My intellectual deterioration proceeds apace (I, II).
For reasons I cannot remember, this weekend I decided to swap two enormous hanging plants. Clenching a cigar in my teeth, I lifted first one plant, then the other, off their hooks. And while I looked up—standing like some sort of gay Atlas, balancing a heavy floral plant on each raised arm while I smoked a cigar—a flaming ember of ash fell into my mouth. As you can see below, I couldn't set the plants down without damaging them. In the eternity it took me to formulate a plan, the ember bored a hole into my tongue and eventually extinguished itself. It tasted kind of peaty, with a pesky insouciance.
