BREAKING NEWS: Apathetic, Disaffected Blog Author No Longer Deserving of Own Blog

If this blog were a fern, it would be brown.  If this blog were a fish, it would be upside-down at the top of the tank, mouthing "...flush...me..." with its final fishy breath.  Let's do one more: if this blog were a  were a celebrity, it would be Calista Flockheart (because the blog's under-nourished, and loves Harrison Ford).

In spite of my total lack of commitment to so many things that now seem like -- of course -- they were doomed to fail from the very beginning (see: garage wood-shop, yard work of all sorts, calligraphy, jiu jitsu), I still think I can handle the responsibility of a puppy.  My unflinching disregard for the realities of my own personality aside, I think a puppy would be a good idea.  The wagging tail, so exited to see you up in the morning.  The wagging tail, so happily expectant you're home.  The tail, wagging at other times, but happily.  Always happily. 

So think about it.  I promise to walk it.  House train it.  Teach it to say grace before eating.  And if none of this works, think about this...

...not this.

  

 I Heart You.

Our Very First Driveway

Tessa, 

We have a driveway.  We've never even had a parking space before.  Sure, there was occasionally room for a car in front of the building we lived in, but that wasn't ours.  You couldn't count on it being there in ten minutes.  Now, every time I go home -- bang! -- an area specifically designated for one of our automobiles.  Now, maybe First Driveway isn't on the order of Baby's First Steps, or The First Day of Kindergarten, but it's gotta be worth something.

Also, we've never had a yard before.  Or a garage.  No basement, guest room, or fireplace.  And speaking of the yard, we have 2 of them: front and back.  You could say, "I'm gonna be out in the yard, darling, pruning the rosebushes."  And I'd have to ask, "Which yard, we have two of them, and I'm not certain which one you were referencing."  

I do kind of miss the old place, with its This-Is-Your-First-Home appeal.  I miss the creaks in the floor, and the blue walls in the living room (it was like sitting in the middle of the sky on a clear day).  But the new place is an entire place, and when I took the garbage out today -- walking down the Driveway, through the Back Yard, and into the Garage/Wood Shop -- it dawned on me that we'd never even had a parking space before.

I Heart You.

Monkey Bar Blues

Tessa, 

Second staff meeting today, marking the beginning of my second week.  Spent my morning cruising paperwork.  "Paper-Workin' It" I call it.  What's Dave doing?  He's not just workin' it, he's paper workin' it.  To reach this level, you must be able to fill out forms while returning emails while meeting people whose names you'll likely forget while listening to the radio and singing along.  Paper workin' it.

A perk of the new office is the big window, but a downside of the big window is that it overlooks a playground.  I spend a good portion of the day telling myself, "You're too old for those monkey bars, David."  While this is probably true, it doesn't stop the monkey bars from calling my name.  Plus, they have a little rock wall that I'm totally sure I could summit in less than a minute.  40 seconds probably.

Kids today have way better playgrounds than we did.  We had a vertical tower you could climb up, and then a swing set.  The tower had a chain-link ladder you climbed to reach the top, but if you slipped, the ladder became a net, and you had to wait for adults to get free.  And none of this soft rubber pellet stuff.  It was concrete an asphalt and broken glass to give the ground a nice sparkle.  The entire mess was then surrounded with barbed wire and intermittently peppered with mortar fire from rival elementary schools.  We wouldn't have known what to do with a climbing wall.  We would have probably just stared at it; toys like that are too nice to play on.

Staff meeting.  Then monkey bars, maybe, after everyone goes home.

I Heart You

Commuter Marriage

Tessa, 

Remember when we had that Courtship & Marriage class in college.  The professor listed off some variations on the typical we-live-together marriage, mentioning that "commuter marriages" were becoming more popular.  Two people, living in separate cities, leading separate lives, except for the small issue of their souls being bonded together for life in holy matrimony.  We rolled our eyes at the ridiculousness of it.  Now the world has thrust it upon us, and it still seems ridiculous.

This is my first letter to you from the Department Of Really Spiritual And Life-changing Fellowship INitiatives, alson known as D.O.R.S.A.L. F.IN.  It took me 3 days to make that acronym up.  You should have seen the ones that I rejected. As of right now, I'm the only member, which makes this a very secret group.  You can be in it if you want, maybe take notes at the meetings or something.

I delivered Meals On Wheels to some elderly, house-bound folks, earlier today.  Or, rather, I thought I delivered Meals On Wheels.  I caught a glimpse of the volunteer instructions as I was wrapping up the last delivery, and it turns out I was actually delivering Meals Via Wheels.  Now, I don't usually care about brand names, but I felt more than a little duped.  All this time I thought I was involving myself in a designer charity, only to find out later I was hood-winked into doing good deeds for a knock-off.

After that, I got taken out to lunch -- again -- and then received a very interesting lesson on how to properly format expense reports.  Turns out, anyone can format an expense report, but only a very small number of people have the wherewithal to do it properly.  I fear I am not in that very small number.  In time, they will all know this.  But for now I have decided to let people believe I am a smart and capable person.  I have a bet with myself to see whether this ruse can last as long as the vase of flowers on the window sill.

You are missed.

I Heart You.

Gooooooaall!

Tessa, 


How angry was I that the US vs Algeria game wasn't on broadcast TV?  Very angry, with a hint of still-sleepiness.  I can understand not wanting to bump some prime time So You Think You Can Needle-Point or whatever, but it was like 9:30 in the morning.  ABC put The View on instead.  No one likes that show.  We play it for terrorists to get them to talk, and when we do, they beg to be water-boarded instead.  "No! Not Joy Bahar; anything but Joy Bahar!  Osama's at a Motel 6 in Cleveland, just please make it stop!"

So, instead of watching the game I find myself reading second-to-second text updates on ESPN.com.  I turn the radio on to get the full effect of what life was like before television saved us.  We win the game in epic fashion, but reading the action off a website really neuters the moment.  To make matters worse, I found out that you can watch the game online, I was just at the wrong page.  Lame.

I Heart You 

Forts & The World's Worst Psychic

Tessa, 

I should be packing things away in boxes, but I am never so full of key-stroking impetus as when I should be doing something else.  In fact, virtually every letter you will read here came at the expense of something else I was supposed be doing.  As a kid, I always thought you just outgrew your desire to drop everything and make a fort in the living room out of the couch cushions.  Now, with nearly a decade of adulthood under my belt, I see the truth: we never outgrow, we only tame the beast.  Those who do not tame remain children, in cognito.  They'll never be able to stroll through Wickes' Furniture without imagining a Chateau d'If  made entirely from cushions.

Speaking of refusing to face reality, check this out: a Connecticut woman, claiming to be a psychic, was charged with lying to police after she filed a report accusing "rival psychics" of beating her up.  Let's unpack this.  First, I gotta believe that the biggest perk to being a psychic -- aside from the flowing gypsy robes -- is seeing the future.  Ideally, a psychic should be the last person to be surprised by an attack.

Second, wouldn't the rival psychics know this, and maybe have a better way of getting to her than the very non-psychic route of beating her up?  Replace her crystal ball with a regular glass one, maybe?  The 'ol Pins-In-The-Voodoo-Doll trick?  And gangs of rival psychics? Are these a problem in Connecticut?  Do they have gang colors, and specified gang territories.  Are there drive-by palm readings, after which they all meet back at the circled caravan of wagons?  So many questions.

Finally, she ends up getting arrested.  Shocker.  One would think that an average person, entirely not gifted with magical powers, would be able to deduce that repeatedly lying to police is likely to put you behind bars.  I guess psychics are like drug dealers; the first rule is you never use the product your selling.

I Heart You

Air Conditioners & Panda Bears

Tessa, 

My mind is blank today, but I hadn't written in you in over a week, so here I am...  It's not like we haven't seen each other in a week.  I saw you this morning.  You were sleeping, and I was four inches from your face, staring at you and humming an E flat minor.  "Ohmmmmmmnnmn...".  But that type of thing doesn't count as quality communication, so here goes.

I helped the lady downstairs install 2 air conditioners yesterday.  She's on the heftier side of the spectrum, and can't stand for more than a minute or two without resting.  She has cancer, and she brought it up a lot.  A lot.  And I don't know what to say, because I'm sympathetic (Or do I mean empathetic here?  Whichever one means I know cancer sucks, but not from personal experience), but I'm also holding a sixty-five pound window unit.  The metal corner is digging into my hip, I think I'm bleeding, but I'm furrowing my brow and nodding to the story she's telling me.

It's strange to see people's homes when you don't really know them.  No matter how clean a place is, some item always reveals more than polite sensibilities desire.  Foot lotion, now with anti-fungal support.  Old paperback romance novels, with some Civil War belle staring pensively out of a plantation window, her face clearly pleading "Come back to me, Jamison Beauregard III, so we can do the grown-up hug in the smoke house again."  In public, people get the chance to present themselves as they seem fit.  If you want to know about their weird side, you have to Facebook them.  But once your in their home, there's simply no way they can hide their freakish love of panda bears.

Okay, off to the gym, and then to do more Censifying.

I Heart You