how to keep my brain in a jar to be transplanted into some uber robot, although that’s fraught with problems, too.

Although I understand I may not be able to dictate the circumstances of my final moments, I do have a few guidelines that I hope I can adhere to. A sampling—

• I don’t want to be a Darwin Award winner.
• I don’t want my last words to be “Hey, watch this!”
• I don’t want to discover Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster or aliens, only to be killed by any of them before I can claim my prize.
• I don’t want to die on my way *into* the famed grotto of the Playboy mansion for the first time.
• I don’t want to die in the arms of Richard Simmons. (Too many questions.)
• I don’t want to drop dead of a massive coronary in front of my kids.

To the last item, specifically, I’ve been trying to stay in shape, and that includes running. For the past few years, I’ve been doing laps at a nearby track, an old crushed gravel oval—it’s like old-school training. Along those lines, I don’t listen to music while I run; it’s just me and my thoughts, which sometimes turns out to be a good thing. I actually came up with this post while I was trotting around in circles earlier today.

Anyway, while running this past summer, I came up with an idea for a short story: “Track Time.” That’s right—a little fiction, thrown in there with all the other stuff I do. If you take the time to read it, I think you’ll be able to figure out how it ties in to this post and my “part” in the story. Hope you enjoy it!

P.S. If you’re interested, there’s more “web-exclusive” posts to read in the “other stuff” page.