I'm looking for someone who can stand very still for a while -- maybe two hours or so -- to appear in a little film I'm making. If you're in the DC area and want to be a star (albeit a faint one recognized by only a few astronomers) please email me at icanstandstill@deadlysins.com.

One of the first things we saw when we got into the rented car in Ireland was this sticker on the inside of the windshield. You are not likely to have a particularly enjoyable holiday if you do not comply with item #1.

I suppose it's common for vacationers to identify the highlight moments of a trip; Spalding Gray did a great bit about seeking the obligatory perfect transcendental moment to justify the trip. It can be terribly disconcerting to power through one's vacation in escalating frenzy as the perfect moment fails to materialize. (This is seldom an issue for me, as I'm embarrassingly prone to transcendence.)

Susan and I tend to play this backwards by seeking to identify "the regret" on every significant trip we take. It's the one thing you most wish you'd done (or hadn't done): the afternoon excursion passed over for a long nap in the hotel, the souvenir unpurchased, the somewhat dangerous guided activity (of the kind found in less litigious countries) not attempted. In practical application, invoking the regret is often used to spur us on to do things we might otherwise avoid because we're tired or worried about the prospect of sustaining traumatic injuries in a land with poor emergency care. The other useful function is as an enabler, permitting the purchase of items lest the failure to procure them during the trip become "the regret."

Really, one of the highlights took place before we even left Washington. We had just passed through the spanking-machine of security (where I received the full treatment after walking through the metal detector with my pager on). Just as the flight began to board, I noted that passengers were once again being subjected to random checks in the gate area. As they called our rows, I saw they'd pulled a dowdy white grandma-type out of line and had her up against the glass window in the assume-the-position position. The squealing little metal-detector wand was being wielded with authority by an enormous man in a large turban.