So today I was privileged to actually flip through a signed copy of Leonard Nimoy's upcoming book of photography. It royally, royally sucked. Aside from having something like three photos in it, it is readily evident that Mr. Nimoy needed a pretext for hanging out with nekkid models. And the photography was hackneyed and wretched, all blurry black-and-whites of perkies. Not that there's anything wrong with perkies. But there is something deeply wrong with Leonard Nimoy writing bad pseudoreligious poetry to accompany said perkies.

As you might have gathered, faithful reader, today was another fascinating day of copyediting for American Photo. Rewarding as all hell. I might even see a paycheck from it one day! (Someone- we're not sure who- lost my first timesheet.)

OK, there's no point in being sarcastic about it. I love it and there's nothing I'd rather do. All the fascinating shit to learn that I'm not usually interested in. For example:

-Digital SLRs used to be only able to process and store images of a maximum of roughly 3 million pixils. That was eighteen months ago. Now they're up to twice that. Isn't that scary? Seem to be improving on a logarithmic scale. And right under my nose, all this time! I tell you. The world is such a great place. All these people running around paying minute attention to things I'm barely even cognizant of.

-It is sometimes appropriate to use four dots in an ellipsis.

-Richard Avedon is pretty damn cool, celebrity photos aside. I had some downtime today and flipped through In the American West. Incredible. He roadtripped around the U.S. in the sixties with little but his assistant, a camera with accoutrements, and a big white sheet, and proceeded to take strangers' pictures. Haunting: a nuclear fallout victim, a beekeeper, a soaking wet migrant worker with a look of grim determination, lots of teenage couples. Coal miners. Farmers who lost arms in threshers. An alcoholic drifter who Avedon drove to rehab. "Like they say, oh rev wah," said the drifter as he walked up to the hospital doors.

Among other things that I suspect everyone else will find tedious. Like how to properly hyphenate "black and white." The exact difference between em and en dashes. The existence of the 3- and 4-em dash, as in Victorian novels: the Duke of H----. Unfortunately I got a little overzealous with the rewrites and most of my grammatical changes got stetted. (More great lingo! "Stetted!" Imagine! People have been using this word for years without my even being aware of it!) But I enjoyed myself anyway. And my boss, Jack, condoled me on not getting the Premiere job. *Sigh.*

Today was, in one semisignificant way, D-Day. The release of The Royal Tenenbaums on DVD. (This event has driven Fulminous out of the house for the night; I think he's avoiding this place because he knows I'll make him watch it, and as he says, this movie is to him what Harry Potter is to me, something to be avoided if only because of its rabid fanbase.) Ah, well. I rented it on the way home, with the intention of missing the Letdowns concert and watching the movie, since I have five dollars left and watching them perform without being able to drink along would just make me want to sell my stuff. Unfortunately, roommate D. returned from work at 10 in a foul mood and bitched at me and apologized, as she's done several times already this week, and promptly passed out. I guess Margot can wait until tomorrow.

Gee, I wonder when my debtors- American Photo, my former roommates J and C, the Sarah Lawrence College library- will get back to me about the money they owe me. I'm getting awfully hungry and I sure could use some more frickin' insulin. Bastards.