Category Archives: Just for Fun

I wasted time today. In a big way. So what’s new?

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I am thankful for the ability to run.

Food: banana, juice, grape pop tart, chocolate milk, bean and rice homemade pot pie, popcorn, apple, beer, almonds and M&Ms

Exercise: jogged 3 miles, walked dogs 2 miles

A Wish List by Me.

I wish that in academia we could have time to do everything we want to do. I wish we could have ample time to write without distractions and ample time to prepare for teaching. At the same time.

I wish I would have gone to a school that offers dissertation fellowships.

I wish I could compartmentalize my brain to think about class when it needs to and to think about my dissertation when it needs to.

I wish that I could do a Bunny Foo Foo on some of my colleagues. I wouldn’t mind scooping up a few of them and bopping them on the heads.

I wish that they could Bunny Foo Foo me when I need it. Sometimes I need to be bopped on the head.

I wish it didn’t take a couple of beers to put me in the mood to write. I wish I didn’t get tired so fast.

I wish Coke Zero didn’t taste so good. I wish all soda could be made with cane sugar, like Faygo Rock-N-Rye in a glass bottle.

I wish that my dissertation proposal would edit itself. I wish someone besides Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Larry Page and Sergey Brin would invent some software that could do that revision. They already make enough money.

I wish that someone would invent software that could hook up to my brain and read what I am thinking, but only if I want it to.

I wish I could get paid just to love people and give them grace. By that, I think I mean I wish I could be a youth pastor again.

I wish I could steal my daddy’s cue and make a living out of playing pool, or find myself a rock-n-roll band that needs a helping hand.

I wish I could write well enough to score a major book contract and write about the snow and the birds and my dogs and how I need to finish painting my house.

I wish writing wasn’t something only a few people could get paid to do, but if it has to be, I wish I was one of those few people.

I wish I could wave a magic wand and have everyone have everything they need, not want. Need. Huge difference.

I wish I had a pair of socks, like the ones I am wearing that my god-daughter picked out for me for Christmas, for every day of the week.

I wish I could wear sweatpants to teach in.

I wish I could swim the English Channel. Or just start running and never stop. Forrest Gump it without Tom Hanks or the stupid feather.

I wish I could be anywhere, doing anything else, but this. That’s how I feel right now. Tomorrow I will feel just fine.

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I am thankful for fun.

Food: banana, juice, pizza and bread sticks, chips and salsa, Lorna Doones: not a good food day at all

Exercise: walked the dogs in huge snow! shoveled the driveway and turn around

I would learn how to free-climb, only super free climb, like super-humanly. I have always wanted to know what it would feel like to climb up the side of a building with the cars honking beneath me in the middle of rush hour. I imagine people as small as the cliched ant looking up at me and pointing while the news cameras roll and wondering sometimes out loud, who is that woman who is scaling the side of the Hancock Building, and why is she doing it? “I am doing this because I couldn’t fail!” I would scream.

Or what it would feel like to cling to the face of a sheer cliff as the wind blew past and the birds circled. I wouldn’t think twice about scaling up the front of Half Dome and hanging by one hand, swinging like a chimp from a tire in the zoo. Only I would scream, “I did it because I couldn’t fail!” I would grin to myself like a small child, because my hands would stick like Spiderma’s to the rocky surface of the gigantic cliff.

Perhaps the most exhilarating feeling of all would be climbing the thick trunks of trees to the top of the rain forest canopy. I am not sure this can be done, but since I can’t fail at what I have chosen to do, I will climb those trees and then sleep in the branches high above the screeching animals below. I would gaze out over the lush green carpet, and count my blessings by tens. There wouldn’t be anyone else around so I wouldn’t have to explain that I only did it because I couldn’t fail.