There’s no “I” in Verizon. Oh, wait, Yes there is.
I’m going to tell you why I believe in karma: chewing gum. I have never, believe me, ever been one to litter. I don’t like it. I find it tacky, low-class, and uneducated of people to throw trash along streets, highways, and front yards. I’m sure some of this has to do with the near religious obsession U.L. and I had with his own front yard, when I was growing up. The first beer can I ever saw was face-down in his bed of calla lilies, the ones that sat out near the end of the driveway. People threw trash in the...
Butt-Dialing, or, I’m sorry, Abigail…
DISCLAIMER: Today’s blog uses the word butt a lot of times. In a funny, good way, though. Having played tennis most of my life, I am more than well aware that I have a good, nice, firm butt. Like, I could point my butt toward a bowl of walnuts and they’d crack immediately. Out of pure-D respect. I mean, facts are facts. Now, I don’t often talk about my butt because a) it isn’t tasteful to do so, and b) I mean, look at it. I don’t really have to talk about it. It’s a little gift from Up Above (two, if you...
This is a sappy blog, and it was well overdue.
The last good day I had was back in 1994, in October, on a Thursday afternoon. I was in line at McDonald's waiting for a milkshake, and the man in front of me turned around and gave me $15 because he liked my smile. That is an absolute lie. I have no record of good days versus bad days. I just try to get through them, either way. Like the rest of the herd. I was reared by a bona fide cynic. I got it honest. Our world view was as follows: Bad day…well, at least, it’s only got 24 hours to live....
I don’t have to use a walker to pump my gas.
Filed under: Deep South, Everyday, faith, humor, life
I have realized, lately, that I am, at best, a third cousin once removed from my own definition of self-awareness. I like to think I'm savvy and a smooth operator, most of the time, but I had a bit of a bitter pill to swallow yesterday, when, on my way back from Scooba (perish the thought!), I had to stop and get gas. This is hardly a new thing for me, but unlike my usual stop-and-gos at the Scooba Junction gas station, I had neglected to look at my gas gauge until I was in Brooksville, about twenty minutes north. I had no choice but to pull...
The very idea of texting your mother…
Filed under: Deep South, education, Everyday, language, life, writing
You tell me if you get this: a student gets up to leave at the end of this morning's class, and casually turns back to me and says, “Well teetle, I guess! Have a good weekend!” Teetle? Do you know what that means? I didn’t either. I asked her to repeat it. “I said ‘teetle.’” “Do you mean like toodle-loo? Is that what you’re trying to say? As in, See you later, toodle-loo?” “I would never say that. That sounds dumb.” There was a lull as we tried to figure out how to communicate what, at first glance, appeared to be nothing but a simple, closing remark as she...
Why I Don't Live at the P.O.
In Small Town America, you've got your churches (lots of them; 28 Baptist churches exist in my hometown of 3,000 people, alone), and you've got your grocery stores, which, in a quick-fire pinch, also serve as make-shift churches. They just follow a different line of worship, a la gossip and such. I attend the grocery store with far more regularity, I'm ashamed to say. But, it's only because there's no set, organized amount of time one must spend in a grocery store. There's also no special music, or altar calls. Those can tend toward embarrassment, from time to time. The gist of this comparision...
I was able to order my fish sandwich without incident.
I can no longer ignore the inevitable because Wednesday, June 24, is fast approaching. And that is the day in which I must board a plane. And fly to Memphis, in which, I will get off one plane and onto another one...and head to Tacoma. A city in a state so far away from here that it might as well not even be a part of the United States. Few other things make me as defensive or difficult as flying. Because I'm so afraid of it. Not just because I'm mean. Flying is something that I can safely hate. I become neurotic, distraught, maybe even mean...I'm...
If you don't want to bleed for it, don't put it in your blood.
I had a terrifying thought, this morning, on the way to work: I'm afraid I might be a duplicitous man. Duplicitous. I used to think that described a man who had lots of love affairs. Would that it were true. But, driving out to campus, I really questioned what I, up until this morning, had believed was my emotional and physical elasticity when in the face of any crisis. Now, I wonder: what if all I've done is misunderstood what I thought was others' general defection of accountability because I'd mislabeled it in my own life? I hate this thought. I've hated it all...
How on earth do you wash a Fedora? [and other random thoughts]…
I have been intensely busy, lately. Not just by hand, either. My mind...it often goes into Mach 7 when I attempt to procrastinate (by the way, the word "procrastinate," itself, is ironic - I mean, by the time you write the word out, you could have done something already - it's not a word for the lazy), and the only thing I can physically do to make it stop is to sleep (even though my dreams are usually full of anger when I do that - last night, for instance...ouch!), but if I don't stop it, from time to time, it just runs all...
Rasputin and the Fateful Finger Day
I: Confession I don't have many great qualities, I'd imagine (for instance, I find it increasingly difficult to even get a date, so I'm tempted to say that I must be lacking some crucial quality - unfortunately, it's a temptation I never give into. I know better). What I do have, and consider a good thing to have, is a large, uncontrollably malleable heart. Even if it's quite a fault of mine to have it, a liability. It's still not the worst thing to have. Then, again, I'm also ignorant about a great many things, and most often, after the initial shock of owning so much pathos, I tend to...


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