You didn't. I knew you wouldn't, but that doesn't really bother me. Do you know what does bother me? Seriously, this is a quiz; your score determines your grade for the semester. Please write your answer on the back of a 42-inch, plasma-screen TV and send it to me via certified mail.

Have you ever circled a small parking lot approximately 231 times in a vain attempt to find a parking place? Have you ever waited in 34 separate lines to complete a total of 3 minutes worth of paperwork? Have you ever been told to go home and get documents that you were supposed to intuitively know to bring along and then started the entire process over again? If you said "yes", you've been to the DMV. If you said "no", go play in some traffic and save yourself the trouble.

Go tell your friends.

I didn't mention this before, but I'm now quite convinced that NASA is trying to get to me. Recently, a relative 'won' and all-expenses-paid trip, including two days of astronaut training, to the Kennedy Space Center. This blatant ploy would fool no one. With whom do they think they're dealing? Reprehensible.

We went couch shopping today (notice I didn't say buying). I'm not going to write much tonight because, tomorrow, we head to the DMV. I'm saving up my strength.

Today I heard an amazing sermon by a lawyer from the International Justice Mission. Then, I contemplated becoming a lawyer, read about becoming a lawyer, talked to a lawyer who went to Stanford, became a movie star (I played a lawyer), and didn't become a lawyer. Sarah worked on her classroom and was advised by a group of non-lawyers that may have included such TV personalities as Yosemite Sam, Gerald Ford*, Captain Kangeroo, and me.



*May have been a lawyer

Okay, I'll admit that I was slightly intrigued by the idea that someone would offer me a job without knowing me. And by intrigued, I mean curious: as in, how does someone with so little sense walk around without constantly running into things. My interest piqued, I gave him my cell phone number. (In reality, I didn't imagine that he could learn to coordinate his finger movements with the buttons on a phone and didn't really expect a call back). Well, imagine my surprise when he called me today and again offered me this job with no parameters or definition. I politely declined and, in turn, offered to find him a nice place where he could get a free hot meal and the psychiatric care he so obviously needs.

Today someone asked me if I am in movies (as in, am I a movie star). I told him no, but, now that I think about it, I have been to the movies several times. In other news, we still don't have a bed.

So today I was wandering around a store that shall remain nameless (IKEA, for those of you who are more curious than attentive to what I was trying to say) and a man offered me a job (not at IKEA).

I mean, what the heck: can't a guy just be unemployed for a while without people climbing all over him and trying to get him to be a productive member of society?

To be truthful, I doubt the job offer was all that, shall we say, real (or legal), because the guy never really told me what the job was; he just mumbled some sort of musing as to whether I was interested in making money.

I'm not, by the way.

Sarah is overwhelmed with all that she has to do to prepare to start her new job. I am underwhelmed with all that I don't have to do to not start my new job and continue with my unemployment. In the meantime, we're still busy trying to get set up here in Newport.

I sincerely hope the irony of that last post didn't escape you.

Looks as if I went ahead and forgot to post.

I tired and headed to bed,
Then decided to post instead.

I suppose that the last post left you quite unfulfilled. I mean, here I haven't posted for quite some time, and my blazing return to glory is nothing more than a damp fizzle wrapped in an obscure comment that only approximately 724 people might understand. All I can say is that I wasn't in space (at least, not that I can recall).

Have you ever wondered what would happen if Swedish people took over the world? I haven't. In a completely unrelated matter, IKEA is quite a place.

We've arrived. Actually, we arrived a few days ago but have been spending the majority of our time doing things like getting lost in IKEA, buying a pot, finding our way out of IKEA, and putting together all the things we bought from IKEA.

It is time.

I will be away from the office for a few days. I will not be in space.

As it turns out, Toyota specifies that a Corolla can safely hold 850 pounds (that’s driver, passenger, cargo, ping-pong balls, whatever). We found this out the hard way: Sarah and I loaded half our earthly possessions into her car and were preparing to load my vehicle when I noticed that the undercarriage of her car (wheelbase, tireholder-thingy, whatever terminology you prefer) was nearly touching her back tires. We now have half the earthly possessions we had yesterday. Call a farmer.

As it turns out, when you fill a subcompact car with a weight that exceeds the manufacturer’s recommendation for cargo, good does not result. All future takeoffs will be delayed until a solution can be reached.

To my blog someone has paid attention,
An idea I'm not sure if I should mention.
Please don't go away,
Read my posts every day,
Please?

("Please" does rhyme with mention, doesn't it?)

Today, Sarah and I avoided packing. I’m not sure if this was due to an unconscious nervousness that stems from our impending move to a new (and scary) place or from our laziness that stems from a conscious laziness.

I’m going to go ahead and suggest that Sarah is nervous and that I am deliberately slothful. After all, during the time that I ‘set aside’ to ‘pack’, I played golf. Check and mate.

Have you ever wondered what it wouldn’t be like to go to Mars? Me too, but before today, I really had never not unintentionally done something about it. Today that changed: when I woke around noon (no job, remember), I purposefully sat up in bed, walked to the living room, and then read the newspaper—on earth. Later, I deliberately played golf (all the while resisting the temptation to leave my home planet). Now, I am typing, you guessed it, on earth (okay, you got me, technically I am typing on a keyboard, but you get the idea). And so, barring any unforeseen disaster, I will have succeeded in my mission to not go to Mars. Who knows what worlds I won’t conquer tomorrow.

More importantly, a moth just attempted to fly into my mouth. This is apparently normal because mouths, as everyone knows, emanate light. Otherwise, there’d be no rational reason for a moth to be attracted to my talk hole (as you’ll remember from not being ignorant, moths are attracted to light, not to dark, gaping holes filled with things such as teeth and candy and other candy).

Doink.

(Apparent) success! God has provided us with a temporary place to stay in Newport. It’s more than a blessing than I would have acknowledged it to be before the moving process began. In fact, when I heard the news, I was fully prepared to recant the assertions of my recent song; however, I quickly came to my senses: just as it is still a fact that “no one likes us in C A,” so too is it still a fact that everyone likes my in-laws.

I don’t feel like writing anything today. Notice I used present tense there. The tense is important, you see, because under normal circumstances, the tense, in combination with my statement, would confuse the attentive reader (Hey! He said that he doesn’t feel like writing today, but he is! What’s going on! Is this the end of the world?!?!?!? Or does he just do things that he doesn't feel like doing!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?). Let me assure you, dear reader who only exists in my head, this is not the end of the world (only the end of the world as you know it). After all, these are not normal circumstances: this is my world, and I can do whatever I want with the reality of it. I don’t feel like writing today, so I’ll travel back in time (via the handy time stamp on my blog), and it will be as if I wrote this yesterday (when, not uncoincidentally, I was in a better mood). So, no end of world, no cognitive dissonance, and everybody wins.

Have ewe ever noticed that incorrect syntax can often bee used two make a sentence? Eye am sure that most people have, butt they still make sentences such as this too prove there point. Eye doo knot (eye realize that ‘doo’ cannot bee found in a dictionary, butt it is definitely a colloquialism) have a point: eye simply doo it four fun. It’s really knot awl that fun; fore it is difficult to reed and right this weigh.

Poems are supposed to rhyme,
But they don’t do it all of the time.
Most poets who write,
Consider it more bright,
To use imagery.
I don’t.

As you may have guessed, Sarah and I are having a little trouble finding a place to live (and a place to stay while we look for a place to live). Granted, apartment hunting from Michigan is probably a bit more difficult than from California (or, as I may start calling it, “It’sdifficulttofindaplacetostayifornia”) but that doesn’t really change the fact that we haven’t had much luck.

According to an infomercial to which I am not paying attention, I can make thousands of dollars by doing nothing. As I’m doing nothing right now, I’m pretty sure I must have already made about $8.

This just in: I checked my wallet, and the infomercial was wrong: it had no more money in it than when I started. What a rip off. If the dog hadn’t just farted, I would rant and rave for several minutes about their audacity. As it stands, I can probably only hold my breath for another 50 seconds or so before I have to breathe in more of the dog fart (hereafter known as either “fog” or “dart”; I’ll decide later or forget about it entirely). Anywho, I think I’ll go to bed.

Go away.

I wrote a song today. I'll sing it now.

Verse 1: We don't have a place to live, do da, do da. We don't have a place to stay all the live long daaaayyy.

Chorus: AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Verse 2: No one likes us in C A, do da, do da. They want us to stay away all the do da daaayyy.

Bridge (Banjo solo)

Chorus: AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Verse 3: Do da. Do da.

Banjo

Sarah went shopping today. I went golfing. May I be slightly more realistic? I may? Oh good. Here goes: Sarah went buying today. I went to a field, gave some of my money away, and then hit a ball with some sticks of varying size for two hours. I believe Sarah came home with a product of some sort. I came home, I’m reasonably sure, less skilled at golf than I was before I left. Let’s just forget the whole day.

I realized today that I don’t have a job. For the past two months, I’ve felt as if I was on vacation: you know, like when you’re in elementary school and you don’t have any responsibilities for three months every year. However, unlike those second graders who get the time off and then have to go back to their real-world responsibilities such as coloring, eating snacks, going to recess, coloring, and coloring, I actually don’t have any such all-important, world-altering tasks to which to return. This is a real problem for one major reason: this lifestyle is phenomenal. I’m quite sure that I never want to have a job again. In order to help myself achieve this goal, I’ve come to realize that I need to not only not become an astronaut, but also, I have to not become everything else.

About those last few posts: just a little boredom on my part. After all, the oranges really didn't do all that much damage. Except when they squirted me in the eye, left a sour taste in my mouth, and gave me more than my recommended daily allowance of vitamin C: it was horrible (especially that last part). Oh yeah, then Sarah and I didn't really do anything for about three days; I think the Tigers' game really left us spent.

Help. I've been attacked by non-locally-grown produce. Call a farmer!

The orange is almost overpowering now: moving day is less than 10 days away. Okay, I don’t really know what that meant either. “The orange is almost overpowering now.”? I mean, what is that? Was I metaphorically implying I am experiencing an overarching sense that we will soon be moving far, far away, or was I literally suggesting that I’m about to be overpowered by a citrus fruit? You tell me. Now.

I’ve been silent recently. I’ve been contemplatively contemplating about some things that I’ve been thinking about having on my mind. Either that, or I developed a hitch in my golf swing, and I’ve been shanking my way around the back yard in a futile attempt to return to the mediocre prowess that was once an unstable fixture in my game. It’s really a toss up.

Hello?

Pay attention to me.

Sarah and I spent most of the day at (and driving to and from) a baseball game (Detroit Tigers). Instead of attempting to relate this, in an inane manner, to our move to California, I will just state that there was a direct connection between the game and California.

Okay, you pushed me; I’ll explain it. Detroit played Seattle. Seattle’s best player is from Japan. Japan has a p in it. What’s a letter in the alphabet that can be found near p? That’s right, o. Why is o important? It’s not, but what’s a letter than can be found near o? That’s right, p.
And the place, emphasis on the p, where we’re moving is California. The Tigers won.

Today I went to a baseball game. I’ve never seen an astronaut at a baseball game. You might have, but that’s not what counts. On all accounts, and by all, I mean my account (that’s what counts, as could be inferred from the previous sentence: get with it), I am headed down the narrow path.

I say narrow path because, as everyone knows, the majority of all people trying not to become astronauts end up in space at some point. It’s just unavoidable for those among our ranks who aren’t so incredibly skilled at succeeding to fail.

I worked on the yard until dark today. I’m not sure what Sarah did. The end.

As you’ve probably noted, I’m trying not to be an astronaut. One aspect of this endeavor is that I don’t pay attention to astronaut related news, facts, or advertisements for freeze dried food. Unfortunately, this has been difficult recently. Apparently, the most recent run of the Discovery shuttle has had some mechanical difficulties. I know, because every time I turn on the TV or look in the newspaper, there’s incessant talk about insulation this, and insulation this.

Actually, now that I think about it, it’s really just insulation this. So what I’m really wondering is, are they astronauts or handymen (and women…)? Because I definitely know how to cut off an inch of insulation with a box cutter. This makes me nervous. Will I be recruited? Asked to lend my expertise? Hated by astronauts and astronaut fans for suggesting that the modern spaceman (and woman) is a glorified janitor. Not uncategorically, yes.

I didn’t mean it.

Now that I think about it, the "I'm lazy." post really wasn't all that perfect. If I was truly lazy, I wouldn't have written anything at all.

I'm somewhat nervous that the higher cognitive functioning that resulted in the realization of my mistake is evidence of critical thinking skills that might lead to the possibility of the advanced studies that might influence someone to consider the application to an academic program that could potentially result in knowing someone who might know an astronaut's housekeeper.

I don't want to take any chances.

Seriously, you must have realized the perfection of that last post. Realize it.

Sarah worked on curriculum for most of the day today. I hit golf balls in the yard for most of the day today. Will this be a preview of the rest of our lives? In a word, perhaps.

I'm lazy.