Article & Journal Resources

Joseph Di Prisco
San Francisco Chronicle - CA, USA

The National Do Not Call Registry ( www.donotcall.gov) has been a boon to someone like me who treasures domestic tranquillity. I can honestly say my world has lately become much more civil, now that those telemarketers who targeted my number are on the run and my dinner hours are liberated from once-in-a-lifetime offers of prime vacation real estate in the Everglades. In fact, Do Not Call has worked so marvelously for me that I signed up for other, less well-known national registries that help control the intrusions into our daily lives.

Speaking of intrusions, my ex and I would be invited to a dinner party by one of her tribe, and when we accepted: "Great, can't wait to see you guys. Say, would you mind bringing the Muscovy duck or your famous deviled eggs?" Am I crazy? People ask us to dinner and tell us to bring, umm, the dinner? But those days are over for me, in more ways than one. Go to www.donotpotluck.gov and follow instructions. Your car seats will never again be pesto-stained and your casserole dishes can be reclaimed.

By the way, when I use the terms "dinner" and "hours" in the paragraph above, I am using them what you might call loosely. If you mean by "dinner" food of the sort found, for instance, in grocery stores and heated on, for instance, a stove, I don't cook "dinner" much these days, and I really don't enjoy a dinner "hour," if you know what I mean. My social calendar is generally open, which is good, because my book should be coming together before you know it.

Also available in time for your nosy neighbor's imminent return from Florence or the Grand Canyon, there is a site ( www.nopix.gov) that enables you to rule yourself off-limits to snapshot marathons, like the kind available on photo-sharing sites, of tourist photographs of the David, clever cloud formations and the adorable drool on a pre-toddler's chin.

One registry is especially useful for those who travel in the literary set. If you're like me, everybody you know (especially your two-faced ex) is writing a tell-all and begging you to peruse drafts of a single-spaced manuscript. List yourself on www.nomemoir.gov and your e-mail box will be devoid of those pesky attachments.

It may come as a shock to some of my former so-called friends, but there are people who do not adore Willie the Weimaraner or Samantha the Siamese. (This does not apply to me, honest. I loved those pets of hers, when we used to live together.) If you happen to be picky, go to www.keep youranimaloffme.gov.

Can't stand turncoat acquaintances' relating spoiler plot summaries of "The Sopranos" or doing impersonations of Tony or Carmela, Paulie Walnuts or Christahphah? Whoa, I got your registry right here: www.fuggettaboudit.gov. Incidentally, now I can watch to my heart's content reruns of the show ("It's so VI-oh-lent," she would whine), as soon as I put together the money to sign up again for HBO. (Or she'd say, "It's so ethnically in-SEN-sitive." She was so sensitive that after the Cal game - go, Bears - she intentionally washed my best white shirt with her red Stanford sweats.)

I am finding particularly helpful this site for the recently unmarried: www.myexis gettingre-marriedandjustpublishedabestseller.gov. Your once-significant others will not be free to share the joyous news of their pending nuptials and you won't lament wasting precious therapy sessions savaging their suddenly movie-optioned books. (Who knew she had a commercial success in her when she was screaming at me? I was just taking a shower, and I was only humming "Hunk of Burning Love." She should have signed up on www.needmyownspace.gov and maybe we would have had a chance.)

I'm sure it was a great movie, but www.tellsome onewhocares.gov. I'm happy you found your soul mate, too. I had a soul mate once; we'll see what she does with my alleged "character" in the book based on my (uncredited) idea. She stole my agent, too, who won't return my calls. Moving right along. About the book you want to recommend, OK? I'm positive that was a book that changed your life. Unless I wrote it, however, I don't want to hear about it.

I also believe you when you testify that your diet - excuse me, your food program - has given you abundant energy for sex and meditation and lots more sex. But you will leave me alone now that I have taken advantage of www.justshutup.gov.

Tired of celebrity news because you're no celebrity yourself? Nobody is reporting that you are fresh out of rehab? Not saying that rehab wouldn't be a good idea, though, for some people I could readily name. The solution lies in signing up on www.whoislindsaylohananyway.gov.

This next one cuts close to the bone, but in the interests of full disclosure, I reluctantly share information as to how you can never again be badgered to attend an obscure, under-appreciated colleague's reading: www.shootmeinstead.gov. In a related development, I plan to be making appearances in bookstores around town soon. See you there?

By the way, if anybody runs into my ex, tell her I'm not bitter, that we are two adults who know better, people who can behave civilly. At least that's what I learned at www.donotgetmestarted.gov. I promise to stop calling her every day, too, so you might mention in passing that there's no need for her to register on www.exblock.gov.

Joe DiPrisco is the Berkeley author of six books. His Web site is www.diprisco.com.