This is the color of Hoboken’s water today. Actually, it’s a little darker than it appears in the photo. It’s brownish, the color of weak Oolong tea. It’s been this color since I got back from Concord on Monday. First I’d noticed the smell (sulfur?), but it was too late, I was already brushing my teeth with it! Then I noticed the color. Eeeeuw! Gag. SPLOOT!

They say something happened to the water over the weekend, you can read about it here.

They say that although it SMELLS like death and LOOKS like death, it’s SAFE to drink.

Hmmm.

I dunno.

Would you drink deathly safe BROWN water???

My darling neighbor, Carolyn, brought me a jug of Poland Springs CLEAR/NO COLOR ADDED water last night. I am NOT drinking the brown water, I am not even brushing my teeth with it.

You see, when you’re an author, you could die under mysterious circumstances. Many have done so. It’s an occupational hazard. This is because you work from home. You’re not in an office where there’s a water cooler where you can hang out and drink all the no-color-added water you want in little white paper cups that says look how clear the water is! When you work from home, there’s only one water supply. If it’s contaminated, and you drink it, you die. That’s it. It’s over. You join the list of authors who have all died under mysterious circumstances or from a swift (or slow), inexplicable deterioration (in chronological order):

1. Laozi

2. Plato

3. Alexander Pope

4. Jonathan Swift

5. Jane Austen

6. Edgar Allan Poe

8. Nikolai Gogol

9. Emily Dickinson (well, okay, hers wasn’t mysterious, but it should have been!)

10. Ambrose Pierce

12. Federico Garcia Lorca

13. Fill in your name here.