April 5: Sense of Humor, Sharon Olds Again, "Diagnosis"

One of the things that allows me to live the life I have is my sense of humor.  I have two basically full-time jobs that barely allow me to pay my bills.  I'm a part-time medical records clerk who works over 50 hours per week for part-time benefits.  I'm a part-time adjunct English professor who's been teaching part-time at the same university for close to 20 years.  I have a book manuscript that I can't get published.  And I have a blog that I obsessively write posts for that I'm not sure anyone cares about.  I have to have a sense of humor.

I've had a good day.  I had breakfast with my best friend whom I haven't seen in close to a year.  I had a great appointment with a therapist.  I just ate a Reese's Peanut Butter Egg.  I'm watching Stranger than Fiction, one of my favorite movies ever.  The snow is melting, and I have the whole weekend ahead of me.

On this P.O.E.T.S. Day Eve, Saint Marty's turning to Sharon Olds again, because she is a poet who has a sense of humor.

Diagnosis

By the time she was six months old, she knew something
was wrong with me.  I got looks on my face
she had not seen on any child
in the family, or the extended family,
or the neighborhood.  My mother took me in
to the pediatrician with the kind hands,
a doctor with a name like a suit size for a wheel:
Hub Long.  My mom did not tell him
what she thought in truth, that I was Possessed.
It was just these strange looks on my face--
he held me, and conversed with me,
chatting as one does with a baby, and my mother
said, She's doing it now!  Look!
She's doing it now! and the doctor said,
What your daughter has
is called a sense
of humor.  Ohhh, she said, and took me
back to the house where that sense would be tested
and found to be incurable.

Jesus had a sense of humor, too

March 11: Business as Usual, God's Sense of Humor, "Rye" Dip

Spring Break is over.  I thought it was going to be business as usual today.  Work at 5 a.m.  Teaching at 3 p.m.  Lots of phone calls and paperwork in between.

I woke this morning to about eight inches of snow on top of my car and thirty-mile-an-hour winds.  The drive to the medical office was interesting, to say the least.  The county plows had not cleared U.S. 41, so I pretty much followed two ruts of snow all the way to work.  That's over twenty miles of white knuckles.

God has a sense of humor.  I've known this for a while.  Having a snowstorm blow into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan the day after Spring Break is pretty funny.  The university is open, and I have to teach this afternoon.  However, I know half of the students are not going to show up, which puts me in a quandary.  I'm not sure what to do about the midterm exam.  I was going to spend time in class today doing a review and answering questions.  There's a take-home essay portion I was planning to hand out today, as well.  The bitchy, vindictive side of me says to move ahead.  Business as usual.  The compassionate, basset hound side of me wants to postpone the exam until next Monday.  I'm leaning, at the moment, toward bitchy and vindictive.

My question for Rye Dip Monday is pretty clear:

Should I postpone my midterm exam?

And the answer from Holden Caulfield is:

"Darling, if Holden needs anything, everything's in the linen closet.  The top shelf.  I'm going to bed.  I'm exhausted," Mrs. Antolini said.  She looked it, too.  "Can you boys made up the couch by yourselves?"

Well, Mrs. Antolini seems pretty sure Holden and her husband can handle things by themselves.  She's done everything else to make Holden comfortable.  She's going to bed.


So, today, Saint Marty is going to prepare his class.  He's going to give his students everything they need.  The linen and blankets.  It's up to them to make their beds for Thursday's exam.

I prefer vanilla midterms

July 3: Lazy Day, New Cartoon, Long Weekend

This morning was the busiest part of my day.  I went to church, played in the band, sang some songs, worshipped God, and came home. Then things slowed down, as they should on a long holiday weekend.  I gave my son a bath, put him down for a nap, and took a nap myself.  I got up when my son woke up, took him for a stroller walk, delivered him to my sister who took him fishing, and then came back home and drew the cartoon posted below.  As I was drawing, I listened to the soundtrack to the musical The Book of Mormon.  It may not be everybody's cup of tea, but I found it really funny.  Not because it's about Mormons.  If it were about Methodist or Catholic or Baptist missionaries, it would still be funny, if you like that kind of South Park humor.

I'm a big believer in not taking yourself too seriously.  When a person takes him or herself too seriously, s/he is bound to be taken down a few notches somehow.  I've always admired the Mormon missionaries who have come to my house.  The fact that they dedicate a couple years of their lives to trying to spread the word of God is amazing to me.  If more Christian churches required such a commitment from their members, I don't think membership in so many of the Christian denominations would be on the decline.  I also believe that the Christians who aren't able to laugh at themselves (mostly Tea Party Republicans) are the ones that give the rest of us Christians a bad rap.

In some ways, that's why I started writing this blog, to let the world know that not all Christians are small-minded, misogynistic xenophobes.  Don't get me wrong.  I take my commitment as a Christian seriously, but I also enjoy a good joke, even if it's at my expense.  I'm sure Jesus had a few laughs on the road with His disciples, as well.  There is time to be serious, and there is a time to lighten up.

Right now, Saint Marty is lightening things up.

Confessions of Saint Marty