The Seventh Circle of Hell

I don't know why, exactly, as my office building is fairly modern looking and it is in an apparent perpetual state of remodeling, but the bathroom on the floor I work on smells bad. And by bad, I mean that it wouldn't surprise if when I got to work on Monday the boss called us in and told us that a dead body had been stashed in the drain of the men's bathroom for the past eight months.

The stink is so bad that although I used to see cockroaches in there from time to time (again, why?), I no longer see them in there. It is as if the cockroaches got together and said, "What is that terrible smell? That's revolting! Hey Carl, let's take the fecal matter that we eat and move elsewhere."*

I suspect that, if you turned up the heat in the bathroom so high that you actually burst into flames by walking in, that that would be kind of what hell would be like. Although, I guess, if you're on fire, disgusting odors are probably the least of your worries.

*Cockroaches may or may not actually eat poop. I don't want a lawsuit on my hands for defaming them.

An Open Letter to the Man Who Walks Down Washington

Dear sir,

Invariably as I drive to work in the mornings, I find you walking on the sidewalk of the street that I take, and I notice that your clothes are slightly dirty and disheveled. It is evident that you make a whole-hearted attempt to appear presentable, but it is also evident that you may not have the means to pull that task off.

Further, I notice that you are always walking. I never see you waiting for a bus, or even really just standing there. You are perpetually moving.

Based primarily on the first observation above, I suspect that you are either homeless or else, live in a place that is very inexpensive where the landlords treat you like dirt.

Why do I bring you up? The answer is that despite what I imagine your circumstances to be, I find that you are always smiling. It would appear that you are finding joy in the, perhaps, little that is afforded to you by your present lot in life.

Sir, I like your style, and, though I suspect that you will likely never read this, you are a little part in what keeps me going day after day. If you can be apparently happy and content in your life, than I certainly should be able to be in my own.

Thank you, sir, for smiling.

Yours truly,
AC

The End of the Month

It is getting to be the end of the month around here (as well as, I suspect, other places), which means that there is a lot of work that needs to get done. The reason for this is that all of the work that I don't get done by the end of the month I not only still have to do, but I have to make a list and explain why I didn't get it done, which effectively doubles the amount of work.

Hmm...I don't know about you, but I'll take one times the work any day over two times the work.

Ah employment. Another day, another reason to shoot yourself in the face. But it sure is nice to be able to eat and have somewhere to live.

?Porque Dios, Porque?

The time? 11:03 p.m.
The location? The street that takes me home.
The situation? Innapropriate.

As I was making my way home last night at the above mentioned time, I saw someone walking a dog on the side of the road. Normally this would not even attract my attention, but there was something out of the ordinary happening with this dog-walker. I noticed that the person was wearing short shorts and a see-through shirt.

At eleven o'clock at night. It's hot here, but not that hot.

Now, it wasn't like she was wearing the clothes and didn't have the body for it; she actually had a fairly nice physique, but I was still astonished when I saw her dressed that way.

I could only think, "What is this chick's deal?"

Nevertheless, I then looked up at her face, to get a better look at this apparent sorority girl who just didn't know any better. When I got to the face, I realized that this woman had a good forty years on me.

It is at these times that those of us in the male gender feel an uncomfortable situation, er, between the legs. It is a sensation that also accompanies seeing something really gross or inhumane, like the disemboweling scene in Braveheart or how I would imagine audiences would have felt when they realized that the girl in The Crying Game was actually a boy. Let's leave it with the fact that I suddenly wished that I did not possess an X and a Y chromosome.

My immediate response was to yell, "Why didn't I start with the face?" The person riding in the car with me just laughed and looked at me as if to say, "You silly boy; Trix are for kids," but then the person that I ride with always laughs and looks at me that way, so I didn't really need to take note of it.

A Good Tired

I find myself going to my job from 9 to 5 or so every week day. I say that I find myself because it's almost like my body is on auto-pilot. My life has, in some ways, become a lesson in logic: I desire food, shelter, and entertainment; therefore, I must work.

However, after my day job is over, I get to go to my other job. It is here that I am with like-minded people who desire greatness in a field that I am passionate about, and they are willing to work hard to achieve it. This job is perhaps more tiring because when I don't give my all, I let everyone else on stage down, and with everyone else being as talented as they are, this is something that I can't stand to do.

After rehearsal, I come home exhausted, and I oftentimes just pass out on the couch, where I remain until I am awakened the next morning by light creeping between and beneath the Venetian blinds. It is then that I start the whole cycle again.

While I am sure that there is meaning in the day job (character growth, financial responsibility, blah blah blah) that I am perhaps too immature to fully realize yet, the meaning that I find in just three hours a night at rehearsal is enough to motivate me to go on. When I am too exhausted to stay awake at night, all I can do is smile because I know where my sleepiness comes from.

Third Post, Huh?

I have added a link to the top of the page that will give you discounts to various theatrical events around the country.

Why? Because now you can all find just about half price tickets to come see SNOOPY!!! You have to sign up for a new user account, but that's free, and once you do, you can find cheap tickets galore!

What are you waiting for? Go! Go now, before it's too late!

Thank You, Statement Cookie

The gf and I had a plan all set up for lunch. We had leftovers, and so a delicious and cheap lunch was in our future.

Unfortunately, the heavens were not smiling on us this morning as I did not realize that the bag that I was packing with our lunches had a huge hole in it. Thus, somewhere between packing our lunch and reaching the office, I managed to lose half of said lunch.

Fortunately, the gf and I are troopers, and we decided that we would just get something from the cafeteria and then eat the remaining lunch. What would be simpler?

However, there was a solution set that we had not previously imagined: the cafeteria was actually serving something delectable for lunch. The lunch special for today was stir-fry beef, which, while actually being a little bit more like carne asada, still looked and smelled wonderful. With this realization, our planned cautions for lunch were thrown in to the wind. We bought lunch at the cafeteria, and we ate, and saw that the food, like the creations of the first seven days of creation, was good.

Because our lunches were Asian themed, they came with their own fortune cookies, and by fortune cookies, I mean that I got a fortune cookie while the gf got something else.

Mine said: "Your luck will soon be at a high point." Because of this, I will be taking the next plane to Vegas because a dessert told me that I will soon be lucky. How can I fail?

Hers said: "A hero is a person who does the best with what he has." Uh, I could be wrong, but I was under the assumption that a fortune generally refers to something in the future, whereas this is more or less just a statement of arguable fact. This is on par with the cookie saying, "The sky is blue today," "I was born in the year 1632 in the city of York," or "Happy families are all happy in the same way, unhappy families unhappy in their separate, different ways."*

So, in conclusion, Fortune Cookie Association of America, I am ashamed of you. You need to learn the difference between a statement and a fortune. When you do, you will be returned to my good graces.

Love,
AC

P.S.: Thanks for the good luck! I anticipate that I will soon be sitting atop giant piles of money.

* I just wanted to point out to everyone that I am a literary god, and by literary god I mean that I know the opening quotes to at least two books. Thanks.

Overwhelming Awesomeness

Rehearsals for the show have been amazing. It seems like every cast member has been given the room and the opportunity to exhale, and the director has gone back to the jovial man that I think all of us knew him to be.

Things are looking up, and the show is going swimmingly. I can't wait until we start getting audiences.

A Phone Call from Today

Customer: I need you to change the addresses of where our company receives its invoices.

Me: That will be no problem. What customer is this for?

Customer: Asinine Industries.*

Me: Asinine Industries? (Checks database) Oh, actually it doesn't look like we serve that customer any more.

Customer: What?

Me: Yeah, I'm pretty sure you guys went to a different service provider.

Customer: (Silence, until) Can you change them anyways?

Me: What?

Customer: Can you change the addresses anyways?

Me: (Brief pause) Sure. I'll get right on that.

Customer: Thanks.

*Name changed to protect my behind.

An Intervention

If something had actually happened last night, I might call it divine intervention.

As readers of this site know, rehearsals for the show that I'm in have been getting a little tense, and by a little tense, I mean that I would sometimes rather be hitting myself in the junk with a hammer than to go to practice. As an example, rehearsal ended for the director the other night when he just kind of got up and left an hour early, which left the cast and crew just sitting there thinking about what exactly we needed to do now.

However, in the spirit of peace, we all decided to have a conversation at rehearsal last night to voice our concerns about how the director treated certain members of the cast. This ended with the cast having a deeper understanding of where the director was coming from.

Unfortunately, he did not ever apologize for what he had done, which I think is kind of what we all expected him to do.

Let me just say, to his credit, that the director is not really a bad guy; he just makes some really poor choices as far as how to respond when he feels threatened. He brought up some familial excuses that said that he, like Jessica Rabbit, was not bad, but that he was just drawn that way.

I think we all have reacted poorly before, which, while not giving him the liberty to react that way, certainly makes me understand where he is coming from.

It should be noted that the meeting last night, was held, in part, to determine whether or not he should stay on as director. I think largely because our show opens a week from today that we kept him on.

I think we all thought that he would come out and admit that he had been in the wrong, but he didn't. He pointed fingers. He said the cast member that he got tense with pushed and pushed and pushed, which I think everyone else in the cast disagrees with, unless, of course, you count asking incredibly reasonable questions pushing.

My concern is that we didn't really fix anything. My concern is that, come our next rehearsal, the director is going to get on the actress's case, and the rest of the cast is going to blow up. My concern is that we just kind of put a tablecloth on a bomb so that we wouldn't have to look at it, but it could still go off at any time.

I find myself blindly wishing that it will get better. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day. Maybe we can get some divine intervention. Maybe we can all just get along.

I'm holding my breath and crossing my fingers.

An Open Letter to the La Jolla Playhouse

Dear Sirs and/or Madams,

I am an actor and I would like to be involved in one of your productions. Unfortunately, the only show that I've seen audition information for lately was The Wiz, and as I (as I have mentioned here and here) do not consider myself much of a dancer, I didn't think that it was likely that I'd get into that show.

Also, I'm not African American, which may have also played a part in my not thinking I could get in.

What I am good at, besides acting, is yard work, shaving, and eradicating foes.

Therefore, I would like to propose a trade: you give me a little part, I'll do a little yard work. You give me a medium sized part, and I will shave your head or, I guess, your back so long as you don't look like a wookie. You give me a big part, and you can consider your foes vanquished. My only request is that you supply the napalm.

Please consider my offer sincerely as I'm sure that I will have to break at least one of the commandments in order to fulfill my obligation to the above contract, which violates my ethical code.

You can reach me at analystcatalyst at gmail dot com. I am awaiting your offers.

With love and kisses,
AC

An Enigma

When you see something going on that you know isn't right, do you speak up?

I ask because last night at rehearsal there was something of an, how do I put this delicately, inappropriate and demeaning series of comments to another cast member in front of the rest of the cast. There was an analysis of rehearsal choices made that was such that you would not hear it in polite company.

The effect was so great, that the target wanted to quit.

I, because I am a chicken, did what the rest of the cast did: silently looked to the ground and hoped that we would not be the target of this in the future.

Would you have spoken up? Said something? Or just tried to wait out the next two weeks until we get to performances?

Blank Notebooks

Usually when I go to a bookstore, something catches my eye. Oftentimes it's a book that I've looked at before, and when I see it again, my mind runs through the pros and cons of actually purchasing it. The largest con being that my room is already full of books.

However, and this is something that only happens every seven or eight months or so, sometimes I find myself looking at the blank notebooks. To me, they represent possibility. Whether that possibility is writing the great American novel or simply taking down quick notes and observations throughout the day varies each time that I look at them.

The biggest problem with blank notebooks, is that I already own several that have been filled with the best intentions for a week or several, but they eventually find themselves gathering dust in a forgotten corner of my room. However, the blank notebook's appeal is that it's a new start. It's an opportunity to say to yourself, "All those other ones failed, but this one will succeed. This time I will follow through and be a better person, a different person."

It's the magic of possibility that in a world where many important decisions have already been made and acted on, I can have a fresh start. And, at the average price tag of $12.95, that's quite a deal indeed.

The Very Best

A friend of mine who posts over at Into the Woods sent me a top ten list of the worst puns ever.

Number nine is probably my favorite joke now.

9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him ....what? (Oh, man, this is so bad, it's good)......... A super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

Man, that's awesome. So awesome that I would like to have thought of that one myself. In fact, I did think of it myself. Thanks, Red Riding Hood, for sending me my joke. It's a good one, if I do say so myself.

And I do.

MANLINESS!!!

Or at least a different type of post.

For those of you in the San Diego area, KUSI will be airing little bits of SNOOPY!!! live on the air tomorrow morning between six thirty and nine.

If you're up, tune in. It'll be cute.

SNOOPY!!!

This show is a remarkable experience for me, because it is really forcing me to grow as an actor, and this is why: dogs and humans can't talk to one another. That is to say, I don't get to talk to any of the other characters, although I do get to have some interraction with Woodstock, but this is mostly one-sided as well since Woodstock doesn't talk.

I was a little stressed out about the show a couple of days ago, and the gf pointed out to me that one of my strongest points as an actor is how well I relate with and to other people on stage. With this show having basically none of this, and with Snoopy being a huge extrovert, I find myself perplexed about how to proceed.

However, my personal suckage aside, the show is going to be incredible. Everyone in the show is so terrific, and everyone is coming together to such an extent, that this show will likely stay in my memory as one of the greatest experiences of my life.

What's funny is that when I was a kid, when it got down to the last performance of whatever show I was in, I would tend to cry, because it was then that it really struck home with me that these amazing experiences could not continue forever. For better or for worse, I more or less grew out of that. However, with as much fun as this show is, I kinda think that something similar will happen at the end of this one.

Wow. Two posts in a row where I referenced crying. What is going on here?

Join us next time for: A Little More Testosterone.

A Case of You

For those who aren't in the know, there is a wonderful singer/pianist named Diana Krall, and by wonderful, I mean that I, the jaded, old man listener, am consumed by a sense of wonder whenever I have to opportunity to listen to her music. A buddy of mine who comments here from time, superaustin, was the one who introduced me to her music, and I don't think I can ever thank him enough for that.

There is, however, one song in particular that sticks out more than any other song. I first heard this song several years ago when I went to one of her concerts at the Santa Barbara Bowl The poignant beauty of its lyrics bring me to tears nearly every time that I listen to it, and so I listen to it as rarely as I can, in order to not make it any less special to me than it is. It's a silly thing to do, I realize, but what can I do? We all value what we value; it is this that makes us human; it is this that makes us unique.

In some ways, it's funny that person who originally wrote A Case of You was Joni Mitchell. But, whereas Joni Mitchell's songs are frequently songs of innocence, I believe Diana Krall's version to be a song of experience.

In the song, are these words, which are sung as the chorus.

"You're in my blood like holy wine,
You taste so bitter, and you taste so sweet,
Oh, I could drink a case of you,
And still be on my feet, and still be on my feet."

And why this song connects with me so strongly is the fact that those few words express my ideal of love more concisely and with more efficacy and beauty than I could ever presume to write or even think.

So what's your point, AC? Well, let's just say that it's kind of a heavy song to decide to listen to at work. It gets kinda awkward to have tears in your eyes when people are asking you database questions. In addition, and slightly off-topic, I'm getting tired, and, when tired, the emotions flow a little more regularly, so it's gonna be a rough couple of weeks for the old AC as rehearsals are going to be getting longer and more frequent.

If you have some extra time, and, depending on your views on such things, either say a little prayer for me or else send some happy thoughts in this direction. I would appreciate either of those thoroughly.

I hope that everyone reading this will have an opportunity to hear this song at some point. It is on her Live in Paris cd, which, if you're interested, could probably be purchased from the half.com link on the bottom of this page.

Blah

Whoever it was that invented eight o'clock meetings needs to be taken out into the street and made to suffer for it.

The problem with these meetings is that they are at the very start of your day. Normally with meetings, you can come in, get a few things done, and then go to the meeting. No big whoop.

But meetings at eight in the morning have you worried the day before. You're like, "I need to be early; I can't look like a doof at this meeting. I should should get in and get some work done proactively, while working to come up with a better working paradigm for my working processes." It should be noted that that last sentence makes perfect sense as the longer you work in an office, the more you start thinking in buzzwords.

And then, when you get to the meeting, everybody's like, "Why did we call this meeting so early anyway?" And all you can do is just sit there smugly and think about how right you were about posting on your blog about the evils of early morning meetings.

Update: Meeting completed? Check
No additional workload, as of yet? Check

A New Start

Well, everybody, I have decided to go with a new template because I think that this one is neat looking, and as we all know, the best reason there is to do anything in life is because something looks neat.

Let me know what you all think of it.

And also, a thanks to the folks at Gecko and Fly for their awesome free templates. There is a link to them above.

All Things Disney

Ever since I was a kid, one of my favorite rides at Disneyland has been the Jungle Cruise. The jokes that the skipper says are so terribly bad, but I love them just the same.

Now, the folks over at Homestarrunner have done a parody of the jungle cruise in one Strongbad's emails (which is probably my favorite portion of the site).

You should take some time out of your day, and check it out here. It'll be worth your time.

This Is Possibly Not Needed

But I thought that brown and black didn't go together?

Poop joke for the day? Check.

In other news, I had the opportunity to go to the Happiest Place on Earth (which I am legally obligated to capitalize) on Saturday. It was a wonderful opportunity to hang out and be with people that I enjoy hanging out with and being with.

However, I was reminded of something that troubles me about that place. As nearly everyone knows about Disneyland, the park is separated into various "lands" that have different attractions and themes. There is "Tomorrow Land" and "Frontier Land" as well as several others, but the one that I would like to speak about today is "Fantasy Land."

First off, let's just say that "Fantasy Land" is a misnomer, at least for me. There is nary a place in this whole section of the park where I can pretend that I have won the Heisman Trophy, which is my fantasy.

Secondly, there is a ride called "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" which is based on the Disney cartoon, The Wind and the Willows. As you may have guessed, the ride involves Mr. Toad taking a wild ride, which includes riding through a library, a bar, and a room full of explosives. Eventually, Mr. Toad makes the tragic mistake of getting hit by a train, which I imagine is pretty traumatizing for the little kid that "Fantasy Land" is meant to pander to.

However, the real therapist-bill-inducer begins after the collision. You see, unfortunately for Mr. Toad, he winds up in Hell, which is honestly a scary place, even at Disneyland. The picture below that I found online doesn't even do the place justice.

It should be noted that before you see the cartoony devils above, you enter through the mouth of a huge scary dragon's head, and there is at least one more horrifying dragon that you must pass to exit, as well as a wicked looking judge in a red judge's outfit.

The gf just reminded me to add about this part of the ride that it is quite a bit hotter than the rest of the ride. So, not only are you riding past devils, dragons, and demonic judges (alliteration, anyone?), you are also experiencing the heat.

I'm just saying, maybe this isn't appropriate for kids, as it nearly makes me poop my pants.

Poop Joke Number 2 (And 3) for the day? Check and mate.

If you all don't believe me, give this ride a shot next time you go; it will put the fear of God in you.

SNOOPY!!!

For those of you who were always wondering what I would look like in a picture on the computer, you can go here and see. I'm in the bottom left.

You can also, you know, buy tickets to come see my show, if you want. For those of you on the fence, let's just say that this show definitely deserves the three exclamation marks after its title. Not to brag, but I think that I am safe in saying that there has never been a better show of any kind in the entirety of human history.

No Coherent Forethought

I sang, and it was good.

Also, go read this; it had me laughing out loud.

Blogger Might Post Now

First, I really like Blogger, especially as a free service, and so I will not complain about the outages. I can only hope that they can get whatever the problem is that has been keeping just about everyone from posting worked out so that it can continue to be a wonderful resource to bloggers around the world.

Secondly, if you're looking to infuriate me, here are three easy steps.

1) Be a customer of our company since 2003.

2) Receive all of the email and hard copies of the invoices we have been sending you since that time, and

3) In June of 2006, ask me to re-email you all of your invoices.

Let me give some backstory. Normally when customers request invoices, they only want a month or two, and so although the process of emailing is kind of tedious and time consuming, it's over relatively quickly. It should be noted that because of how the different programs inter-relate on our work computers, it's very difficult to do anything else regarding my job during the time that I am emailing the invoices, making requests for emailed invoices the work equivalent of a traffic jam, only I don't have anything to honk. Well, I guess I could honk something, but I think that that would just be inappropriate for work. (What? I keep a clown horn at my desk. What are you thinking about, sicko?)

So, when you multiply the slight irritation and discomfort of emailing one invoice by about, oh, forty or so, it kind of makes me want to shoot myself in the face. And while this might not seem like, in the long run, it would make a big difference to the customer, I am sure that I would still get calls demanding invoices, and then I'd be like, "I'd like to get that out for you, but I can't. I SHOT MYSELF IN THE FACE."

Now that all of you know how to infuriate me, I can only expect that it will occur more frequently. It was probably not a good idea to post my Achilles' heel in so public of a place. Hmm...I can only hope most of you reading this don't fall under rule number 1 above.

Also, and entirely unrelatedly, I should add that I get to sing the National Anthem for an alternate league baseball team this evening. It should be noted that they are not paying, but I do receive free tickets to the game.

Free tickets?!?! Can life get better? I submit that it cannot.

So, if any of you are in the San Diego area tonight, you should swing by Tony Gwynn Stadium for the San Diego Surf Dawgs game. Come on down! It'll be a hoot!

A Friend

My friend who used to write the blog, "The Martyrdom of Saint Me" has been, due to some harassment from a review site's readers, chosen to delete his blog.

It makes me profoundly sad that losery folks who can barely manage to string sentences together without the use of profanity have such apparent great power over their idiot minions that they can run a hilarious blog off of the internet.

That is all.

This Morning

Everybody has little routines that start their days. Some people sing in the shower, or on their way to work. Some people (all right, a lot of people) stop at Starbucks every morning. Other people begin their day with meditation and prayer.

I, myself, do all of those things, though not necessarily every day. But something that I do find myself doing that I am finding is apparently part of my morning routine takes place when I actually get into the building that I work in.

Well, the elevator actually.

Nearly every morning I enter the elevator with a couple of other people who work on different floors than I do. From this, comes my routine.

As we are all going up, I try to find mathematical ways to link the numbers of the floors together. I understand that this makes me nerdy beyond reasonable comprehension.

For instance, I work on the eighth floor. If someone were to get on going to the second floor and another person were to get on going to the fourth floor, I would be a happy camper, because it's obvious that 2 x 4 = 8.

It gets a little bit more complex if more than three or four different floors are selected, but sometimes even three can be troublesome. For instance, this morning, someone was going to 2, the gf and I were going to 8, and someone else was going to 16. Great! 8 x 2 = 16! Success! It's a joyous way to start the morning.

However, when the guy got off on 2, someone else got in and he wanted to go to the 13th floor. Now, children, there is not really a good way that 8, 13, and 16 go together. If you need further proof of this, please consult my other blog, achelpswithconversationalmath.blogspot.com. Now, if the new guy would have gone to floor twelve, I would have been happy, because then all the floors would be multiples of four, but no, he decided that he had to be difficult.

Some of you will inevitably ask the question, "I get what you're saying, AC, but I don't see how you can count this as part of your morning routine."

My answer? I would agree with you except for the fact that this happening or not happening affects my mood. It affects it very slightly, but it affects it nonetheless. If, for instance, the gf and I are the only ones in the elevator, and there is therefore only one floor selected, I find myself disappointed that I don't get to play my little game. Conversely, if there are too many people on the elevator, so that there is not an easily definable answer to my little game, I leave the elevator frustrated, and I'm sure I take it out on my customers.

Like this morning, I am miffed and had to write about it.

Do any of you play any little nerd games with yourself like I do?

Two Things

Firstly, I was thinking about why I posted what I posted yesterday. It was obviously harsh, but why did I post it?

Frankly, I'm not sure. The only thing that comes to mind is that when you spend four years of your life getting invested in at a college, you also invest, to various degrees, in the institution itself. The college I went to is, and will always be, a part of who I am and who I am becoming.

I think that the biggest reason I have for having written it is just because of the above: when you invest who you are in something, you sort of hope that it will stick around for a while. I guess it just hurts me to see it, in my opinion, so poorly managed.

But like I said, maybe I just don't get it.

And as far as the second thing...I think I'm just going to have to go with another post as it doesn't go with what I've written here at all.

Clown College

I found out yesterday that the new President of the college that I graduated from has been fired after only having the position for a year.

This poses two hypothetical situations about the school. One is that it almost seems like the Chancellor (who is really the man with the power, if we're all going to be honest about it) has it in for the school, and that he would like to see it fail. It's either that, or else he thinks that the administration of a college is like a magic potion; one can keep adding ingredients and the new ingredients will eventually overpower the mistakes of the older ones.

Now, while that might work for magic potions, I'm pretty sure that's a good way to ruin a recipe for food. (Hmm...that's a little too much garlic...what can I use to fix that?...how about two pounds of butter...mmm...these are going to be the best hot dogs ever!)

In my opinion, I feel like the perpetual lack of a central, strong, leading figure at my alma mater (other than the chancellor [aka pastor of the church] who has threatened to fire staff members who speak poorly about him for what has happened) is going to lead to its ruination.

I understand that several students who were set to return are already planning on transferring, due largely to this issue. While that may not seem like a huge deal, when your school only has several hundred students, losing several is a large chunk of revenue, and not having enough money is the biggest problem that the school faces.

But, I suppose that I am pretty far removed from the situation. Perhaps, as Judas sings in Godspell, it's all for the best. I can't help but have my doubts, though.

And, I'm Back in San Diego

And yet, somehow, there was less fanfare than I thought there would be upon my arrival. No trumpets were blaring, and no tinker tape was thrown at me from high above as I drove to my apartment last night. The only thing that I received was a sense of the inevitability of work.

Oh well; another day, another dollar, as they say. However, as I'm earning that dollar, I find myself more and more intrigued at what got done and what didn't get done while I was away. This almost makes a guy feel important. Well, it does up until he realizes that the company existed before him and will likely continue to exist after him.

But, for right now at least, I've caught a glimpse of being important. Perhaps my work is my fanfare, and I simply do not know how to hear the joyous melodies in general, and it is only in being gone that I come to appreciate them.

If that's not depressing, I don't know what is.