Here I am eating breakfast. Here's me downtown. Here I am with my cat. Here's my cat (and me). Here I am at my best friend's wedding. Here I am getting tested for STDs. Here I am at a funeral. Here is me.

Me. Me. Me.

“Grumpy in Belgrade” brings together the blogs, essays, and increasingly obscure thoughts of one American in Belgrade, struggling to make sense of the nonsensical. And making nonsense of the rest.

Purple is amethyst and eggplant. It is indigo, lavender, lilac, mauve, mulberry, blueberry, orchid, plum, pomegranate, puce, royal, thistle, and violet.

As it happens, I was born on a Monday the 13th, at seven ante meridiem no less. As if I was born ready for school (or work).

Each time I brush with traditional bad luck omens, like black cats or walking under ladders or my unlucky watch (of which etc cetera), I am constantly confronting my conditioned reactions to them an assessing what they make me feel and sometimes do.

Take a generous helping of random opinions from diplomats around the world. To prepare this, send reasonably competent individuals to each country and marinate them in the local cultures for a few months. Be careful not to let them sit too long in the marinade or the local spices may overpower the flavor.

The thing is about rumors: all you need is the vaguest and most oblique insinuation of something for it to begin passing along great unseen chains of whispers and embellishments until everyone directly interested and indirectly uninterested - and some people quite frankly exasperated - suddenly knows. It passes into common knowledge. And suddenly, in the blink of an eye, the best rumors are then apotheosized into the greatest of all possible forms of human knowledge.

They become the TRUTH.

I had been standing there for about ten minutes before someone saved me.

Entering the bus for the first time a few years ago, I went to the ticket punching machine and place my ticket inside. And I stood and waited for the machine to automatically clamp its electronic jaws on the ticket and officially stamp my presence on the bus. The machine, naturally, did nothing. I stared in impatience. I placed it inside again. I waited again. Nothing.

At this point, a kind stranger came over to me and wordlessly ended my puzzlement. He grabbed the lever and pulled, stamping my ticket.

Usually I am a little cynical and snide. Usually I attempt to undermine its message. On occasion I have been sappy about it. But like it or not, every year, Valentine's Day gets some sort of bloggal response from me. I have to say I am a little tired of it.

Having just undergone a couple of weeks of more or less severe and more or less unappealing stomach flu, I am currently on what is called a Restrictive Diet. This means Boring Food Only.