This week I ran after an armful of threads I’d thrown out into the world last week. Trying to pull my way along each one to its far flung destination has left me feeling a little divided. Happy, but divided. And therefore, largely in lieu of a proper post, here is one of the many birds that has come into my life of late.

There you go.

My dad is in my thoughts tonight: he’s been dizzy ever since he contracted a virus last week, and he had to have an MRI a few days ago to rule out anything major (all was well; his brain is apparently clear as a bell). Although he sounded healthy and cheerful on the phone and I know he does not want me to worry, who is he kidding? So here I am, thinking of my dad. Over the years I have probably mentioned to one or another of you how phenomenal a memory my father has, and bemoaned my own leaky sieve—here, friends, is just how memorious he is. Having been slid into the MRI machine on Friday morning, says my dad, he—supine and sedated—suddenly recalled a particular newspaper article about Michael Jackson that he read 16 years ago.

The story was printed during a visit everyone’s favorite illustrious lunatic was making to our fair island (for a concert that I totally attended and shouted myself quite hoarse at; don’t even try to make me feel embarrassed, because I won’t). My dad remembered it because, he explained, it was about how good old MJ was rushed to a local hospital not once, but twice that day so many years ago, in order to undergo two emergency MRIs that showed absolutely nothing was wrong with his brain (riiiight). Why all the fuss? Mr. Jackson had a headache. Ever the socialist, my father recalls wondering—as he turned the inky page over his morning tea—how on earth the great man’s insurance was willing to pay for such a thing.

Birds; brains; I’m beat. See y’all soon.