Stlange Intellude.

It started with a phone call, just I was walking out the door.

I wonder what it is that possesses us to pick up the phone, when we are for all intents and purposes, out the door.

But, it was just a few feet from the door, and kind of on the way out, if I took a right at the fridge instead of a left, so I strayed from the course to answer the telephone.

It's the boss.

"Have you ever wanted to do the blah blah blah blah blee bloo blahblah?" he asked.

I've inserted the "blah blahs" because there are some things I can say, and some things I can't.

Well, needless to say I was always intrigued by the "blah blah etc."

"Okay, go there." he said.

"Is this temporary?" I asked.

"Yeah. It's only until you die." quoth he.

So.

Here I am, wading into strange and turbulent "blah blah" waters, tasking my brain a little to learn all the lingo, and learning that there is, in fact, no end to the frustration that comes from the battle between man and machine.

And I feel a little like they showed me a picture of Michael Phelps, told me, "and that's how you swim" and threw me into the deep end of the pool.

Eventually, I should ask somebody what the perks are. Do I get more money for this? Have you ever NOT asked that question before starting something?

And that RED button over there....should I push that?

How was your day?

Catz is funny.

Ever have one of those moments that AGAINST ALL LOGIC, you find yourself laughing harder and harder at something that most people wouldn't find that funny?

Yeah.

Me too.

It's the bottom half, two down, 3-2, and I got no heat.

Did you ever have one of those days when you begin writing something, and as you proof you realize that it sounds suspiciously like a suicide note?

No, of course you haven't.

Either have I.

Really.

I don't know if it's the work, or the lack of space between the work, or the fact that the weather has turned (again) or that I'm feeling a bit under it. But, as I said to my dear Iowa friend yesterday, "my 'screw it' voice is getting louder."

So, as is my usual tendency, I go to the computer in the morning, scroll the news, scroll the mail, click over to WFUV from the campus of Fordham University in NYC, to listen to Claudia Marshall, a woman I've known since just about the fourth grade, and she's playing The Doobie Brothers.

Minute By Minute. Not their best work, certainly, but certainly not their worst.

And I wonder if the Universe really DOES send messages.

Or, maybe Claudia is just messin' with my head.

Or, it COULD be that Claudia is sending messages, and the Universe is messin' with my head.

At any rate.....it just feels as though I'm out on the field, and I'm envying the folks in the dugout. I'm gettin' shelled out here. And perhaps the DL wouldn't be such a bad place to spend some time, for just a while.

It's the headache talkin'......

There's nothing wrong with me that a tree falling on me couldn't cure.

The Powers That Be at my place of employment are no longer asking, but simply assigning. I'm finding this a somewhat overwhelming trend that I'll attempt to address in the very near future.

Sometimes, Nelson DeMille disappoints.

Faulkner is like spinach. I had a bad experience with both, and haven't really touched them since. Faulkner and spinach enthusiasts, accept the apology for my shortcoming.

If you've never had a fresh Sweet Roll from the Hilltop Cafe in L'anse, MI, then you don't know what it's like to eat a planet-sized breakfast delicacy.

My study of Socialism has brought me to the following: The tenets of socialism are A) helping ones neighbor, and B) thinking about other people, as well as yourself.

My study of Christianity provides me with the same tenets.

And I said to myself, "Sit Down! Sit Down, you're rockin' the boat!"

I don't think that Socrates actually said, "I drank what?"

There was a time when I could say, "well, you've always got me." Now, I realize that the currency has devalued, somewhat.

Is it possible to be a savant, and not be an idiot? And vice versa?

Dying is hard; Comedy is easy.

In the Kingdom of the Blind, the one-eyed man is probably robbing you....well, blind.

Writing a list of random things is always easier than putting together coherent paragraphs.

Unless you're Faulkner.

Pages We Were Years From Learning.....

The other day, I posted a simple phrase on another societal web page; it was about the fine line between thinking and feeling. And I got a few comments, though none very helpful in the debate between intellect and emotion.

It's amazing what I'll fixate on, isn't it?

There are some times when you really could use a definitive. That phrase that will help you deal with the growing weight, and the lack of any real relief in sight.

There are some days when you think, if you can just get your hands around it, it will be okay. With the proper leverage, you will have nothing to worry about.

So, here is what I've come up with.

The people you surround yourself with, the people with whom you choose to spend what little time we have on this big blue marble, are the keys.

And in the long run, it's not just the way they make you feel.
And it's not the way they can make you think.

I think it's the way they make you a better person.
And the way they can make you believe that there is no ceiling on "better."

I hope that when the current takes me further down the river, that somebody can say that of me.

"He made me better."

I could live with that.

Oh, Lord...Didn't He Ramble?

It's gray here in ND this morning.

It looks like it wants to rain, but like a patient just out of rehab, it's going to deny itself the pleasure.

The snow has finally disappeared from my yard; just a few short days ago, there was a drift about three feet high on the south fence. All that remains is the squalor that comes with the thaw; old leaves, papers and other trash that got mixed in when the blizzards hit and ran.

Mighty gray, though.

Not conducive to happy thoughts. Puts one more in mind of.....introspection, I suppose.

I would like to go a week without disappointing somebody. Or myself.

(I did warn you about introspection, didn't I?)

I would like people to stop volunteering me for assignments, without the common decency of asking me first. I know I work for the government, but I DON'T work for the military. But at the same time, I find it amusing (in a sarcastic way, not a truly funny, feel-good-movie-of-the-summer way) that the talents they rely upon couldn't get me so much as an interview when a position opened where they could actually USE those talents. But. That's the government.

There's a book, staring at me like one of those obnoxious GEICO commercials. It's saying, "It's time to do that research." And I'm saying, "But there's still cake in the fridge."

That made more sense in my head then it did on the page.

Mark Twain, in his waning years, actually wrote a few chapters of a book, chronicling the lives of Tom and Huck in their old age; apparently, it was a book about the futility of life after the age of adventure, and what happens after the imagination is overcome by the realities of life. According do one biographer, he consigned the manuscript to the flames of this fireplace. I think that's a pity, but at the same time, it would diminish the images of our youth; where we did imagine ourselves as pirates, and steamboat pilots, and prospectors of gold in the fields of California.

Sometimes, I would give everything I have, everything I ever had, and everything I will EVER have, just to not...think....like I do.

And other times, not.

The preceding ramble was brought to you by a lack of coffee, a lack of deep sleep, and the prospect of a long day.

But I'm reminded of something my friend and former student Greg Owen wrote about the retirement of John Madden...

"...So you got this fat guy over here babbling on about football and then BOOM! Retirement comes along and and the fat guy, he's not talking about football anymore which is okay, cause you got the fans over here and they haven't listened to a word he's said in years..."

If you here it in a Madden voice, it's much funnier, I think.

A good day to you. Ramble on, my friends.

Wow.

If you haven't seen it yet, go to Youtube, and type in "Susan Boyle."

If you're not misting up by the end of it, you have no feelings at all.

Oh, Envy those that live the dream.