Overthunk

(Warning: Cheese may be needed. Whine ahead.) The trouble with anything online is, it's you but it's not you. With predominantly online relationships, this is you but not you added to them but not them. This plus time equals an exponentially inaccurate virtual folly. The most important stuff that happens in my life, I don't write about. What's the line between "free spirited" and "skanky"? How come the amount you want someone is inversely proportional to the amount they want you, and even if that ratio changes, between the same two people , it still applies? Death: horrifying snuffer of sacred life force, or just welcome relief? What if all the things I'm pretty sure God is ok with, He isn't? Is it possible to never hear another depressing news story again? As I age, my emotions rule me less, resulting in more days of relative calm and happiness. As a tradeoff, I don't get as excited about as many things. If you want something, give up on...

On another trip to the Half Price Books store, I had to use the loo. They've cleverly used the covers from old Harlequin Romance novels from the 50's and 60's as a border atop the wainscoting, so they're at eye level as you wash your hands and such. There were bunches and bunches, but a few titles struck me as perhaps more... significant than others. Could our pre-Internet forebears have been more clued in to the variant stripes of sexuality than is commonly suspected? Exhibit A: Gay Cavalier Exhibit B: Master of Saramanca Exhibit C: Citadel of Swallows and finally, Exhibit D: A Night for Possums.

Well, I guess it didn't HAVE to die. But nonetheless, I destroyed it with the weight of 12 bricks and my stupid, stupid stupidity. See, the littlest dog I have has an amazing ability to dig holes under fences and squeeze her tiny self under. One morning, I woke up and SHE WAS GONE. After I freaked out and papered the neighborhood with ugly yellow signs, a man called me. She was apparently having a good time helping him put down some paving stones in his back yard. I was so glad to see her, I cried. I told her then to always stay with the pack, and she has. Still, I feared losing her, so I went and got a bunch of bricks. Bricks are heavy and scratchy. I had about 75 of them, over 2 trips. I could only take about 4 at a time. More were too heavy, because I had to carry them from the front of the house all the way around to the back, and I did not want to drop any of them on any metatarsals or the like. On the 2nd carload, I got frustrated. I don't own a wheelbarrow or a dolly or ...

Those who read this screed with any regularity are already acquainted with my love of John Updike, who, besides just possessing my esteemed enamorment, has won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction not once but twice. The day before yesterday I just happened to drop by the Half-Price Books in my town, where I, on a whim, thought some new Updike might just be the thing. So I picked this up. Note its price: $4.98. Well, the day went on, I continued shopping, visited with friends, and was waiting for my Independence Day Freedom Potato Salad spuds to finish boiling when I thought I might read a story or three while I was waiting. After all, there were 40 of them. Oh, look at that, an inscription in a used book. Let's see whose Great Aunt Margot gave this to them on which holiday... Well, I'll declare. That there says, "for Mark a rare volume John Updike" Being me, my first thought at any awesome event such as this is, "Nuh UH ." So of course I went and checked here ...

I pay $1000.00 per class to attend a prestigious private university. I am midway through a Master's degree and have a 4.0 grade point average that I intend to keep for the duration. I have over 17 years experience at adulthood and I own and operate my own house, car, career, and life. Yet still, the other day, I felt mortified and 12 all over again. In this particular class, there are those writing-surface-fused-to-an-uncomfortable-chair type desks that thin people don't think twice about sitting in. I, however, have gone through a past period of hugeness where I could just barely wedge between the chair back and the writing surface edge. Happily, now I can fit without too much problem, though I still marvel at the 6 to 8 inches of gut-to-desk space that most people have in those. Anyway, so the professor has this brilliant idea to play a game for an exam review (I know, wtf, it's grad school, I was thinking the very same thing). She decides that rather than raising our han...