Cerebrate Good Times

Sam and I were playing with some toy guns, and I let him "kill" me. He then went in the other room and informed his mother, saying, "Your husband is dead !"

Have you ever had something you enjoy totally ruined by one bad experience? Say, for example, you can't eat a meal you enjoy because once you threw up afterward, or you can't watch a movie because someone pointed out that the actor you found so attractive looks a lot like your dad. Well, I think I did something like that to someone tonight. There's a park near me where I have been running lately. It's the nearest place to our house where I can run on dirt, which I feel might help the shin splints I have been getting, so I'm reluctant to give it up. But people are always there with dogs. Lots of dogs. I wouldn't care, but they are never on leashes, despite the posted sign mandating otherwise. Still, most of them are well-behaved, so I generally ignore them. But tonight someone's over-excited dog jumped up on me and nearly tripped me, so I told the owners (not terribly kindly, but not yelling either) that the dog is supposed to be on a leash. Then I felt guilt...

One day when I was in sixth grade, a girl in our class handed me a small Christmas tree decoration she had obviously made. I had a serious crush on her, so I thought she was giving me a Christmas present. What I failed to remember was that I had been put in charge of an ornament contest for our class. It was several weeks before I realized my mistake, but by then it was too late. Mortified, I brought the ornament back to school and hid it behind something so I could "find" it and apologize to her for having lost track of it. And thus began a lifetime of awkwardness around women.

... that if you do a google image search for "membership certificate" the first entry is for the International Ghost Hunting Society? Awesome.

For most of last week I had that mysterious phrase in my head. It sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't figure out what it was. Eventually I gave in and googled it to see what came up . I'm fairly certain it's a relic of my world civilizations class in college. So I guess the brain retains more than we think, because I'm pretty sure in the intervening 7 or 8 years I haven't thought of it once. Not that it's unimportant: I mean, after all, "Mohenjo-daro in ancient times was most likely one of the administrative centers of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization." I would be foolish to ignore its historical significance by worrying about such trivial things as feeding my family… Maybe it's my brain's way of asking if it's okay to delete this old file. Go ahead, brain. Make room for me to memorize more facts about Chuck Norris.

Sam insisted that I take a picture of the "fish" he made out of raisins. He is excellent at finding more creative things to do with his food than eat it. Oh, you guys. You really nailed him.

A while back I predicted it, although I don't know why I thought it would happen so much later. But Katie told me that today was the day Sam first said, "I hate you!"

I have noticed something puzzling. At some point, every person I know calls me "Mr. Linguist," especially if they want to ask me some sort of language-related question. It's kind of puzzling to me. If I have a question about my computer, I don't call Jer "Mr. IT," so what is it about my particular area of academic study that gives rise to that particular epithet? Answer me that , Mr. or Mrs. Know-it-all.

Why do pirates have birds perched on their shoulders? Is that really going to strike fear in the hearts of their victims?

"Sam, would you like your hair spiked up?" "No!" Would you like horns like a triceratops?" "Okay!"

"I'm one of the world's great golfers!"

Last night I dreamed that I had several terribly witty blog entries I was writing. How sad that it did not prove prophetic.

Tonight when I was cooking dinner, I noticed something: Yeah, I haven't been getting very good sleep lately.

Is any woman out there satisfied with her eyebrows? Because every woman I have talked to about it (which, I admit, isn't really that many) thinks hers are too thin or too thick.