Microserfs

Emmett has 4,000 manga comics from Japan. They're so violent and dirty! The characters all look as if they're saying unbelievably important things - talking to God and the Wizard of the Universe - but when you translate them, all they're really doing is making belching noises. Susan has discovered in these manga a rich source of fashion ideas.

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The more we realize our Lenin jokes rankle Todd, the more the Lenin jokes grow out of control. Even Mom got into the act and made "Lenin's Face" cookies, dropping them into the office on her way to work. We told Todd to close his eyes and touch them and describe their texture - "kind of leathery - kind of dry - kind of . . . chewy - kind of like . . ." (opens his eyes).

Ethan: "An embalmed syphilitic tyrant?"

"You assholes! Oh, sorry, Mrs. Underwood."

* * *

I learned a new expression today: "protein window." Todd told it to me.

Apparently, after you bodybuild, you have a two-hour time window in which your body can suck up amino acids. This is your protein window. I was talking to him and he said, "Man, I'd like to talk some more, but my protein window is closing," and he ran off to the kitchen and ate a chicken. What a decade this is.

I forgot to eat while my protein window was open. Maybe that's why I'm in pain.

* * *

Abe mail:

In the future all planets will have roman numerals after their names and have one or two sylable names that sound like Dupont carpet material from 1966 . . . Norlon IV . . . Erthrea IK . . . Gil II

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Bug has joined a "Lego Bobsledding Team" and has plummeted to a new nadir of Nerddom. It's over in Berkeley - they use Mattel Hot Wheels tracks, bet with Monopoly money, have megaphones and everything. Lego trophies, too.

* * *

Todd called me "decadent" today - this, after he discussed protein windows! I couldn't believe it. He said I was decadent because I was eating Lucky Charms. He said they were "symptomatic of a culture in decline - sucrose hysteria, you know."

I said, "But Todd, Lucky Charms were invented during the Johnson Administration. Society couldn't have been more anti-decline than it was then. Guns and butter . . . I can't believe I'm even talking to you seriously about this. This is silly beyond belief."

Anyway, that was the seed notion. Karla and I wrote a big list of "decadent cereals" on the office dry-erase wall:

CAP'N CRUNCH:

Reason this cereal is decadent:

a) Colonialist exploiter pursues naive Crunchberry cultures to plunder. b) Drunkenness, torture, and debauchery implicit in long ocean cruises.

SUGAR FROSTED FLAKES: Reason this cereal is decadent:

Silky throated military-industrial complex spokestoad "Tony the Tiger" exploits the need of the undereducated underclass for a paternalistic, Reagan-like figure. A cautionary tale of the perils of not indoctrinating at the crèche level.

TRIX:

Reason this cereal is decadent:

Well-meaning rabbit, "Trix," kept in continual state of malnutrition/subservience by dominant children of the parasitic bourgeoisie. "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids" can only be construed as a call to class warfare.

LUCKY CHARMS;

Reason this cereal is decadent:

Man with no known adult friends lures children into forest for purpose of nutritional (ideological) seduction. Sprightly twinkle motif on packaging (putatively an allusion to "flavor") are, in fact, metaphors for soul-deadening sucrose.

RICE KRISPIES:

Reason this cereal is decadent:

Snap, Krackle, and Pop thinly veiled emblems for the Trilateral Commission.

COCOA PUFFS:

Reason this cereal is decadent:

"I'm cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs," the demented cackle of Sonny the Cocoa Puffs bird/spokesmuppet, is resonant with the insanity inherent in the needless enslavement of the proletariat.

COUNT CHOCULA - FRANKENBERRY: Reason this cereal is not decadent:

Gay relationship offers an excellent role model for this new era of diversity. Witty vampire motif plays on never-ending struggle of the oppressed to topple the ruling classes.

* * *

On the same theme, from Abe:

I have settled up on the calorie delivery system of choice: Stouffer's home sytle fish fillet with macaroni and chees. Microvaves in six minutes; 430 caloreis. Eat two of them and you don't have to think of food for 5 hours. Beverage: Tang.

Do you like the Airbus R300?

TUESDAY

Dad got the Delta job! "My boss is 32 and a little prick if you ask me, but I'm in the real world now." He starts next week. We offered to take him out to dinner, but he and Mom took a taxi down to II Fornaio in Palo Alto. They wanted to get pissed. My parents!

* * *

We had this competition inside the office to come up with alternative solutions as to what to do with what is (to the Russians) the increasingly embarrassing and willfully nondecomposing body of Vladimir I. Lenin. The suggestions:

SUSAN: