October 13: Future Time, Cold Sweats, Full Life

"You know nothing of future time," pronounced Deep Thought, "and yet in my teeming circuitry I can navigate the infinite delta streams of future probability and see that there must one day come a computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate, but which it will be my fate eventually to design."

The future is something that I worry about.  A lot.  You may even say that I have been preoccupied with the future since I was a small child.  One of my recurring nightmares as a young person involved being in a van without a driver,  travelling down a long, unending road by myself.  No idea where I'm heading.  Just toward some distant, unknown destination.  I would wake up in cold sweats from this dream.

As an adult, this anxiety over the future hasn't subsided.  I still spend a great deal of time stressing over what tomorrow may bring.  You're probably thinking about now, "What's the point in worrying about the future?"  I agree with you.  Losing sleep over what MAY happen is a losing venture.  It doesn't make the future better or worse.  It simply makes me really tired.

I think it's a matter of control for me.  I like my days ordered and calm.  In the morning, when I wake up, I already have my itinerary planned out.  I make my "to do" list for the next day right before I go to bed.  I know what I will be doing, hour by hour.  That comforts me.  Leaves little room for disaster or surprise or accident.  Of course, it also leaves little room for unexpected joys, those happy moments when life takes a turn for the better instead of the worse.

I know that the future is beyond my control.  I know that the present is what I should be focusing on.  You don't have to remind me of this fact.  I have control over my actions and reactions today.  That's it.  I can prepare for a good tomorrow, but that doesn't guarantee that it will happen.  It doesn't even guarantee that I will have a good afternoon or evening. 

Here is what I know about today:  we are celebrating my birthday at my mother's house.  My sister is making prime rib, mashed potatoes, and tapioca pudding, three traditional Saint Marty's Day dishes.  In addition, people will sing "Happy Birthday" to me.  I may receive a gift or two.  Maybe not.  And tonight, if everything goes according to plan, my son will practice his trombone, and my daughter will focus on her homework.  Me?  I'll spend my last few hours before bedtime getting ready for tomorrow and the coming week.  Because I like the illusion of preparedness.

And tomorrow, I will celebrate my twenty-fourth wedding anniversary with my wife.  We will go out to our favorite little Italian restaurant for dinner.  Have some drinks.  Eat some good food.  Think about how our life together began.  Talk about the hopes and dreams we had.  Imagine what we would now tell those two young people who said "I do" almost a quarter century ago, when everything seemed possible.

The future still frightens me, because everything, at the moment, seems unsettled.  In the past 24 years, my life has been full of surprises, good and bad.  I've struggled, and I've rejoiced.  I've cried a lot, and I've laughed a lot.  And I've had a beautiful partner who's accompanied me on this long, winding road into the future. 

Saint Marty thinks that's pretty good definition of a full life.

August 3: Summer Thanksgiving, Classic Saint Marty, New Cartoon

Another Sunday afternoon.  I feel much less melancholy this Sunday because I do not have to go to work tomorrow morning.  Instead, I will get up when my son decides to get up.  That could be any time between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m.  I don't have to deal with disgruntled patients filling out paperwork.  I don't have to limit my lunch time to only 27 minutes.  I can actually enjoy the summer warmth and sun instead of cramming it into a few hours at the end of the day.  It's going to be a very good week.

Today, I will be celebrating a summer Thanksgiving.  Turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, pumpkin pie.  It's an appropriate meal at the beginning of my vacation.  If it were next Sunday, it wouldn't feel like Thanksgiving.  More like the final dinner before being led to the electric chair.  However, it's going to be a celebration, not a wake.  I've been starving myself all day in preparation.

Tomorrow, I will also introduce the new Poet of the Week.  All I can say is that you're all in for a treat.  I absolutely adore this writer.  If I say much more, I'll give the poet's identity away, so I'll end this paragraph now.

Today's episode of Classic Saint Marty is almost four years old.  It deals with vacations, barbecues, saints, saints on vacation, and saints being barbecued .  Enjoy.

Saint Marty has a turkey to de-bone soon.

August 10, 2010:  Saint Lawrence

I'm baaaaa-aaaaack!

Sorry about my prolonged absence from the blog.  For my two or three loyal readers, I will try to make it up to you by writing a couple posts this week.  However, I was on vacation for the last week or so.  Nowhere near a computer, keyboard, monitor, i-Pad, whatever.  Basically, all I've been doing is reading; playing with my almost-two-year-old son and almost-tween daughter; spending some much-needed quality time with my wife; and soaking up the final hot days of summer before the long slide into autumn.

So I have a few points of business to take care of.  First, my friend from Georgia had an operation and is recuperating, so I want anyone who reads this to send healing thoughts and prayers her way.  Second, my pastor friend and his wife had a baby last Friday night, so I want to send a shout-out to the little Twilight girl (that's an inside joke--sorry, I try not to be cryptic and cutesie in my posts, but I'm just coming off a ten-day break; my inner sarcastic child has not woken up yet).

I didn't do anything spiritually fulfilling during my time off.  I didn't build a school in the Ozarks.  I didn't volunteer in a soup kitchen in inner-city Detroit.  I didn't work for Habitat for Humanity (you don't want to see me with power tools, believe me!).  The closest thing I did  for charity was purchase The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner.  For those of you who don't know, for each copy of the book that is sold, one dollar is donated to the American Red Cross.  So, I killed two birds with one stone.  I got a birthday present for a friend and assuaged my Christian guilt a little bit.  Not much.  A little.

I'm not sure I've ever read about a saint taking a vacation.  But it's gotta get tiring being holy 24-7.  I know I couldn't handle it.  I'm way too self-absorbed, to quote a good friend.  Lawrence, the saint for today, is the patron of the poor and of cooks.  The reason he's the patron of the poor:  when he was ordered to turn over the "treasures of the Church" to the Roman government, Lawrence gathered over a thousand beggars, street people, and destitute children.  All the gold and silver the Roman Prefect was seeking had been sold as alms for the assembled crowd.  The reason Lawrence is the patron of cooks:  the Prefect had him roasted over a fire pit for his defiance of Rome.  Lawrence is reputed to have told his torturers, "This side's done, turn me over and have a bite."  On a side note, he's also the patron saint of comedians.

I don't think Lawrence took any paid time off.  If he had, I'm sure he would have skipped the barbecue.  I also don't think he and I were cut from the same cloth, although I appreciate his sense of humor.  I could see his death as part of a Monty Python skit, with John Cleese as the saint-kabob.  Like Lawrence, most of the holy people I've read about seem to think having time away from work has to involve fasting 40 days in the desert.

Me, I opt for a trip to a water park, a bag of Cheetos, and a trashy novel.

Confessions of Saint Marty

December 5: Turkey's In the Oven

My daughter's favorite

I just spoke with my wife.  We're having a Jennie-O turkey loaf for dinner tonight, since it's my daughter's favorite.  If my daughter has any say in it, we'll also be serving mashed potatoes, gravy, and corn.  It's her birthday.  She gets what she wants.  It's only fair.

This afternoon, I tried to administer an online course evaluation for my Good Books class.  I'd done all the prep work.  I e-mailed my students the link, including the course number.  I primed them with all the instructions.  It was going great, and then each and every student told me they couldn't log into the evaluation.  Well, I made an emergency call to the English department secretary who created the system and evaluation.  Turns out my Good Books class was somehow overlooked in entering the correct data.  Bottom line:  I couldn't do my evaluations today.

I think technology is wonderful at times.  I have a blog.  That proves I'm not a techno-phobe.  At other times, however, technology just seems to complicate a process that was working just fine.  The bubble sheets with the fill-in-the-dot answers and number two Ticonderogas are just fine with me.  Now, before I give my exam on Wednesday, I have to do my evaluations.  Not working that smoothly for me.  Still wouldn't turn down an iPad for Christmas, though.

Now, I have to get my Mythology final exam put together.  It took me almost three hours to do my Good Books final.  In addition to the Mythology final, I have to create a Mythology quiz for tomorrow, as well.  It's going to be a long night.

Saint Marty needs a vacation.