So this is February . . .

Today tastes like vanilla-flavored sand, mists on a busy city street, and bacon. Not very good bacon at that--half-done and chewy rather than crunchy. Send it back.

Li'l Brudder was in town to visit last week, so part of it's missing him and his particular take on the world. We were raised by the same parents in the same house, but in two very different families.

He left a book I had meant to purchase one of these days, but never got 'round to. Sometime the universe is like that. You address the sky, explaining that you need fruit. And what lands in your outstretched palm looks like a cross between a football and a pine cone, and smells like garlic, melon, and last week's gym socks.

"So what the hell is this? And what do I do with it??"

Comes the answer: "Durian fruit. Eat it."

And so you do, although you had apples in mind. Other times, you send your request out, and what you get back is a rusty skeleton key. So, grumbling about how this always happens to YOU, you pocket the key and keep on putting one foot in front of the other . . . until you happen upon a rusty gate with a huge old padlock . . . that the key fits into.

And when you unlock the gate, and swing it open, you come into an orchard of apples, where the windfalls clutter the ground and wasps buzz drowsily around, drunk on the fermented juices. The trees are old and untended, bowed under the sheer weight of their goods. So you pick a handful, and stuff a couple into your pockets for later.

Other times, you get exactly what you needed in exactly the form you anticipated.

The book? Getting Things Done, by David Allen. Li'l Bruddah insists that it's changed his life for the better. So I guess we'll see.