October 4: Out the Window, Crazy Sonuvabitch, Fairy Tale Friday

It was around ten-thirty, I guess, when I finished it.  I wasn't tired, though, so I looked out the window for a while.  It wasn't snowing out any more, but every once in a while you could hear a car somewhere not being able to get started.  You could also hear old Ackley snoring.  Right through the goddam shower curtain you could hear him.  He had sinus trouble and he couldn't breathe too hot when he was asleep.  That guy had just about everything.  Sinus trouble, pimples, lousy teeth, halitosis, crumby fingernails.  You had to feel a little sorry for the crazy sonuvabitch.

I love the time of night Holden is talking about in the above passage.  He's just finished writing an essay about his dead brother's baseball mitt.  It's late at night, a few days before Christmas.  The whole world is settling down for a long winter's nap, even Holden's annoying suite mate, Ackley.

I've been running all day long.  I cleaned my house.  I took my daughter to a dentist appointment and found out she needs braces.  When I picked up my son at school, he told me he stayed green all day long (that means he didn't swear at anybody, didn't punch anybody in the face, and didn't try to drown anybody at the water fountain).  My daughter went to a school dance this afternoon, and she says she didn't dance with any boy (I think she's lying).  And then I drove my daughter to her ballet class.

It's now Shark Tank time, and I'm settled into my chair, laptop on my knees.  My wife doesn't have any medical transcription to type tonight; her doctor took the weekend off.  As soon as I'm done blogging tonight, I'm putting on my night cap and going to sleep.  Tomorrow morning, when I wake, I will officially be one year older.  That's enough to make me turn over when the alarm goes off, pull a pillow over my head, and not come out until New Year's Eve.

But I'm a crazy sonuvabitch.  I'm not going to lament that I'm a forty-(censored)-year-old man who hasn't won the Pulitzer Prize he said he was going to win by the time he was thirty.  I'm not going to cry over the total amount in my savings account currently, which would buy me a nice dinner at Red Lobster (if I don't tip well).  I'm not even going to get upset over the fact that my twelve-year-old daughter's teeth are going to cost me thousands of dollars in orthodontist bills in the next year or so.

Nope.  I'm going to adopt the moral of one of my son's favorite books, Pete the Cat.  Pete steps in a lot of things during his adventure--piles of strawberries, piles of blueberries, mud, puddles.  In the end, though, Pete says, "No matter what you step in, it's all good."  (That sounds a lot cuter coming out of a five-year-old's mouth, by the way.)

I have a little fairy tale to end with tonight.  It concerns a failed wizard name Marlin.

Once upon a time, a wizard named Marlin spent his whole life dreaming of becoming a full-time tenured wizard at the local Wizard University.  From the time he was an undergraduate wizard, Marlin spent every night perfecting his spells and writing papers on the cosmology of the TV show Bewitched.

Marlin attained moderate success. For twenty years, he was hired as an adjunct wizard at the university, mostly teaching freshmen classes like Intro to Wand and Magic Algebra 101.  After twenty years, a full-time position finally became available at the university.  Ecstatic, Marlin submitted his vita, credentials, and several sample spells.

Unfortunately, a young witch who had recently received her PhD. in Advanced Transformation also applied for the job.  After a series of interviews with Marlin and the witch, the Magic Department decided to hire the witch instead of Marlin.

Marlin was despondent.  He took his wand, went down to the river, and transformed himself into a frog.  He spent the rest of his life eating flies and defecating on his lily pad.

Moral of the story:  No matter what you step in, you still end up smelling like crap.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

Sometimes, this is the best you can hope for...