I’m a bachelor this week – so to speak. Emotionally I am in love and committed to the boyfriend, but as he is in the Great Country of Texas for the next week, I am functioning as single. As much as I miss him, I do get to indulge in certain activities I would otherwise not.

For starters, I can safely wear wife-beaters without incurring any catty remarks about my “smacking my girlfriend around” or needing to go out and “fix my bike”. I like to pair my wife-beaters with basketball shorts and hair un-brushed to the point where I look like a White Panther. A half-empty bottle of Bud Light would really complete the look, but I’m no fashion sheep.

On the runways of Paris this summer.

Speaking of alcohol, when alone I get to drink wine my most favorite way: straight from the bottle. It looks awful. It looks trashy, debaucherous, and to outside eyes would seem like a red flag signaling the starting race towards alcoholism – but I don’t drink any more from a bottle than I would a glass, plus this way I get so much more oxygen with each sip, thus facilitating a burst of flavor and heightening all the complexities and subtle nuances a bottle of Charles Shaw has to offer. Also, it’s one less glass to wash, which means it’s greener. Drinking wine straight from the bottle helps trees and future generations of children!

Don't you hate it when you're stuck sitting on a plane next to someone with thick ankles?

Strange packages from persons unknown should always be regarded with suspicion, but as I am a curious person by nature (my great-great-grandfather was a cat) I couldn’t help but open it, which proved to be a long and arduous task as I opted to use only my tongue, rather than the more versatile and saliva-free hands I keep at the end of my arms.

Inside the package was a cassette tape, painted a variety of colors, but without any linguistic explanation as to its purpose or content. I assumed it was a gift from one of my fans, but then I remembered they were without capacity for thought, incapable of free will and basically only good for circulating air. No, this cassette tape was almost certainly from a human, probably a living one, and almost certainly residing somewhere on this planet!

Zenas Winsor McKay was born September 26th -- either in 1871 in Spring Lake, Michigan (according to McCay), or in 1869 in Canada (according to his tombstone), or 1867 in Canada (according to the census). What is not disputed is that he was the son of Robert McKay (later changed to McCay) and Janet Murray McKay. Robert worked variously as a teamster, grocer and real estate agent. They sent him to Cleary's Business College in Ypsilanti, Michigan. At Michigan State Normal College (now Eastern Michigan University), John Goodison (a former glass stainer) taught him the fundamentals of art. McCay moved to Chicago in 1889 with the intention of attending the Art Institute of Chicago. However, unable to afford tuition, he found a job at the National Printing and Engraving Company where he made circus and theatrical posters. In 1901, he moved to Cincinnati, where he worked as an artist for Kohl and Middleton's Vine Street Dime Museum and married Maude Leonore Dufour.