My daily one-way drive to work is exactly twenty miles. Today that drive took fifty-two minutes. I covered the initial seventeen miles in twenty-six minutes. The last three miles required an additional twenty-six minutes.

I used to listen to audio podcasts during my commutes, but the little FM transmitter gizmo that allows the iPod to play through the car stereo quit working a few months back. It never worked particularly well to begin with – the volume was too low and the signal would tend to cut out. I’ve been disinclined to replace it because a) iPod plugs are no longer standardized; b) I don’t want to buy a new one if it won’t work any better than the old one; c) I’m tired of wires and plugs and tangles of electronic crap cluttering up my life; and d) I’m kinda strapped for cash right now.

Speaking of strapped for cash, I really need to get my car looked at. It’s leaking coolant. I have to fill up the plastic overflow tank every day now.

At work I rummaged through the storage cabinet looking for sticky labels I can use as price tags for a yard sale. I found a dusty old box of mailing labels for some kind of outdated printer that have been in the cabinet since long before I started working there. Some of them seem to still have adequate adhesive to work as yard sale tags. Should I feel guilty for “borrowing” office supplies for work? Well, the tags are ancient, nobody’s used them since – well, the box says ©1997. The next person who cleans out the storage cabinet (like that’s gonna happen) is likely to just toss them into the dumpster, and I have spent far more of my insufficient income buying stuff for work… including printer ink cartridges, not to mention tape, staples, staplers, glue… I don’t even want to think about it. So, uh, yeah, I think I can gainfully repurpose a few address labels without adding too many eons to the length of my sentence in perdition.