Yesterday marked one week that Pulao has been in India, while I’ve remained in Minneapolis.

So far, things are deteriorating rapidly. Last night, I had beef jerky for dinner. I’ve also decided that growing a goatee is a good idea, even though my face lacks the proper follicles to support manly hair growth. I’ve even looked into the mirror, rubbed my budding peach-fuzz goatee with two fingers and mused, “Mustache . . . ?” Uh-oh.

A week may seem fast to have descended into the depths of mustache-musing, but remember: I work at home. I may not see another living thing for days, outside of a particularly sharp-toothed cat.

There was an unfortunate mustache-growing incident a few years back . This was the only known instance in history where growing a mustache made someone look younger; I transformed myself, through the magic of facial hair, into a scruffy 14-year old.

My friends and fellow apostrophes Duodecad and dbay made no mention of the budding goatee Saturday night. Either they were used to the more robust, Hemingway-esque style of beard that Duodecad seems to so easily sport, and didn’t actually notice my “beard,” or else they realized that, in polite society, it’s best to pretend that nothing had happened.

I’ve resolved not to go down the dark path of my friend Ian, whose wife Anika has been gone for several weeks, teaching kids at a summer camp. Ian, he confessed, recently slept on the couch with all his clothes on. Why? Why not, he said.

Crazy. But the more I think about it, why not, indeed? The bed is rather large nowadays, and who needs the hassle of undressing, and then dressing again in the morning? The couch, clothes on . . . I like it!

Some updates, for the Facebook and Twitter Nation; 12apostrophes was absent from the triple-w for approx. a few days, give or take many hours. For some of those days, I was in Vegas, so I didn’t care.

But, in the good news column, 12apos received four (count ‘em, four) e-mails about the outage, along the lines of “Where is 12apostrophes?” and received zero e-mails of the “Good riddance!” variety.

This proves two things irrefutably:

1. 12apostrophes has at least four readers, not the before-thought of “two” or “a couple of” readers.
2. 100% of 12apostrophes readers respond favorably to the blog.

The site downage was caused by a roving band of crack Internet hackers trying to strike terror by crashing the world economic infrastructure and obscure blogs. Or else the hosting company “switched the name server” and then “forgot to switch it back,” should “propagate” in a “couple of hours,” but really “took a week.”

Meanwhile, back at the Vegas wedding, Pulao and I survived helicopter travel, although I had had my doubts. In fact, besides just avoiding the firey crash, the rides and views were a bit on the super-awesome side. Here’s what a small part of it looked like:

Vegas, for me, was unstoppable forces vs. immovable objects: freezing casinos v. scorching sun, Disney World v. Bourbon street on Fat Tuesday night, hooker calling cards on the sidewalk v. a beautiful wedding. Nice strangers v. mean strangers. Swift ‘copters v. sluggish busses.

The highlights of the trip were the wedding ceremony at the Chapel of the Flowers, a classy oasis tucked away on a un-classy street, the Grand Canyon (from the air and the ground), friends and more friends, and craps at the Golden Nugget.

Another way to look at Sin City; friend and sometime-12apos commenter Crash Damag said that Vegas had moved way beyond capitalism, capitalism used to be you gave your money and got something, a good or service, and in Vegas you just give the money away, without that other part, where you get something.