I hear the cries. I hear the cries of nobody. Skot! you don't shout. You forgot to tell us what happened over the weekend! I am haunted by these nonexistent shrieks. And to quiet these voices that don't ring in my ears or my comments, I will answer. I will tell you. For a lot happened this last weekend.

By which I mean nothing happened this last weekend. For one thing--one of the reasons nothing happened--was that the wife charitably passed along a gift to me on Saturday: the gift of a sinus infection. Oh how this sinus infection contributed to the nothing! We were, for example, supposed to go to a friend's housewarming party that evening. "Do you feel up to going?" asked the wife. "Doh," I replied. "You should doh." And she dhid. What did I end up doing? Nothing. I was becoming a connoisseur of nothing--though I didn't really know that yet. What did I know? Yeah. Nothing.

When she returned, we decided to find a movie on cable or pay-per-view. What was on? Nothing. Or, to be honest, worse than nothing: we, unbelievably, decided to pay actually money to see the Bruce Willis vehicle (and by "vehicle" I mean "go-kart made of Legos and taffy") Hostage. I think Kevin Pollak was in the movie too, somewhere, but he was also rendered unable to do anything more than nothing.

I'm pretty sure the movie had something to do with hostages. Bruce Willis' nothing family was captured, I remember, and there was something else about Kevin Pollak's family being held hostage . . . I'm pretty sure there were hostages, is what I'm saying. We certainly felt held hostage. "We're being held hostage!" I remember screaming. "Please, let's not say 'hostage' any more!" I howled. Then there was some stuff about hostages, and my dilapidated lymph nodes did a clumsy folk dance in my neck and armpits as the ghastly movie continued its onslaught of Nothing. And hostages. HOSTAGES! Whatever. That word no longer has any meaning to me. It is Nothing. Although it does rhyme with SAUSAGES! Though this too is nothing.

What rhymes with "nothing" anyway? Nothing. This is starting to freak me out. I may be coming apart. I should do something. But what? I ask myself.

And I answer myself. Nothing.

This is getting too elliptical to even deal with. And I have this sinus infection. The good news is, the wife and I are getting the fuck out of town this weekend, taking some time off to go tool around the Oregon coast. It's been a rough couple weeks, work-wise, particularly so for my gal, so something had to be done. It'll be good to get the fuck out of Dodge for even a couple days. I'm looking forward to the trip.

I'm really looking forward to just doing . . . nothing.