“I do not,” I replied. Because lying to the man and saying “yes” seemed likely to elicit a series of questions about where and what kind and my favorite book of the Bible that I wasn’t prepared to answer. [Pretty sure it's Leviticus, because I like rules.]

“Well then you should go to church. I want tell you about a book. It’s by a minister…

And here my mind started to wander. I looked at him, scuffed and careworn but clearly not on PCP or looking to cut out my spleen and wear it like a hat. And really, I was at the Pentagon. The only place with more guns in close proximity is a Secret Service happy hour.

So I wondered, as he kept talking, what I could get away with. I tried this:

“What if I told you I was Jewish?” [It's not a lie. It's a hypothetical. Different.]

God bless him, the man didn’t miss a beat. “Jews can go to church too! We love Jews!”

He won. I tuned back in, because, really, the man had earned my attention.

“…and so this minister, she died and went to heaven, and she saw an angel 13 feet tall!”

“Wow, that’s a tall angel.” [Really? 13 feet? Not really that tall. If I'm God and I'm making angels, or, for that matter, if I'm a minister and I'm making up angels to sell books, they're going to be taller than 13 feet. They're going to be, like, a million feet tall. Those would be impressive angels.]

“I know. That’s how you know they’re angels. Because, see, if they were professional basketball players, they might be seven feet tall. Those angels, they were even taller than pro basketball players!”

“…And this minister, when she went to heaven — You know how all those ladies who got pregnant and got abortions because they didn’t want their babies [Danger, Will Rodgers. Do not talk about abortion in public, crazy man. Do. Not.] ? Well this minister, she said when you get to heaven you get to hang out with those aborted babies.”

Dude. That’s just gross.

My bus showed up then, so I don’t know what else was coming down the pike, but the crazy man then shook my hand and toddled away. I never did get the title of that book. But I still have my spleen.

But I will say that when weird things happen to me (or when I think weird things) I need a place to put them. But I have a job that demands that I put a certain number of words to page each and every month. So my desire to do that in my free time comes and goes. So no false promises about daily/weekly/monthly posts. I’m capricious.

Learn to love it.

“That is a devastating look of devastation on his face.”

“90 percent of people in Canada live between their border and ours.” [I can't even figure out what she was TRYING to say here. Because yes, most of the time people in a country live within that country's borders.]

Saturday, Feb. 13:

“Before he died, Nodar Kumaritashvili called his parents…” [When else would he have called?]

“He will be steering with precise precision.” [Glad to hear he's not giving in to the siren call of haphazard precision.]

“There is a literal wall of Koreans in their way.” [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/literal]

“WELCOME BACK TO SHORT TRACK EVERYONE!” [I was unaware I'd ever left.]

1. Learn to make risotto.

2. Watch “The Cutting Edge” in preparation for the start of the Olympics. (Toe pick!)

3. Finally start writing that children’s book.

4. Clean bathtub.

5. Teach Douglas to play dead.

6. Try to get Douglas to wear his boots so we can go for a walk.

(Full disclosure: I haven’t finished it yet. Regardless, it’s that good.)

Next up: “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”

I can even quantify my terrifyingness to the degree that I can say with virtual certainty that I am scarier than the Taliban.

A ballsy claim, you say? No doubt. But I have empirical evidence.

I need someone to call me. I need him to call me so that I can tell him that I think it best that we discontinue our romantic association. Such as it is — because really, how romantic can something be when one party is clearly terrified of the other?

And terrified he must be, because he will not call.

This person, mind you, is no wimp. He carries a gun. Professionally. He has been known to confront urinating homeless men in dark alleys, and he is apparently looking forward to joining the Army next year to go shoot bad guys in Afghanistan. And yet, he’s afraid to call me.

I guess we’ll just have to hope the Taliban isn’t armed with my weapon of choice:  shoulder-mounted ire with occasional grenades of biting sarcasm.

‘Cause then we’d be screwed.

Tweet: Settling in with a cup of tea to watch football (if that’s what you call what the Redskins are doing) and write a story for Shannon.

(I think I’m off to a great start, having publicly stated that I’m writing this story. Which, by the way, is due tomorrow. As in: more than 8 hours from now.)

OK, I’m going to write this story. I’m not going to be up until midnight. This story will be fun.

Know what else is fun? Nachos! You bought chips and cheese this morning. Go make nachos. Good job. But you need to watch those nachos in the toaster oven so they don’t get burnt. Unload the dishwasher while you’re waiting. Check nachos. Yummmm. Cheese bubbles. Ow, hot nachos. Need salsa. Yummm. Salsa.

OK, focus. Write this story.

Can’t type with salty nacho fingers. Wash hands.

Hmm. These breakfast dishes are piling up. I should wash them. While I have rag in hand, note that floor hasn’t been swept in a while. Sweep floor. Hmm. Floor still looks dirty. Wash floor.

OK. Now. Story.

Wow, Redskins might score a touchdown. Unprecedented. Must watch, in case it doesn’t happen again all season.

Wait, don’t you have a baby shower to go to next weekend? And another one a few weeks after that? You need to buy presents. Peruse Amazon, order gifts: free shipping, yay!

Dog is cute. Pet dog. Tell dog that after you finish story you’ll take him to the dog park. Spend five minutes calming dog, who does not understand that time is linear and thinks you’ve just offered to take him to the dog park. Prepare for reality that dog might spite-pee on couch.

Wow, you really haven’t done much work on that story. Lies! I’ve written 106 words. Out of 1,000. I’m 10 percent done. Incidentally, you’ve written 337 words of blog post.

Shut up, you.

I leave tonight for a four-day weekend in Cape May, where I pledge to do nothing but sleep, eat, read and drink gin. The books coming with me are “The Things They Carried” (wartime faux memoir), “Middlesex,” (hermaphrodite faux memoir) and “The Accidental” (about which I know nothing except that it may be about a grifter. Or a memoir.)

Side note: After seeing  “Burn After Reading” I am unable to pronounce “memoir” any way other than “mem-wa.” It’s funny in my head.

The multi-legged asshole who confronted me in the shower this morning seemed to delight in my nudie terror, lingering way up near the ceiling at what seemed, to me, to be the perfect angle to launch himself at my face the moment I closed my eyes.

There’s a special vulnerability to being naked in the presence of a mesozoic-era creepy crawler. Immediately upon spotting him, I imagined the feeling of his sticky pinchy legs as they walked on me. Gross enough when one skitters across an ankle during a walk in the woods. I imagined this mothereffer parading over my stomach or down my back. Oh. Hell. No.

So I didn’t close my eyes. I kept them wide open while the water rained down (way too hot, but I wasn’t taking my eyes off my pervy interloper to look down to adjust the setting.) I kept them open while I peeled back the shower curtain and crouched down to grab a nearby flip-flop.

(Side note: Confronting a bug while naked is scary. Scarier still: crouching down in front of one. It made him look even taller.)

I kept my eyes open while I calmed my breath and willed the little sucker to gallivant just a teeeensy bit farther down the wall. Yes, you ruddy-ginger-more-like-a-hairball-than-an-arthropod, just a little…closer…THWACK.

I missed the first time, leaving a wet, dirty flip-flop footprint on the wall above the tile and causing me to actually YELP as the bastard skittered to the right. I was just imagining him deploying grappling hooks aimed dead center mass when the second, resounding THWACK hit its target.

I washed his crumpled remains down the drain. It took my heart 20 minutes to dislodge itself from my throat.