All the people we used to know, they're an illusion to me now

I've done the eat-out-every-night thing; it's not great for the body and it's not even that good for the soul, but I think it would be good to live in a place that apprectiates the beauty of an omelet enough that its Alternarag has a slot for them in its Best Of issue.

No matter who you are, there are people who keep coming back into your life. Ellen McB. is like that for me. She and I were housemates in the early 90s, then I moved to New York and moved back here. I wondered where Ellen was living, but I didn't know how to get in touch with her. Lo and behold, I ran into her in a convenience store one summer afternoon. This has happened again and again; we lose touch and then reconnect after a couple of years.

So a couple of months ago, out of the blue I remembered her old e-mail address and decided to see if it still worked. It did, and we played phone tag for a long time. We finally hooked up again Monday night at the Redskins-Cowboys game.

She's recently separated from her husband of about five years; he seems to be causing a lot of unnecessary drama about it. Our conversation was spirited, since she seems to be the only person I know who has more news than I do.

It's great to have her back in my life for a while, but now I will have to find a good way to distinguish her from the Ellen. I thought for a while of thinking of Ellen the Deadhead, and Ellen not the Deadhead; except that Ellen not the Deadhead said, as we approached FedEx Field, where the Redskins play, that the last time she was out this way, it was to see the Dead at the Cap Centre. So that's out.

It seems odd to me that there aren't multiple Steves in my day-to-day life; no multiple Jennifers, Kevins or Jasons, but I have multiple Ellens.

Now, since I had a wonderful long nap when I ought to have been either watching Olympic coverage or cleaning the kitchen, I'm going to watch my new DVD, Mr. Smith goes to Washington. It's an old favorite and I've been thinking about it for weeks.

I'll close with a tidbit from my internist, whom I went to see this afternoon. We talked about my allergies, which have plagued me for years and years, and after he prescribed a stronger dose of Allegra because Claritin isn't working, he mentioned that "they're working on something new." We both laughed, because they're always working on something new, but he says this may be the real deal. It's not an antihistamine, exactly, it's an anti-IgE antibody. He said, right after he listened to my lungs and said "you have a cat, don't you?" that the anti-IgE may be the end of allergies as we know them.

So you can bet that it will be expensive.

before - after