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2001-05-16 | 11:14 p.m.

I was just thinking, if Scottish is the new Irish, is Eastern European the new Scottish? I think it must be.

When we were in Michigan, I asked the woman who did my hair where she was from and she said "Macedonia." I was born in the good ol' U. S. of A., and like most Americans I don't know shit about geography, so I didn't say what I was thinking, namely: Mac-e-DON-ia? Does that place still EXIST?!! Wow. Then I struggled to produce some extant memory dealing remotely with Macedonia: fossils, dinosaurs, paleo-something? ... ancient civilizations, Romans, Alexander the Great? She said, a little sheepishly, "You've probably been seeing my country in the newspaper a lot lately." I nodded and tried to look thoughtful and sympathetic, while actually thinking "Lady, I'm pretty sure I have never seen Macedonia in the newspaper in my entire life, because I thought it was gone. Like Constantinople."

To tell you the truth it's almost as if I'm not allowed to read the newspaper at all. Duff takes it in the morning and recycles it before he gets home, because if I get hold of it, I read it---I mean I really read it---for about 45 minutes and then I want to save three or four articles. But I can never find a scissors so I end up folding the sections up into fourths and then putting them in a stack. After a few months, there are newspaper quads all over the place, plus unread newspapers I refuse to give up until I have a chance to read them, and Duff is beside himself with rage and the house is unsafe and everybody is mad mad mad. So he cut me off last year or the year before, I can't remember now, and makes sure I'm not allowed any newspaper except in small doses. It reminds me of the way Shirl handles her clients when their behavior becomes too ridiculous.

Speaking of newspapers, last week we started getting The Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine delivered, though we never ordered either of them. It's really weird.

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