In the middle of the night, I discover DipNote, the U.S. Department of State Official Blog.

Did you know the State Department has a blog? I happened upon it — at 3:40 a.m., just now — after clicking from Memeorandum — one of my most-used bookmarks to "2014 International Women of Courage Award Winners," at the State Department website.

"DipNote"... I had to think about it for a few seconds. Dip? To me, a "dip" is a nutty and relatively lovable, lightheaded person. Donovan's "Epistle to Dippy" plays in my head. That can't be the intended association.

At Urban Dictionary, the top definition for "dip" is "to leave abruptly. To get the hell out of somewhere." That's sound State-Department-y, but not in a good way. Scrolling farther, there's "dip" as in smokeless tobacco, which can have a foreign-affairs lilt — Copenhagen, Skoal.

Yet farther down the page at Urban Dictionary:

term originated in chicago (chi-town) term for side piece/broad not your man women.

Another entry says it's Detroit slang:

This term refers to members of the female sex, typically those who are very attractive and have a decent, if not, respectable reputation.

I have to get to definition #10 before something like my personal first definition shows up:

someone that is stupid or does something stupid; retarded, another way of saying retarded; short for dipshit

1) wow that guy is such a dip
2) hes got to be dip

Sorry for the offensive word. The r-word. Not the s-word. I'm okay with "dipshit," but the question is, why would the State Department want to trigger such an association (assuming anybody trips into their blog, as I did in the middle of the night, AKA Morning at Meadhouse)?

Hitting the lower depths of the definitions — ##11, 12, 13 — we get into drugs. "Dip" (or "dips") might refer to "A pill that makes you feel like a better person" or to "A cigarette dipped in liquid pcp."

And I finally get around to Googling "Epistle to Dippy" and see that Dippy, the recipient of Donovan's epistle, was not some sweet hippie girl, but a man who was serving in British Army in Malaysia. It's Jimmy Page playing guitar on that single, by the way, and I highly recommend the whole 44-song collection "Troubadour," which includes EtD.

Through all levels you've been changing
Elevator in the brain hotel
Broken down but just as well
Looking through crystal spectacles
I can see I had your fun

At what level of the brain hotel has the State Department's elevator broken down? I reach for my crystal spectacles at 4:11, which Urban Dictionary tells me is slang for "information," and of course, I figured out a while into the dusty minutes of meditation in this rhododendron forest of a blog post, that the "dip" in the State Department's "DIPNOTE" is short for "diplomacy."

I'm not sure if it would be dippy to actually read DipNote. The top post written 5 days ago by "DIPNOTE BLOGGERS" — there's authorship for you — is "A Critical Moment for Ukraine." Was that "moment" the moment that was happening 5 days ago, or is the moment the eternal now?

The post cobbles together a blather-y quote from Barack Obama and another quote — even blabbier — from John Kerry.

The United States has been clear that the Ukrainian people deserve the opportunity to determine their own future...

Obama said, "... we've made clear that [Russian officials] can be part of an international community’s effort..."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry..."...  I... made it clear that [the Russian presence] could be misinterpreted at this moment....

Everything's clear as Obama and Kerry make things clear or at least inform us via unnamed State Department bloggers that they have been making things clear to the Russians. I put on my crystal spectacles and sing the last verse of "Epistle to Dippy":

Dum dum dum, dum dum, dum dum dum
Dum dum dum, dum dum, dum dum dum
Dum dum dum, dum dum, dum dum dum
Dum dum dum, dum dum, dum dum dum
Dum dum dum, dum dum, dum dum dum