The following is an excerpt from an e-mail my father sent me while on a business trip:

I am writing from Vegas. It is about 3:15 Monday afternoon. I'm on your time. ... I'm on the 26th floor and I look out my window and I'm staring at that big pyramid. ...

I see mountains and in the distance snow on some of them.

This is the weirdest place.

Only my father could make an e-mail from a Las Vegas hotel room sound like a letter penned by a solider on a Civil War battlefield, bemoaning his alien surroundings and pining for his homeland.

I love ya, pop. Mom's taping "Lost" for you. Get home safe. And kill those Confederate bastards.

Dining at Taco Cabana late one night in the summer of 2000, my friend and I got drawn into a conversation with a homeless man on the patio. I don't remember why we were talking to him; probably because he knew he had a captive audience, since it's hard to simultaneously eat a breakfast taco and edge uneasily away from a crazy person. He had on a striped Wendy's polo shirt, the kind their employees wear, and a dirty beard. He said his name was Lee, and he was of the Baha'i faith. Since I had not yet moved to California, I thought he was making his religion up, but it turns out they're a real group. They've even adopted a stretch of the 101 out near Ventura County, and that's a pretty nice piece of road.

Lee told us that pretty much everything we saw was and/or could be God, like the pitcher of water on the counter or a nearby shrub. He said he didn't want to swear in front of "the lady," by which he meant my sister, but then he he promptly turned to face the street and flipped off several passing cars, shouting "Your mama!" at the traffic.

No idea what happened to him. He's probably dead now.

[This has been today's edition of True Stories With Real And Depressing Conclusions.]

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"It's a vicious circle."

"Yep. Just keeps going around and around."

"Never stops."

"That's what makes it vicious."

"And a circle."