Housekeeping

First: Windows IE users, does the blog look funny to you? More than is typical, I mean? Specifically, is the right-hand column riding unusually low? I've been using only Firefox lately, in which everything looks as it should, but I noticed in IE today that things were awry -- though, weirdly, sometimes corrected by refreshing the page. Please do let me know if I've broken the blog.

Second: DC-environs readers, anyone have a good GP to recommend? (S: yours, sadly, doesn't accept my insurance.) Nothing acute going on, just a collection of indignities that I really ought to get around to addressing. Problem is, I'm fiercely physicianphobic (one of the hardest phobias to treat, really; where do you go for help?) and I have a separate loathing of health insurance companies. Frankly, I'd rather risk substandard care in a third world country and have it cost ten bucks than risk substandard care here and be $1000 out of pocket after weeks of impenetrable paperwork and hours of hopeless phone calls (and yes, that really happened, and no, I don't want to talk about it). If I have to face this, I'd rather not draw an indifferent and condescending jerk in the bargain. Names, anyone?

Third: forgive me if I'm on a reduced posting schedule for the next two weeks. For one thing, I can't find my "blogging notebook," in which I jot down proto-posts and manage the queue. For another, I'm likely taking the GRE soon. According to tonight's practice test, I am now officially stupid. And should that prove to be more than rustiness -- should I score substantially worse than the perfectly respectable numbers I garnered 15 (!) years ago -- well, I'm not sure I could afford the therapy I'd need to get over that. Could arguably just about swing the requisite amount of beer, though. Which, come to think of it, might explain how it is that I find myself in this sorry state of affairs to begin with.