Whee! I'm off to have the hair colored. No more gray for me! At least for 8 weeks.

The D.A. said today that he would probably seek the death penalty for the suicidal man who left his S.U.V. on a track.

This sounds overzealous to me.

I can give my job title when asked what I do, or mention that I work at a type of place, name our big-name client, or say I'm in IT, but lately I've just been saying, "I'm a digital buttmonkey."

It makes for entertaining double-takes.

16 Bohemian Mix 40 Close-In Couples 07 Money & Brains 31 Urban Achievers 59 Urban Elders

those numbers don't mean anything though, right? I'd need to log in to get the concentration.

Me: I work in environmental publishing.

Listener: [thinks -- Hippy treehugger liberal with no money.*] That's nice.

Me: I do web-work.

Listener: [thinks -- Techno-geek with no off-line friends.] That's nice.

I really prefer gatherings where I'm not assumed to be my job.

 *Well, ok, fair cop. But still.

Right, that's just a classification.

I ran the stats for my second to last Michigan address: Executive Suites , Movers & Shakers, Suburban Sprawl, Upper Crust and Young Influentials. Yeah, those were the days.

Of course $1K/month gets you more room in West LA than in Birmingham, MI. Doesn't look as swish, but much nicer to live alone in.

And that was $1K sharing -- I should check and see what $3K can get me here.

Birmingham was like being an Application Architect in content management. Most people just said "Huh?" so I mostly said I lived in Detroit for that year. Except in Aspen -- when I said I lived in Metro Detroit, they asked "Birmingham?" straight off.

Oh, the places you live when shackled to ultra-bougie family.

Hey, I lived in Birmingham. For like three weeks, but still.

I think that, for NYC, my definition of what separates "old money" (or whatever the current equivalent is) from "new money" would be: If your three-year-old didn't get into any of the nursery schools you applied to, is there someone you could call who could fix that?

There was a scandal a few years ago where a stock broker essentially engaged in some insider trading in exchange for getting his 2-year-old twins in the 92nd Street Y nursery school. I think that was a classic example of trying to break into NYC society -- he had the money to pay for it, but didn't have the right connections. I know of at least two people who, in similar situations, were able to call on old friends from Spence or wherever and get their kid into a school, without having to offer anything in exchange.

I lived in Birmingham. For like three weeks, but still

Where? We were on the "cheap" side. Which really meant the overpriced side, since stuff was small and still pricey. Further north, suddenly you could see where the money was going. But we paid three grand for the tiniest house and the privilege of clearing snow on a corner property.