What I'm Thankful For

Another teacher at work did a project today where she had kids write poems about what they were thankful for. Cats and dogs across the metropolitan area were celebrated, as were moms and dads, the occaisional younger sibling, and Pop-Tarts. Of course I wrote one. Of course I am posting it.


drive without end to grandma's for bland and soggy veg
tears- coffee that kept me awake now swells my bladder.
the exit signs pass as i approach home too slowly, a crawl, like
molasses running a marathon backwards through the rainforest.
expectation comes with the gravel of the driveway
a silent engine
sprinting
relief
Thanksgiving

A Passage to Excitement!

I took a small vacation this week, and, since the concert I had planned to see in North Carolina was canceled, spent the time reading A Passage to India. It’s a good book, and I like E.M. Forster very much, but just now as I was coming to its end something alarming happened. For reasons I can’t explain I began to imagine that every sentence ended in an exclamation point. Accordingly, the voice in my mind’s ear that pronounced the words, a voice that had been decent, wise and insightful until this point, suddenly turned into that of an anchor on Entertainment Tonight.

A slim, tall eight-sided building stood at the top of the slope, among some bushes! This was the Shrine of the Head! It had not been roofed, and was indeed merely a screen! Inside it crouched a humble dome, and inside that, visible through a grille, was a truncated gravestone, swathed in calico!

This is too good a book to be marred by such insanity, and I am going to take a walk, perhaps gas up my car (if my bank account will permit) and come back later when, hopefully, I can resume reading with the punctuation that Mr. Forster intended.

Highs, Lows, and a Sense of Self-Worth Affected by a Videogame In Which I Pretend to Play Guitar

Every week at work we have a staff meeting, and most staff meetings begin with something called “Highs and Lows.” We go around the room and everyone says what their high point and low point for the week were. This can be anything: professional or personal, big or small, a death or a TV cancellation, a birth or a successful casserole. Many people don’t put much thought into it, and since staff meetings are always on a Friday many people choose to say week after week that their high is "that it's Friday." Those people frustrate me somewhat, but I understand- sharing feelings isn’t for everyone. I don’t have much of a problem with it though.
“This week my low was last night. I was playing Guitar Hero III, which as you all know I just bought at the beginning of this week and expected to beat within a day or two. This seemed to be going to plan, until I reached the eighth and final mini-set, which some of you weird born-again-Christians in the room might be alarmed to hear is played in Hell. Yeah, there’s a lot of creepy imagery, but appropriate for this week, right? Am I right? HA. Oh Halloween. What a joy. Anyway, I got to this final set, and it was really hard. I mean, I’m pretty fucking awesome at Guitar Hero, but these songs make "Beast and the Harlot" look like "Smoke on the Water," if you catch my drift. I kept failing song after song, until I reached the moment of crisis that is this week’s low. I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, and I thought ‘What am I good at? Why am I here? I underachieved in school, and then after I graduated I underachieved in the jobs that I went after, and I underachieved in my free time which is what led me to be playing this ridiculous game in the frst place, but at least I thought I was really good at it. And now if I can’t even beat "Cliffs of Dover" by Eric fucking Johnson then what good am I? Aren’t I just a big failure, period?’ I tell you, it was a low if ever there was one.
"Well, I took a long walk, which isn’t entirely safe in the fan, but I was feeling reckless, and I resolved to keep trying. And maybe I just needed a break, because I got back to the apartment, opened a new beer and damn if I didn’t beat "Cliffs of Dover," "Number of the Beast," and "One" in less than an hour! And that was my high! Now I only need to beat "Raining Blood," and I’ll unlock the final boss battle, and nobody will ever call me a loser again!”
“Ok,” said my boss who had been checking her watch, “Lauren, how about you?”

Sure enough, the next day I finally beat "Raining Blood," and felt very good about it.
“Hey, I beat Raining Blood!” I told my friend Jon when I went over to watch football.
“Hey, great,” he said, unenthused.
“Hey Amy!” I said to Amy when she came in half an hour later, “I beat Raining Blood!”
“I’m very happy for you,” she said, and smiled as one might smile at a retarded boy who just drew a picture of you.
Later my friends Cara and Allison came over, and I told Cara my good news.
“You know Andrew,” she said, “I feel like our interests are diverging. You’re into all these fake things. You play fake guitar. You have a fake football team. You’re even sort of a fake teacher. Soon we’re not going to have anything in common.”
It was my low for the weekend.

An Afternoon Wrapped in Bacon

Sunday I watched football with friend and loyal reader Jon Biscoe, as well as his girlfriend, the Amy. We are all members of the same fantasy football league, and as we watched we discussed our chances in our week 7 match-ups.
“Steven Jackson is still out this week,” I said. Jon and the Amy nodded sagely.
“Defense wins championships,” said the Amy. She knows a lot about football for a vegan.
Later, as we munched on a tasty Indian tofu/rice dish that the Amy had made, we checked our scores.
“Frank is winning,,” said Jon.
“That disappoints me,” I said, “because I hate Frank.” Jon and the Amy nodded, sagely.
Hall-of-Fame-Quarterback-turned-FOX-Analyst Troy Aikman made an odd remark about a linebacker rushing the passer.
“Troy Aikman just said he was ‘coming on his backside,’” said Jon. “Do you believe Troy Aikman to be homosexual?”
“Perhaps,” said the Amy. I nodded sagely.
Jon and I read comic books.
A football player who had performed particularly successfully made the claim that he had done nothing-- that his performance should be attributed to God.
“If God is still available in our fantasy league I will draft him,” I said.
“You are stupid,” said Jon.
“You are fat,” I said.
“You are both fat and stupid,” said the Amy. “It’s because you drink too much beer.”
Jon and I nodded. Sagely.