Entry 14:

Hi,

I sympathize. If Noa slept 12 hours, I, too, would lie awake all night wondering what was wrong. I can no longer remember the nights or how many times I got up. This morning was great, though, full of song and carnage--a snake eating a duck, a goose shot in the head, a sow dying of measles, blind mice with bloody tails, and a whale who eats grandmothers.

I really think you're on to something with this postal conspiracy. Since reading your message, I've been noticing things, making connections. Now I'm starting to think this FedEx story has great political significance.

Did you see that other article on the Post front about Gale Norton's speech equating the fight for states' rights with the cause of the Confederacy? Maybe states' rights and private postal monopolies are somehow linked. Maybe this is our first clue to the world under Bush, a Pynchonesque nightmare of dueling fiefdoms, communication breakdown, and (if I remember the play within the book correctly) incest.

And the Postal Service thinks they're making things better by saying FedEx's role will be "all but invisible," like we don't know what that means. Whatever it is, I'm sure Karen Hughes is at the center of it. But who will be our Oedipa, wading through the whole mess? Hillary? Janet Reno? Kevin Costner?

Well, since we're both so suspicious of progress, we'd be interested in a Times business section story about a company that's trying to find a way to block cell phone signals in quiet zones, like churches and hospitals. It's strange, America's ambivalence about the cell phone. In other countries they take cell phones to funerals, into the shower. But here we adopt the attitude of the Queen Mother--that these ear rats might be necessary, but they're slightly gauche and distasteful. I got a lecture the other day for using my cell phone at the gym, like that was some sacrosanct space.  

I meanwhile am saddest this morning about the news from Israel. It's totally expected for Ariel Sharon to call the Oslo agreements "void," but for Barak to second that opinion, in those same words, is pretty depressing.

Well, I'm off to the zoo. I'll let you know how the pandas look. Meanwhile, I expect a full and honest report about the mommy group. Like, did it get really confessional? That is, discuss the grittier questions of motherhood we have politely avoided?

H