The other day it occurred to me that in January, NN.C will mark its fifth anniversary. Perhaps it's fitting, then, that the week brought two experiences that are...not commonplace, but at least not jaw-dropping, not anymore:

1) I was interviewed by Lisa Belkin, a New York Times reporter who hosts a radio show, "Life's Work." Topic: "Living online." Of course I sounded like a moron, but the results air Sunday at 11 a.m. on XM channel 155, if you have it. And,

2) Yet another stranger e-mailed to ask if I could provide the complete lyrics to "The Ballad of the Big O," the song Lawson's dairy stores used in the 1960s, to advertise its super-fresh orange juice. Of course I forget the first verse -- my friend Jones knows -- but I do know the second:

One man sleeps while the other man drives,
on the non-stop Lawson's run
and the cold, cold juice
in the tank-truck caboose,
stays as fresh as the Florida sun.

I remember when I first went online in 1994 (or was it '93), I exchanged an e-mail or two with Warren Zevon. "Isn't the internet wonderful?" a friend wrote. "Everyone gets to talk to everyone." Yes, it is.

Speaking of radio: I keep forgetting to mention the great, great "Fresh Air" that was on Tuesday, an interview with Bruce Springsteen that you should listen to, if only to hear the alternate mix of "Born to Run" featuring the glockenspiel and chick singers doing backup. I almost ran off the road.

And at the other end of the spectrum was My Lobotomy on NPR, a truly heartbreaking bit of reporting by Howard Dully, who received a transorbital lobotomy at age 12, thanks to a vindictive stepmother. It's the sort of thing that, for me, makes me reach for my checkbook during pledge week, the reason NPR is a news source like no other. Having just dozed through an hour, a solid HOUR, of "Primetime" examining the very important case of Anna Nicole Smith's right to her late husband's estate, I know what I'm talking about.

If you don't have time to listen to the piece, the NPR link gives you a good sense of it.

And the picture of the author with icepicks sticking out of his eye sockets isn't as horrible as you might expect, but it's pretty awful.

With that: Have a nice weekend.

(Continuing with our "Is Richard Belzer hot or not?" discussion in comments. Thanks to Eric Zorn for pointing us toward the Einstein Chalkboard Generator. And let me just add to the above sentiment, "...as long as he pays attention to his personal hygiene.")

Here's the dirty little secret about cooking: It's easy. Really. People who don't cook think it's alchemy, but honest, once you learn a few basic rules -- and you learn them as you go along -- it's not so hard at all.

Some of these rules are eccentric; for instance, one of mine goes, "There's no such thing as too much garlic." Others are immutable. If you want to be successful deep-frying anything, you'd best get over your fear of making the oil too hot. (Although it can easily be made too hot, and then you have to call the fire department.) Deep-frying is like jumping a horse over a big fence: Commit, go forward and don't hesitate.

That said, some meals come together more easily than others. For tonight's spaghetti-and-meatball birthday feast I went to the Italian bakery down the road for some real Italian bread, then stopped at the wine store for a nice chianti. When I came out, the dog had his head in the bread bag, the front seat was a mess of crumbs and I had a quandary.

I threw away the next two slices in the bag and decided no one ever died from a little dog spit. As Julia Child didn't say, "You're alone in the kitchen."

The bread was really good. I'm going back to that place. Without the dog.

The laptop just informed me I'm operating on reserve power, so let's make this quick: The Trading Spouses crazy-Jesus-freak legend lives on. On eBay!

Today is Alan and Kate's birthday (49 and 9), which means that when I finish the story I'm working on, I have to go downstairs and bake a cake, then make spaghetti and meatballs. Also, I should probably pay some bills. And do a lot of other stuff, but not spend much time blogging.

So here's something to consider: INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Men who live in rural Indiana often use condoms incorrectly, according to a new study that Indiana University sex researchers say underscores the shortcomings of sex education in Indiana's public schools. Almost half the 75 men statewide who answered the survey's questions about their latest sexual encounters with women admitted waiting too long to put on a condom or taking it off too soon.

Next time someone snickers at the banana demonstration, just remember: In the Hoosier state, they need that training.

The new issue of Wired just arrived in my mailbox, addressed to me in my three-part married name -- which I only use in bylines. I didn't order it. Did you?

Take credit, so I can thank ya proper.

You've heard of a bad hair day? I woke up having a bad hair, face and body day. The dreaded triple! And, ironically, on the first day in many that I actually feel pretty good, my cold having been defeated by the superior forces of Immune System Systems, Ltd. My plan for early this morning was to rake leaves under the dreary gray sky. Then I saw myself, and thought, not even that, until I get a shower, a little mascara and a two-week juice fast.

Of course I feel this way. It's November. My birth month, Kate's birth month, Alan's birth month -- one long sprint from Halloween to the holidays. Anyone would fall apart midway through.

But speaking of women and their looks. I saw Queen Noor the former Lisa Halaby (sorry, but I find it impossible to call American women by their phony-baloney Arab-royalty titles, particularly when they rule over a place like Jordan) on Anderson Cooper the other day. She is a beautiful woman, in the Grace Kelly mode -- an American girl elevated to a profoundly un-American place, and seemingly rather conflicted over it. She was talking about the bombing in Amman, of course, not saying much of any real interest; I recall something about Jordan being like one big family. So my attention wandered to her perfectly made up and chemically frozen face. I'm not one of those women who can read plastic surgery at a glance -- it's just not that interesting to me -- but it's hard not to notice when a woman is speaking of a tragic bombing in her adopted country and she can't seem to make a facial expression of concern about it.

It was remarkable. Her lips were moving, and occasionally her eyebrows would make a heroic move of a millimeter or two, but otherwise, her face was as animated as porcelain. She seemed to know this, and was compensating by moving her head instead, little darting motions here and there that never gave the camera operator problems, but presented the semi-illusion of a spirit behind the words.

Very strange. I've never been a beauty, so I never had to worry about the Tragedy of Losing One's Looks. (Like Nora Ephron, I've found that I tend to gain them over time.) It frequently seems beauty masks a howling void of insecurity.

I read somewhere that Lisa's husband had a thing for the nannies. Figures.

OK, bloggage:

The Journal Gazette back in the Fort has been doing a lively series of editorials lately, "When One Party Rules," addressing the county's decades-long path under an insurmountable GOP majority. It's been amusing, if for no other reason than this: The GOP likes to market itself as the party of frugal spending and lean government, when in truth they're as greedy as any profligate Democrat administration, when given the chance to feed at the public trough.

But this editorial points out one of my favorite strange quirks of Indiana law, one that never failed to get a jaw-dropping reaction from newly arriving reporters in my time there: In the Hoosier state, county sheriffs are in charge of collecting delinquent taxes. And to make it worth their while, they get to skim 10 percent off the top of any monies collected.

Not for their office-administration fund, mind you. For the Support Your Local Sheriff's Bahamian Vacation fund. For his (or her) personal salary.

As my ex-colleague Bill said, when he heard this: "Where are we? Medieval France?"

P.S. How much extra did the Allen County sheriff earn through this little fringe benefit in 2004? Only $128,334.

Nice work if you can get it.

Now to the showers, before I break any more mirrors around here.

The season remains remarkably warm -- only one frost so far, by my reckoning -- but it's nearly Thanksgiving and, hence, time for the Bringing In of The Rosemary, our fall ritual, when we try to preserve our favorite aromatic herb for the winter cooking season. Only one problem, or not-problem, this year: The rosemary did rather well over the summer. We'll have to move it for Thanksgiving dinner, or else Alan won't be able to sit down.

It's oddly shaped, I know; this one nearly died when we were in Ann Arbor, and I cut away half of it in my rehabilitation efforts, but it pulled through and now it's quite the bush. When the sun hits it, the way it is in the picture, the whole room smells like rosemary. Which has your Glade Plug-Ins beat, if you ask me.

Anyway, if you need some rosemary and you're in the neighborhood, you know where to come.

Another windstorm in progress as I write this, the third in a week. A gale is blowing up out of the south, and another truckload of leaves is assembling itsef in the various leeward spots of our property. It's the gales of November! But it gives me an excuse to stay inside and get caught up on some work. Which is starting to pile up, again.

Alan came home for lunch a while ago -- he's doing some caulking project on the boat, now on a cradle down at the marina, which only goes to show you don't need water to be a boat widow. Anyway, he came in and said, "All the way home I drove behind a pickup with Truck Nutz." Nothing like a pair of oversized artificial testicles affixed to a motor vehicle's rear undercarriage to say, "I'm a fun-lovin' guy." It made me wonder if people just naturally anthropomorphize their cars, or if this is something implanted by advertising.

I've known women who refuse to buy a minivan to shuttle their three or four kids around, but have no problem with an oversize, lumbering, Suburban-type SUV, on the grounds that driving one is evidence of spiritual death, while the other indicates one still has a little rock'n'roll in one's soul. People of all genders give their cars names and nicknames, credit them with "taking care of me" in this or that tight spot, give them little dashboard pats.

I suppose cowboys did this with horses, but horses are at least animate. A car is just a tool. You don't give your cordless drill a funny name, do you?

On the other hand, drills can't be further customized with antenna strippers, antenna soldiers and nut sacks.

OK, so we've exhausted that idea. (I need coffee.) Let's go right to the links:

Unsafe driving on the streets of Paris. Unrelated to current events there, just a little piece of famous cinema verite. It's pretty good, but I remember seeing the same idea, only with a bicycle, that I found about ten times more thrilling. Maybe it was the Guns 'n' Roses soundtrack, or maybe it was that there were so many people to either run down or get killed by.

More commentary on the Detroit mayoral race, from a writer whose book I'm on the reserve list for. Why not buy it? Because I can no longer afford books.

Back to work!