1,000 strti.

After a long absence, I've come back to try to update my domus and claw back what little I ever knew about homesite coding. I'm not sure what particular bit of knowledge overwrote the code lore that I used to have lurking in my brain cells, but I'd be willing to bet that whatever it is, it's not nearly as interesting. Probably a grocery list from 2003 or something.

The codes, of course, they come and go as they please in any case. Every once in a while I'll wake up to discover that the furniture has been mysteriously rearranged. That's why the villa is never less than bizarra at the best of times.

Coding (and its antidotes)

I kid the codes, but I kid because I love. Let's face it, though, for most of us, coding doesn't exactly come as easily as, say, breathing. If you need some help, here's the place to start:

The Arachnids are hands-down the nicest, most supportive, and most helpful people you'll ever meet anywhere online. And I speak as someone who has been thrown more lifelines and brought back from more near-coding-death experiences than you possibly could be. I'm just saying.

If you're all coded out, please help yourself to a consoling cocktail, invented by my friend Bithiah for just such an occasion.

Or try Phoeba's refreshing Nebet Sunrise:

Or enjoy this lovely panda, and if it occurs to you to wonder why there's a panda in Rome, think...Bizarra...

Background courtesy of

Avatar and courtyard image courtesy of VRoma. The library image has been tweaked but originates in a VRoma photo from a reconstruction at Hadrian's villa at Tivoli. The kitchen, also tweaked, is a reconstruction from the London Museum and also comes from a VRoma photo. My gorgeous new main image is a painting by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema called "House of Caius Martius." To see this and scores of other realist Academic paintings, go to the ARC website, here .