Guest Star: Michael Stipe!!!

My roommate invited some of his friends over tonight. First of all, I think it's funny that he EVEN has friends (but that's besides the point). I was outside when the "guests" arrived. I came in an hour or so later. As I came up the stairs, I could smell food cooking and I heard people talking and laughing. The stereo was on, too. I walked through the room and got acknowledged. I was polite, but quickly made my exit. I don't really like my roommates friends. They're okay, but still. . .

Anywho, I went into an adjacent room to hang out. My plan was to take a nap, but the stereo was too loud. It's annoying, but when my roommate has company, he likes to play music. They were having a big time in there - talking, laughing, drinking, listening to music.

If I had to make a comment about today to sum up my life this Friday, I could do it in four words.

The Indigo Girls suck.

Hide 'n Seek

I like to play games. One of my favorite games is hide and seek. I'm really, really, good at it, too. When I run off to hide, I usually just go to sleep in my hiding place and nobody can find me. Some narrow-minded people would simply call that a nap. I call it brilliant strategy.

Confessions

As I've mentioned before, I'm not really a dog person, but I was thinking about something today that I've never really talked about before. I've talked about the dopey Labradors that live in my backyard, but I used to have another dog that lived inside. I thought about her a lot today. I was at home alone today and there was a doorbell that rang on the television. All of a sudden, I thought about that dog. You see, she used to bark at the television whenever she heard a doorbell. Fonzie ringing Mr. C's doorbell - she would bark. Horatio Caine ringing a suspects doorbell - she would bark. Even a Domino's Pizza commercial - when the delivery guy rang a doorbell - that dog would bark. She even barked when she heard bells on game shows when contestants would ring in to give an answer. I remembered that we would always try to calm her down by telling her it was just the t.v. As she got older and would sleep more, oftentimes the doorbells on t.v. would startle her awake barking. We used to get a kick out of her hyper-sense of protectiveness.

Sometimes that dog would snore so loud that it would keep other people in the bedroom from falling asleep. We'd have to poke her or jostle her while she was sleeping to stop her from snoring. She'd look up and appear irritated that someone had disturbed her, but she'd generally just snort and plop back down and start snoring again. I remember getting so annoyed with her snoring! I remembered thinking, "How can one animal make so much noise?"

She used to follow my roommate around everywhere he went. If he went to the kitchen, she'd follow right behind him. If he went to answer the door, she'd follow right behind him barking. If he went into the bathroom, she'd follow right behind him (but she would get annoyed if he shut the door trapping her inside)! If he was out late at night with his work, that dog would stay out in the den until he came home, and then when he went to bed, she'd get up and follow him into the bedroom, find her place on the floor beside his bed, lie down, and go to sleep . . . and snore like a lawnmower.

As I sat here in the house today, I realized that I was bored. Hindsight being 20/20, that dog was a really good companion. I guess I took her for granted. I suppose that I thought she'd always be around. She died a couple of years ago, and everybody was sad. I, on the other hand, acted like it was no big deal. I've never been a dog person anyway. But I guess the good thing about a blog is that you can say stuff that ordinarily you might not say out loud.

I miss you, Ginger.

Go Lions!

It snowed today. I like it when it snows. It's better than rain, that's for sure. I was out on the balcony this afternoon watching the flakes float and flutter gently to the ground - it truly was beautiful. Of course, the serenity of the moment was ruined by one of the dogs in the backyard beneath my balcony. He actually didn't do anything wrong, though. I just happened to look down at him while the snow was falling, and I got tickled. The snow flakes on his black coat made him look like he had a bad case of dandruff. I got a good laugh out of that, but then I realized that I was cold, so I went back inside.

Later on this evening, I was hanging out in the den by the fire and Nightline came on the television. Ordinarily I don't watch news magazine programs, but tonight there was a story that was intriguing to me. It was a story about the popular Christian belief concerning life after death and the notion of heaven. There is a bishop named Thom Wright over in Great Britain who believes that heaven is merely a sort of holding place for people when they die. He believes that people today have a misconception of life after death because of their perception of hell. The popular belief is that when we die, we leave this place called earth and abandon our bodies to a spiritual form where we spend our time with the angels worshiping and praising God all of the time. Bishop Wright believes, however that this is inaccurate. He contends that after we die and spend some time in heaven, God will end the world and a great resurrection will ensue. All believers will be raised and their bodies will be restored in a perfect fashion to live in a perfectly restored world that will be the paradise that he created it to be before the fall of man. Essentially, I think that Bishop Wright's belief is that God will eventually bring creation full circle to the Garden of Eden where he and his creation will have perfect communion - the way that he intended it as recorded in Genesis. That is actually is pretty cool if you think about it.

Genesis is an interesting read, however my favorite book of the Bible is Daniel. I like to read the story of Daniel and his unflappable faith. I must admit, however, that when I get to the part about the lion's den, I've always thought about how cool it would be if the lions got to bite Daniel at least once. That would make the story more exciting, don't you think?

Squint

Try this. It's something that I do all of the time, and it's really cool!

1. Find a comfortable place in room where there are several people. Lie down on the couch or lounge in a chair.
2. Pretend like you are asleep.
3. Occasionally lift your head up a little bit and scan the room through squinted eyes.
4. Pay attention to everything that is going on while pretending like you can't hear a thing.
5. After you have surveyed the room through your squint, close your eyes again and pretend to go back to sleep.

I do this all of the time, and I have learned some pretty interesting things about the people with whom I live - unbeknownst to them, of course! Did you know that my roommate's girlfriend put my favorite chair out on the street for garbage? She honestly didn't think that I would find out. (Because when she was reporting this to my roommate, I was squinting)!

I'll have my revenge. Just when she least expects it . . . . !

Frustration

I hate it when I get locked out of rooms in my house. I suppose I have too many roommates. If I could only reach the doorknobs . . . .

dang.

The other room

I was taking a good Saturday morning nap today when all of a sudden I woke up - wide awake. Something inside of me told me to get up and run into another room as fast as I could. It was kind of strange, actually. I have no idea why I woke up so quickly. I have no idea why I had the urge to run into the other room. And on top of all that, once I got into the other room, I had no idea why I was in there. So, just in case someone was looking and to save me some embarrassment, I hopped up on the bed in the room and finished my nap.

I totally meant to do that.

Q and A

If you can't handle answers, don't ask questions.

I'm not sure what that means, but my roommate told me that one day when I asked him if I could eat the rest of his fishsticks, and he told me to get my own.

Sounds like a tee shirt slogan to me. I don't wear tee shirts, though.

Who's fat?

People keep telling me that I need to lose weight. I wish they would just mind their own business. How about watching your own waistline and pour me a bowl of something?

Dogs and Don Johnson

Here's the deal: I'm not really a "dog person." I mean, dogs are okay and everything, but I'm not the biggest fan. Ironically, however, I have two of them. They aren't really mine to be accurate. I merely live with them. They actually belong to my roomate. I was out on the balcony today after breakfast. The dogs were out in the backyard. I sat there for a few minutes just watching them as they did . . . . dog things. Both of them are Labradors. I suppose that they are good looking animals in a dog kind of way. I've seen more impressive specimens on the television. Some beagle recently won the Westminster Dog Show. Now HE was a dog one could be proud of . . . if you were a dog person, of course.

Labradors. Aren't they supposed to be sporting dogs? My research indicates that Labradors love the water. I thought that this particular breed of dog enjoys retrieving things that get shot and fall into bodies of frigid water. Bang, bang, splash, woof-woof, swim. Mindless retrieval, please owner, get a doggie treat. Right?

Remember - I have nothing against dogs. They just aren't my favorite of God's creatures. The sun was out today, and whereas it was not exactly warm outside, it wasn't raining either. Why then, as I looked down on these dogs, were they looking back up at me shivering? If they could talk, I imagined them saying something like, "Oh please let us in! It's cold out here!" Dumb.

Then, out of nowhere, I had the most hilarious thought. What if these dogs had opposable thumbs?

Suddenly, I was bored with the dogs, and I went back inside where my roomate was watching a re-run of Nash Bridges. Man! He's an idiot, but that's a topic for another day.

A nap and a sunbeam

I took the most amazing nap today. I was on the couch this afternoon and the perfect beam of sunlight was coming through the partially closed curtains in the den. I stretched out and positioned myself so that the beam wasn't on my face but fell just beneath my chin. I was warm and content - taking a nap in the middle of the day. I had been outside earlier and the wind was cold. It was the kind of wind that chills you to the bone - the kind of wind that drives you indoors. The sunbeam was good, and as I mentioned, the nap was amazing. I don't know how long I slept, but I woke up hungry, and my sunbeam was gone. Whew! What an afternoon!