• This is the first day of the rest of second grade

    Beth is a tough nut to crack, but she’s even harder to read. The lead into the new school year had all the emotion of a new pair of socks. (What do I have against socks? Why am I picking on socks in general? As a child, I was permanently scarred by the cruel and unusual gift of socks on Christmas morning.) It was so unlike my experience. I remember the first day of elementary school with all the fondness of replacing a Mac with a Dell. Yet, I remember the first days of a new term at UF with eager anticipation. These were two very different experiences, but they had one thing in common: emotion, a commitment to one side of the wellbeing spectrum or the other. Surely Beth feels something about the big first day?

    “So Beth, how do you feel about the first day of second grade?”
    “I dunno.”

    “Are you nervous?”
    “I guess so.”

    “Are you excited about meeting your new teacher?”
    “Not really.”

    “Have you now, or have you ever, committed to one emotion in particular concerning your scholastic career?”
    “Huh?”

    I haven’t decided if that last question was too sugar coated with sarcasm for my own good.

  • Taking one for the boss

    When my mood is getting in the way of productivity, I owe it to my employer to engage in a little root cause analysis; and by golly I think I’ve got it! Set your way back machine to yesterday night, around eleven p.m. I had just given myself a serious case of the giggles, recalling my exploits in church earlier that day. I was committing it all to the internet ether, so that others may take advantage of my good humor, when I discovered that my web site was missing.

    There is never a good time to discover a computer hardware problem, but the worst time is an hour after your normal bed time. I jumped out of bed and stormed into the family room to give my router a swift kick. It turns out that my suspicions were correct, the problem would not be solved with physical violence. I settled in for the long haul, spent two years of life expectancy fixing the problem, and went to bed late.

    There’s your stinking root cause! Speaking of fatigue, has anyone got some stimulants? Actually, I don’t like to go to the Walgreen’s well too often, so I’ve decided to go au naturelle. I’ve decided to get my sugar and caffeine the way God intended: with a Twix bar and a Mountain Dew. My regular readers will not be surprised by this revelation, nor would they be surprised by my recent weight gain. All of this makes good training for having a newborn again, so I guess all was not for naught.

    The can makes a hollow sound when I put it down on my desk. There’s one more foil wrapper in my trash can. Yes, I’m jammin’ now.

  • Is it just me?

    Do you ever have those days when your fuse is short, your patience is thinner than a sheet of tracing paper, the world is conspiring against you, and your fingers are numb from taking it all out on your keyboard? Have you ever arrived at this point without knowing why you need catharsis more than Pat Robertson stuck at a gay pride rally?

    Deep, cleansing breath,

    Yo, word.

    (If pressed, the author will not be able to translate the last line of this entry. He’s currently suffering from too much exposure to “Da Ali G Show.”)