Normally, a faux pas implies uttering words that shouldn't have been said. They're words that should never have left one's mouth, at least not at that particular moment. For example, gloating about the longevity in one's family, in the company of someone who's recently suffered the premature loss of a loved one, could be considered a faux pas. On the other hand, boasting about habitually exceeding the speed limit to one's neighbor—who also happens to be a cop—is less a faux pas than an incomprehensible lapse of reason.

Looking back on it from yesterday's vantage point, last week had such a dreamlike quality that I wondered if I had been in a coma. Looking back on yesterday from today's compos mentis vantage point, I now understand that I wasn't in a coma at all. I was in a comma.

Continuing yesterday's exhaustive discussion of the Sony ICD-MX20 recorder I'm using for input to my speech-recognition software, it may be worth clarifying my use of the term high fidelity in the decidedly lo-fi context of human speech. In the larger realm of hi-fi audio, this recorder's 60-13,500 Hz frequency response is laughable; it's a far cry from the 20-20,000 Hz response that defines the minimum qualifications of any recording or playback equipment suitable for the world of music.

I'm not ready to render a final verdict on the NaturallySpeaking software I've been trying out since just after Christmas; I want to make sure I've held up my end of the bargain—e.g. training, and trying not to fluff my lines—before I do that. But at this point I think I can say something about the digital recorder I'm using as my audio input device.

I knew I was going to hell, but maybe I just didn't care. The nightmares — the ones in which I stood before the throne of judgment — began to intrude on my waking hours, but still I procrastinated. By the time I began to seriously rethink my position on writing — or more to the point, my avoidance of it — it was too late. In these dreams, I had committed the unpardonable sin. I had neglected my blog for months, and the sentence was eternity in a place with insignificant site traffic.

Chewing my food at the local café, I saw a young lady I'd met some time ago sitting alone, so I decided to insinuate myself—and my half-eaten sandwich—into her lunch break. By the time she noticed my trajectory it was too late, and I was able to slide into the booth before she had the chance to plan an escape.

"Sitgoin?" I said, my mouth packed with tuna and rye.

She managed a smile. "Good. I'm good. You know, I was just . . . "