I suppose it's a truism to observe that everyone wants to be noticed. Smart people suggest that it's a desire that's been perfected and honed to a deadly point on the gleaming whetstone of American culture. I, of course, am no exception, although I like to think my particular infantile arm-waving need for recognition and acknowledgement is noteworthy for its spectacularly queasy obviousness. No guile here! Look at me, please!

Actually, the contradiction between my need for attention and my equally strong desire to move through life invisible and unscrutinized produces some odd fantasies. Sometimes I want a kind of sub rosa notoriety, to be known only to some unspecified privileged sector. I imagine my activities contained in a bulging accordion file, a sheaf of heavily redacted documents passed between shadowy operatives, copies on the desks of powerful elites.

It's either a sign of our morally bankrupt times or an indication simply of my own comical neuroses that in some ways I aspire to be Lee Harvey Oswald instead of President of the United States.