I don’t like it when my seat is unexpectedly warm, it seems too intimate. On the bus, on the can, in the diner–I don’t want someone else’s heat on my bum.

We went on a hike in Lassen National Park this last weekend. (Hike is a euphemism for seven hours of off-trail snow plowing in running shoes while clinging to the nice young man with the GPS.) Some favorite things from the trip up:

• A billboard for Colusa Casino advertising high-stakes bingo.
• Hogsback Road, where an obviously important hog-related event presumably took place sometime in the 1900s.
• A truck with “Chevrolet” airbrushed on the back in flowing script. There were rose vines circling the word, and a big red apple in place of the “O.”
• James and Son Prune Dehydrators.

On my way to the mailbox, I sighed and stepped over a baby bird that had fallen from his nest to the sidewalk. A few moments later, I noticed a well-dressed man walking in my direction. I could see from half a block away that he was talking to himself. We had just passed one another when I heard him mutter, “I’m still lonely.” So that was a bummer.

Have you ever tried Pepto-Bismol? Even the name sounds like someone vomiting. Bismol. Biiiismmooooohhhhl. But when I’m about hoik up my intestines, I always think to myself, “Boy, howdy! What I could use right now is a nice little plastic cup brimming with pink, minty, viscous fluid.”

I was out shopping recently and decided to buy a coat. I took it up to the counter, and the cashier proceeded to fold it. She seemed a little absent, and stared forward as she worked. I was about to look away uncomfortably, but then I noticed something. A long thread of saliva was stretching from her lower lip. Time slowed as it extended from her mouth to form a small, moist pool on my new coat. She put it in a bag, and handed it to me. I inhaled, and took the bag between two fingers. She told me the price, which I paid, and then she handed me the receipt. I said, Thank you! a little too brightly and left.