When the lilies were still in bloom a month ago, I went counting lily blossoms every day. I knew that my practice had almost no socially redeeming value. I knew that no one else cared about the number of lily blossoms in my yard, and that the actual number did not interest me so much as the counting itself. I recorded the results of counting in my daybook, but the record did not support theories of climate change. In fact, it supported nothing at all. So why did I do it, really? First, when I