I post this on behalf of Lola Lombard, the blonde on the left, who is looking for the blonde on the right in this photo.

Writes Lola to the blonde:
Dear Mystery Blonde,
You took my photo at the amazing Art of Change Inaugural Ball. I hand-painted my dress just for that night. It created quite a stir, it even made the news on two continents and your photos were the best! Now everyone is asking for photos and I cant find you. Oh where have you gone, Talented One? Dont let this be a "snap and run".
Lola Lombard

My friend Ray made a $60,000 bet with his friend Ted that he'd lose 60 pounds in nine months. Ted made the same bet back. At the end of nine months, Ray and Ted have to pay each other $1,000 per pound each has lost. Ray claims he's hoping no money changes hands, but I hear he's secretly putting butter in his friend's food.

Ray, who has lost 3.6 pounds on Day 1, is keeping a video diary of his weight lo$$ adventures, which you can watch on YouTube if you are so inclined, and if you are so inclined and you see Ray Out and About and Eating Cake you have permission to steal his wallet.

Edward Robinson-El came to the West End Library to be its new manager about a month ago. He had managed various libraries around Brooklyn, where he had customers of many ethnicities---Orthodox Jews, Italians, you name it—and income levels. Still, Robinson-El was surprised when he got to the West End Library and found out who his customers are.

Based on what he’d read about his new assignment, he was expecting mostly patrons from George Washington University. But he doesn’t get many college students at all.

Instead, he says, he gets a mix of kids and also young adults after school, parents with babies, and older adults all times of day. And homeless people. A lot of homeless people. Which is fine with him, but not so fine with some other people—we’ll call them the older, richer, whiter members of the neighborhood.

The library is down on 24th and L Streets NW, in that speck of expensive land called Square 37. The land was almost sold off to developers by emergency legislation last July but then in the end wasn’t, although it might be again. On July 18 the West End Library Friends issued a report detailing recommendations they wanted to see in any new redevelopment plans concerning this prime West End parcel.

It’s hard to be shocked by the results of a library report, but the document issued by the West End Library Friends clearly could use some sensitivity training:

Read More "D.C. Libraries: Not a Homeless Shelter, Especially in the West End" »

Today's Washington Post article about pro-life pharmacies refusing to dispense birth control pills and condoms, and ambulance drivers refusing to take women for abortions, raises important questions, like: Are women really taking ambulances to their abortions? I've never heard of that before.

I called American Medical Response---an ambulance company in Northeast---to ask if they'd ever heard of a woman being taken by ambulance to get an abortion. A dispatcher named Kiesha sounded flabbergasted at the suggestion.

"An ambulance? To get an abortion?" she said. "No, I've never heard of that."

My sample of one having said her piece, I wonder---have you ever heard of anyone taking an ambulance to get an abortion? And if it turns out that no one takes ambulances to get abortions in the first place, does it matter if ambulance drivers are refusing to take women to their abortions?

My cousin was pregnant with her second child, and she and her husband went to the doctor for some tests, one of which pinpointed the exact date of conception. The doctor said to my cousin and her husband, "The test says you got pregnant on XYZ date. Does that seem right to you?" My cousin and her husband said, "Yes, I think we had sex that day," and the doctor looked relieved. He told them that he always asks the "does that seem right to you" question anymore ever since he had an uncomfortable moment not that long ago.

A woman and her husband got the test, and the doctor said to them, "You conceived on ABC date," at which point the husband said, "That's impossible, I was in Iraq." So the wife quickly said that there were contractors at the house that day, and one of the contractors must have masturbated into a towel that the wife then used after showering. The towel, then, managed to impregnate the wife.

The doctor told this story to illustrate some uncomfortable positions he's found himself in, but my cousin and I wondered: is it possible to get pregnant from a towel?

I called my uncle, a retired ob-gyn doctor, to ask.

Read More "Is It Possible to Get Pregnant From a Towel?" »

Last time I dated was more than five years ago and back then there was the internet, sure, which was terrific - but there was no Facebook. Now there's Facebook, and I think there's also a need to establish a few more rules when it comes to Facebook and dating, starting with:

Please don't "friend" me on Facebook if we've only gone out a few times and our "relationship" such as it is is necessarily in flux. Read More "Waiting Until The Third Date" »

So for the first time in my life the other day I'm early for a meeting---this one is in Farragut North, and so I decide to kill time in the park across the street until I could be awkwardly tardy as is my wont. And in the park is the usual melange of office workers, homeless guys, bike messengers, and pigeons. And then I notice something out of place---can you spot it in this photo?

It's a pair of mallard ducks, there in a waterless park, roaming around by the tree. Now I've been seeing mallards around the city, and I have to admit that every time I see ducks in the city it catches my attention, but until now I've only seen them in watery areas, like Dupont Circle, so I've figured they caught my attention not because they're wildly out of place but because I'm a little ADD and everything catches my attention at some point or another. But this pair of ducks seemed especially notable---because why would a pair of mallard ducks hang around the Farragut North park where there's no water? So I e-mailed this question to some duck experts at Ducks Unlimited, and here's what they said:

Read More "Ducks in Farragut North and Explanation for Same" »

Mark Leventhal started a weight loss service for lawyers (WARNING: mildly intoxicating/annoying music plays when you open this link).

Why, I wondered after reading a press release about said service, do lawyers need their own weight loss service? This deserved a phone call.

It takes a lawyer to understand lawyers, Leventhal said---to know how to harness and work with the being that is Lawyer and make that Lawyer lose weight. For example, a lot of weight loss plans involve group meetings. But lawyers, it seems, don't like to admit to weakness in public, so this program has no group meetings---instead, lawyers check in with Leventhal every day to talk one-on-one. But lawyers are also very rules oriented---more so than regular people. Leventhal can tell lawyers they have to keep detailed food diaries, and unlike regular people who say OK and then don't, the lawyers will actually do it.

Plus, there's the lifestyle stuff---like that lawyers go to lots of dinner meetings---and Leventhal's program takes these lifestyle things into account. So when a lawyer is going to a dinner meeting, Leventhal calls the restaurant ahead of time to find out from the chef what on the menu isn't too fatty. That way the lawyer knows what to order, and won't be embarrassed in public by having to ask the waiter for low cal recommendations---but also won't sabotage his (Leventhal's lawyers are mostly men) weight loss goals.

As soon I was starting to come around---maybe lawyers really do need their own weight loss programs?---Leventhal let slip the most delightful thing that has set my mind a-reeling for the last few hours.

Read More "Watch Out: Lawyers About" »

The case of the mysterious green Saab that is frequently parked in front of a fire hydrant but never has any tickets on it is closed, more or less.

A couple of months ago my brother and sister-in-law noticed a green Saab - the one pictured above with its license plate blurred out - that was, more often than not, parked on their street in front of a fire hydrant.

Why?, they asked, would the car be parked in front of the fire hydrant so often? And why are there never any tickets on it?

We speculated: undercover cop car, undercover diplomat, someone who has something on the chief of police.

In recent months the car started parking in legal spots, and we more or less forgot about it. Until yesterday, when I got a text message from my sister-in-law: Green Saab is back in front of the hydrant!

Read More "Mystery Solved! Kind of." »

If Catholics prefer Hillary, and Guam is overwhelmingly Catholic, then how did Obama win Guam? Is it the islander connection---Obama being from Hawaii, which is the New York of Micronesia? Is it, as Slate suggests, that Catholics generally prefer Hillary because they don't want to support a non-Caucasian candidate---which presumably isn't an issue in Guam, where the majority of the island's people and politicians are non-Caucasian?

a Catholic church in southern Guam

I'm still looking for my amusing Christmas photos of Santas riding on Guamanian rooftops, under blue blue skies; they're around, but have gotten lost on my computer

As a former resident of that part of the world, I have sent off some emails to smart friends involved with Micronesian politics to see what they think about Obama's seven-vote victory. I'm curious what they have to say about it.