Indoor Living

Ever eat in the shower? It seems like it ought to be against the rules, but take my word for it: shower-eating is exactly the reason why they made Flavor-Ice popsicles. You know the ones contained within the plastic sleeve? Not only is the cold artificial flavoring extra tasty when you are being bombarded with hot water, but they are a good way to conserve water as well. If it takes you longer to shower than it does to eat a popsicle: you are wrong.

Plus, there's nothing like standing in your manwear (dress socks and boxers), listening to your favorite pump-up song (Britney Spears' "Hit Me Baby One More Time") and knowing that you are still eating the same popsicle you were when you jumped out of bed 12 minutes and 43 seconds ago.

Ramen is for Lovers

Despite having a long weekend I spent most of the last four days indoors. I toured the local coffee house scene, spent time in the library, and went into school for a couple hours yesterday. While I'm jealous of friends who were hiking and camping over the weekend, I've been content to stay at home nursing a cold and reading good books.

I finished Chesterton's book on St. Francis, and I'll give a full fledged review of that in the near future, but I also wanted to mention that I started reading both Julia Childs' book "My Life in France" and Frank Herbert's "Dune". Although I can only really stomach Julia Child while I'm actually eating (as a substitute for Colbert or The Simpsons, since the lovely people with the unsecured wireless network have finally shipped out), it isn't bad. In fact, it's nice to be reading a book again that is primarily about vocabulary words and pictures.

Today is the start of my second week of teaching and I'm feeling pretty good about it at this point. Of course, I'm writing this blog post from the past (6:12pm Mountain Time on Sept. 1st) so I'm less than 12 hours from actually being back in the building, which is a little frightening, now that I think about it.

Today is also "Back to School Night" which means I'll be at school for every second of my day. From my arrival at 6:00AM, at which time I will set off the door alarms for the third time in a week, to when the last parents finally leave at 9:30PM, I'll be going non-stop. If there's one way to add pressure to your first month of teaching, it's adding parents into the equation before you've even given the first test. Bad times.

I keep envisioning it as a School of Rock experience, where the parents realize that I'm not at all qualified enough or concerned enough about hygiene to be teaching their kids.

Dear Everyone:
Please come live with me. That is an invitation to every one of you to come out here and spend some time in one of the prettiest states in the union without having to pay for lodging. Give me a couple weeks with The Joy of Cooking and I might even be able to guarantee you food.

Seriously though, the only reason to have a house is to fill it with people. If I didn't think that some of you would be joining me out here (as Brad and Leroy already did this summer) I would probably just live out of my car. So, let me know when you'll be here (notice there isn't a "I won't be attending" box to check). Honestly, if you are reading this you have to be at least in my top 100 favorite people, so make a little plan Stan, just hop on a bus Gus and get yourself out here.

Also, I appreciate how concerned you all are for my culinary health. Last night I made a salad for dinner and if you don't mind my saying so, I don't think it looks half-bad (not pictured: the tator-tots I had for dessert).